Automated Deployments Using Release Manager

So far in this activity, you discovered the concept of release management, Release Management as a service in Visual Studio Team Services and how to create Release Management workflows.

In this video, we will build on the infrastructure that we provisioned with an Azure resource group template that we created within Visual Studio. Here, we will layer our application on top of our newly provisioned infrastructure.

Creating Automated Deployments with Release Manager

Before we get started, it is useful to look at the infrastructure that we provisioned. From within Visual Studio Team Services, you will see the resource group that we created. This resource group should have our database, the app insights and a hosting plan associated with it.

You will notice that the contents have not been rolled out to the website and the database is pretty empty.

To get started, from within the build pipeline, you can add a couple of tasks. The first task that you will add is the Azure App Service Deploy task. You will find this task by selecting Add Task and searching for Azure Web.

You can take the deploy artefact that we provisioned earlier on and specify that you are looking for the .zip part in the artefact.

You will notice the WebApp parameter that we generated by running a script, we queried the resource group and looked for the Microsoft.Web.sites resource and saved it as a variable.

Here, you will specify the Azure endpoint where the database needs to deploy to. We created a script that queries the resource group and obtains the type and the name of the resource.

Once you have indicated all the additional parameters, you can save your build. This may take some time, after which you can review the process.

Remember to engage with your peers – ask a question, leave a comment or share an experience. When you are ready to move on, click on Mark as complete and we will continue to our next step which is From Continuous Delivery to Continuous Deployment.