OTHER CASE STUDIES:
Co-operative Web
Co-operative Web was set up in 2006 with the vision of being a better company,
one that delivered great solutions while being fair to both customers and workers.
The striking benefits of BuildMaster from an IT, Linux perspective.
In their own words, Co-operative Web are “geeks for hire. We love technology and our passion is finding ways to apply technology to real world problems. It could be how to manage the data on the future stars of a football club or combining details on all incidents of injury involving water in the UK, it could be delivering mobile experiences to conference goers or booking transfers from an airport to your resort destination, it could be building the pixel perfect website from your design or supporting your internal legacy application.
We work with many different types of businesses, from large multi-national banks to small social enterprises, from start-up businesses to design agencies. We work completely from scratch, amending and supporting existing solutions (even those not designed by us!) and we’ve also got a few products that we sell.”
There is the misconception that BuildMaster is designed to only be used by developers, engineers (including release engineers), or team leads, and only intended for “Windows shops”, but BuildMaster indeed has many users on IT side of DevOps, as well as Linux users.
On the matter of IT professionals, these folks are more concerned with infrastructure and maintaining its configuration, than the new features within the code of applications themselves when they are released. It is a different, but equally valid way of looking at the challenge of needing to release higher quality software faster, and more reliably in this day in age. The debate between Windows and Linux is historic and lengthy. At Inedo we prefer offering integration points and functionality for all instead of taking sides on the matter. With all this said, the team using BuildMaster at Co-operative Web is one of our many IT-side users, and Co-Operative Web chooses to use BuildMaster for its Linux servers.
The Challenge:
Like many firms coming of age in today’s world of technology, manual deployments were simply a reality of deploying software. If one needed to make a configuration change, one would manually ftp the files up the server, execute the Puppet scripts, etc. If something went wrong, one would have to edit the files again and copy it back up.
Furthermore, most development in the organization is done in PHP via “virtual boxes” on laptops. Developers pushed their code directly to Git, and copied Git to live Linux servers, which according to our user David Eaton, this is neither convenient, nor easy. In fact, it’s a pain. In his own words, “these tasks were repetitive, time consuming, and not good for morale.”
As the business continued to evolve and grow, the search for automation became essential.
The Solution:
Co-operative Web team members took a look at the tools in the market to suit their needs, and with BuildMaster’s Linux integration, support, and feature suite, it was the best fit.
While being able to maintain their development practices, Co-operative Web uses BuildMaster in the following way to automate deployments: once developers have pushed their code into Git, and want to do a build, BuildMaster grabs the source from Git, zips and copies the files to live servers. BuildMaster then unzips the files on the Linux server, then executes a bash script file on the live server that runs a puppet script to install the files where they need to go. BuildMaster then puts the label into Git of the build and release number, and sends an email to say it’s done.
Thus automating the deployments of PHP code to Linux servers has become a much easier, and automated process. For those hardcore coders that want to see this specifically, we’ve included the script below.
Overall Results:
According to David, the process they’ve put together, “Is a simple process really, but very effective and saves loads of time.” In addition, “with BuildMaster we just know when we try something, it’s going to work, so you can move right along with the tasks you need to accomplish.”
Finally, “Linux integration and support is critical. We’d really be lost without it. If we didn’t have BuildMaster, we’d need something else to take its place. I took a good long look at other tools and none of them were as good, so we’re very fortunate.”
Appendix:
Script Co-operative web uses within BuildMaster. In the words of our users David Eaton, “it’s probably fairly simple from a scripting point of view, but it works for us.” At Inedo we try to make sure BuildMaster is usable from a variety of positions, titles, and skill levels.
##AH:UseTextMode
# Deploy NATW UAT
for server BUILDMASTER3
{
# get source from git
Get-Latest-Source
(
From: gitlab _NATW_NATWwebapp.git|UAT:,
ClearTarget: True,
To: C:\BuildMaster\deploy\NATW\,
Provider: "Git (NATW)"
);
Create-ZipFile
(
Name: C:\BuildMaster\deploy\zips\NATWarchive.zip,
Directory: C:\BuildMaster\deploy\NATW\,
Overwrite: True
);
}
# delete files on NATW server
for server NATW UAT
{
Exec
(
FileName: /bin/rm,
Arguments: -rf /bm/upload,
ErrorOutputLogLevel: Information,
SuccessExitCode: ignore
);
}
# uload to NATW uat server
for server BUILDMASTER
{
Transfer-Files
(
Include: NATWarchive.zip,
FromDirectory: C:\BuildMaster\deploy\zips,
ToDirectory: /bm/upload,
FromServer: BUILDMASTER,
ToServer: NATW UAT,
DeleteTarget: True
);
}
# unzip files
for server NATW UAT
{
# Extract-ZipFile /bm/upload/NATWarchive.zip
Exec
(
FileName: /bin/unzip,
Arguments: -q -o /bm/upload/NATWarchive.zip -d /bm/upload/
);
Delete-Files NATWarchive.zip
(
Directory: /bm/upload
);
}
# delete local files
for server BUILDMASTER
{
Delete-Files *
(
Directory: C:\BuildMaster\deploy\NATW\
);
Delete-Files NATWarchive.zip
(
Directory: C:\BuildMaster\deploy\zips\
);
}
# Install app on NATW server
for server NATW UAT
{
# set file to executable
Exec
(
FileName: /bin/chmod,
Arguments: u+x /bm/upload/server/configuration/uat-pre-setup.sh,
ErrorOutputLogLevel: Information,
SuccessExitCode: ignore
);
# execute puppet script
Exec
(
FileName: /bm/upload/server/configuration/uat-pre-setup.sh,
ErrorOutputLogLevel: Information,
SuccessExitCode: ignore
);
# set file to executable
Exec
(
FileName: /bin/chmod,
Arguments: u+x /bm/upload/server/configuration/setup.sh,
ErrorOutputLogLevel: Information,
SuccessExitCode: ignore
);
# execute puppet script
Exec
(
FileName: /bm/upload/server/configuration/setup.sh,
ErrorOutputLogLevel: Information,
SuccessExitCode: ignore
);
}
for server BUILDMASTER
{
Apply-Label
(
Label: Deployed_$ReleaseNumber.$BuildNumber,
To: gitlab_NATW_NATWwebapp.git|UAT:,
Provider: "Git (NATW)"
);
Send-Email
(
To: @(dev1@web.coop,NATW@web.coop),
Subject: NATW UAT deployed $ReleaseNumber.$BuildNumber,
Text: >>NATW UAT deployed $ReleaseNumber.$BuildNumber
BUILDMASTER>>
);
}
