I want to know what options are out there. I would like to know how others are using Umbraco in DEV-QA-PRD scenario. I have several potential clients (and current) desiring to make content changes in DEV, propogate it to QA for review and then deploy it to PRD. Courier would be a logical answer, but it's not officially supported in U7 (last I seen) and I'm having one heck of a time in U6 with it.
Jan, I think what Jon is looking for is a way of pushing changes made to the various environments from development through to production, how Courier detects changes and can push them along to another Umbraco install, including document types and other things, both within the database aspect, and files such as razor scripts, user controls etc.
It's something i've pondered over a few times, and had used courier in a demo to show how this could work, but that was with an older version.
One thing i've not tried, but have thought about was using some form of SQL Source Control. But I don't think that would end up being the most usable solution. Something like Red Gate SQL Source Control obviously carries a cost too.
Deploying files is the simple part I always think, but it's getting those database changes across that takes a bit more work.
Have you came up with any ideas or played around with any ideas/something custom yet? It's something I'd be interested in helping to solve.
If Courier won't be supported going forward maybe there should be an open source project focussed on this use case.
Yup that is also what I thought - And that is what Umbraco as a Service should solve if I'm not mistaken so it will be easy to push changes from dev to staging to live.
Thanks for posting the links. I don't think I fully understood what UAAS provided exactly when I read your reply, but after looking into exactly what it provides it definitely solves this issue.
Looks like a really interesting way to use Umbraco, and something i'll be keeping my eye on :-)
If you're on twitter you should keep an eye on the #umbraco and #umbBEFest hashtags tomrrow where Niels will show some new progress on UAAS - Perhaps an interesting link, video or whatever will be shown :)
I've got some serious issues with Courier not packaging the right stuff (particularly media items) and with a site of over 20k nodes I can't create a revision with everything (after 16hours, I cancelled it). Deployment/lack of robust workflow in Umbraco are two weaknesses that prevent me really recommending it for anything substantial anymore, especially regulatory clients that require the DEV-QA-PRD model for legality reasons. Courier has the potential but I think it might be more complex than Umbraco itself and, imho, unreliable (at least from the last 6 months of fighting with it and nearly losing my job because I recommended Umbraco). To get around we simply transfer singles with Courier with no dependencies so we know exactly what's being transferred and avoid revisions altogether (just doesn't work). If there is a substantial release we transfer the entire solution and merge the database (members and custom, mainly) which is cumbersome and only allows waterfall style of changes. As much as I love Umbraco, I'm fighting a losing battle now with my firm to back it. I feel like a married couple that just went through a big fight. Still love ya, but not liking you right now.
Using U7 in Multiple Environments
I want to know what options are out there. I would like to know how others are using Umbraco in DEV-QA-PRD scenario. I have several potential clients (and current) desiring to make content changes in DEV, propogate it to QA for review and then deploy it to PRD. Courier would be a logical answer, but it's not officially supported in U7 (last I seen) and I'm having one heck of a time in U6 with it.
Hi John
Would it be worth considering Umbraco as a service for this? Or do I misunderstand your question?
/Jan
Jan, I think what Jon is looking for is a way of pushing changes made to the various environments from development through to production, how Courier detects changes and can push them along to another Umbraco install, including document types and other things, both within the database aspect, and files such as razor scripts, user controls etc.
It's something i've pondered over a few times, and had used courier in a demo to show how this could work, but that was with an older version.
One thing i've not tried, but have thought about was using some form of SQL Source Control. But I don't think that would end up being the most usable solution. Something like Red Gate SQL Source Control obviously carries a cost too.
Deploying files is the simple part I always think, but it's getting those database changes across that takes a bit more work.
Have you came up with any ideas or played around with any ideas/something custom yet? It's something I'd be interested in helping to solve.
If Courier won't be supported going forward maybe there should be an open source project focussed on this use case.
Hi Daniel
Yup that is also what I thought - And that is what Umbraco as a Service should solve if I'm not mistaken so it will be easy to push changes from dev to staging to live.
Lee Kelleher has been working on a rather large project using UAAS and here he is blogging about how he solved an issue using Courier http://leekelleher.com/2014/03/20/deploying-complex-property-editors-archetype-with-umbraco-courier-on-uaas/
Perhaps the uMport or uSync packages can help as well.
/Jan
Thanks for posting the links. I don't think I fully understood what UAAS provided exactly when I read your reply, but after looking into exactly what it provides it definitely solves this issue.
Looks like a really interesting way to use Umbraco, and something i'll be keeping my eye on :-)
Hi Daniel
If you're on twitter you should keep an eye on the #umbraco and #umbBEFest hashtags tomrrow where Niels will show some new progress on UAAS - Perhaps an interesting link, video or whatever will be shown :)
Cheers, Jan
I've got some serious issues with Courier not packaging the right stuff (particularly media items) and with a site of over 20k nodes I can't create a revision with everything (after 16hours, I cancelled it). Deployment/lack of robust workflow in Umbraco are two weaknesses that prevent me really recommending it for anything substantial anymore, especially regulatory clients that require the DEV-QA-PRD model for legality reasons. Courier has the potential but I think it might be more complex than Umbraco itself and, imho, unreliable (at least from the last 6 months of fighting with it and nearly losing my job because I recommended Umbraco). To get around we simply transfer singles with Courier with no dependencies so we know exactly what's being transferred and avoid revisions altogether (just doesn't work). If there is a substantial release we transfer the entire solution and merge the database (members and custom, mainly) which is cumbersome and only allows waterfall style of changes. As much as I love Umbraco, I'm fighting a losing battle now with my firm to back it. I feel like a married couple that just went through a big fight. Still love ya, but not liking you right now.
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