Mastering AWS CodeDeploy with Jenkins and Puppet

Mastering  AWS CodeDeploy with Jenkins and Puppet

Some Reasons Why Deployment Pipelines are Hard:

• Dynamic / Elastic cloud clusters

• Multiple Dev & Staging Envs

• Has to design for scale

• Need to eliminate SPOF

• Can’t allow any downtime

• How to roll back?

How to Deploy Like a Pro:

• Jenkins

• AWS CodeDeploy

• Puppet

Benefits:

• Repeatable

• Predictable

• Works on Scale

• No SPOF

• No Downtime

How Do We Do It?

• Our Software Engineer in the Automation and Development team help customers automate their processes in the cloud by developing a CI & CD solution for the AWS cloud, based on CodeDeploy, Jenkins and Puppet.

What is AWS CodeDeploy?

An AWS service that coordinates application deployments to fleets of instances.

Why AWS CodeDeploy?

• Better alternative to MCollective when doing deployments in AWS

• Solves all of MCollective’s pitfalls:

  • Predictability   →   part of the AWS infrastructure; machine discovery comes natural

  • Deployment tracking   →   live deployment status per machine & deployment phase

  • System downtime   →   deployment configurations focus on delivering rolling updates

  • Rollback   →   natural to simulate with CodeDeploy; just deploy some previous revision

  • Complex to use   →   AWS Management Console UI vs. “mco” CLI commands

Rolling Update Options

• Health constraint = no. of hosts kept healthy during deployment

• Built-in deployment configurations:

• AllAtOnce   —   HOST_COUNT = 0

• HalfAtATime   —   FLEET_PERCENT = 50%

• OneAtATime   —   MOST_CONCURRENCY = 1

• Custom deployment configurations (CLI or API only)

Why Masterless Puppet?

Pros

• No single point of failure

• Scalable solution (no DoS on master)

• Simpler networking requirements

• No need to configure certificates

Cons

• No central dashboard → deployment status taken over by AWS CodeDeploy

Why Jenkins?

• Very easy to get started with

Important, since we hand it over to our customers.

• Open source, with tons of plugins and support

Relevant, considering the dynamics of the cloud computing field.

• Supports more SCMs than any other CI solution

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_continuous_integration_software#SCM_system_support

AWS CodeDeploy Pitfalls

• Supported in only 4 regions (N. Virginia, Oregon, Ireland, Sydney)

• Cannot delete old revisions from the AWS Management Console

• No ELB rolling update scripts for Windows

• Cannot pass arguments to lifecycle event scripts

Emind has found solutions for these pitfalls.

Jenkins Integration with AWS CodeDeploy

• Jenkins plugin for AWS CodeDeploy (very basic):

• Doesn’t allow separation of build phase from deploy phase

• Can’t configure destination of deployed files

• Can’t define hook scripts (e.g. run Puppet at deploy time)

• Run AWS CLI commands from action scripts (full control)

Wrap-up

Deployments on AWS are only a few clicks away.

With what?

• Puppet  –  manage configuration in a predictable way

• AWS CodeDeploy  –  coordinate fine grained deployments

• Jenkins  –  automate repeatable jobs; ease of use through GUI

How?

• Configure machine roles from the AWS Management Console via tags

• Build and deploy from Jenkins with only a few clicks & keystrokes

Watch the webinar now: Mastering CodeDeploy with Jenkins & Puppet 

For more information on mastering CodeDeploy, watch the webinar or write us at info@emind.co