Code Saturday: Docker and VSTS

Production Release – a dreaded expression in a lot software companies. In this session on using Docker and Visual Studio Online I went from a common scenario of a painful experience of production release to an (almost) fully automated process that offers reproducible results, reduction of human errors, and a comfortable way to rollback a release in case of a serious show-stopper.

Software developers and perhaps system administrators alike know about a common scenario: It works on my machine!

By defining “my machine” as a portable Docker container this usually, problematic issue turns instantly into a resolved solution. By preparing and deploying a fully operational container there is no room to deal with necessary runtimes, unresolved dependencies, installation of third-party tools, or whatsoever needed. Either the container works or not.

Given the previous MSCC meetings on Docker: From beginner to running a production cluster I skipped the basics and only showed the preparation and data initialisation of a new container running Microsoft SQL Server on Linux to which he added an Angular application to demonstrate a simple CRUD operation. After the finalised container was pushed into a Docker repository online it became available for any number of instances. All this was done manually so far.

You can also read more about Code Saturday on the MSCC’s blog.

Happy Coding!

Chervine