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How Do You Manage Dev/Test/Production Environments?

Posted by timothy on from the hotbed-of-hotbeds dept.

An anonymous reader writes "I am a n00b system administrator for a small web development company that builds and hosts OSS CMSes on a few LAMP servers (mostly Drupal). I've written a few scripts that check out dev/test/production environments from our repository, so web developers can access the site they're working on from a URL (ex: site1.developer.example.com). Developers also get FTP access and MySQL access (through phpMyAdmin). Additional scripts check in files to the repository and move files/DBs through the different environments. I'm finding as our company grows (we currently host 50+ sites) it is cumbersome to manage all sites by hacking away at the command prompt. I would like to find a solution with a relatively easy-to-use user interface that provisions dev/test/live environments. The Aegir project is a close fit, but is only for Drupal sites and still under heavy development. Another option is to completely rewrite the scripts (or hire someone to do it for me), but I would much rather use something OSS so I can give back to the community. How have fellow slashdotters managed this process, what systems/scripts have you used, and what advice do you have?"

3 of 244 comments (clear)

  1. Leverage your issue tracking and cvs by dkh2 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    If you're able to script deployments from a configuration management host you can script against your CVS (SVN, SourceSafe, whatever-you're-using).

    There are a lot of ways to automate the management of what file version is in each environment but a smart choice is to tie things to an issue tracking system. My company uses MKS (http://mks.com) but BugTracker or BugZilla will do just as well.

    Your scripted interface can check-out/export the specified version from controlled source and FTP/SFTP/XCOPY/whatever to the specified destination environment. For issue-tracker backed systems you can even have this processes driven by issue-id to automatically select the correct version based on issues to be elevated. Additionally, the closing task for the elevation process can then update the issue tracking system as needed.

    Many issue tracking systems will allow you to integrate your source management and deployment management tools. It's a beautiful thing when you get it set up.

    --
    My office has been taken over by iPod people.
  2. Most important thing in my book by BlueBoxSW.com · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Most important thing is to treat your code and data separately.

    Code:

    Dev -> Test -> Production

    Data:

    Production -> Test -> Dev

    Many developers forget to test and develop with real and current data, allowing problems to slip further downstream than they should.

    And make sure you backup you Dev code and you Production Data.

  3. Re:You are not a n00b by Eil · · Score: 3, Interesting

    If he is indeed allowing FTP logins over the public Internet (as the submission suggests), he is a n00b whether or not he realizes it.