June 2015 Summaries

Octopus Deploy 3.0 introduces delta compression, a feature designed to streamline the deployment process by only uploading changes in packages rather than the entire package to each Tentacle, which is particularly beneficial for frequent small updates. In a practical experiment comparing Octopus Deploy 2.6 and 3.0, 50 deployments of 110MB packages with 10MB of changes were tested across 20 geographically dispersed Tentacles. The results showed that while version 2.6 averaged 7 minutes per deployment with a total run time of over 6 hours, version 3.0 significantly reduced the time to an average of 1 minute 30 seconds after the initial deployment, culminating in a total run time of just 1 hour 26 minutes. This improvement not only reduces deployment waiting times but also conserves bandwidth and optimizes server and Tentacle resources for additional deployments.

Octopus Deploy 3.0 pre-release introduces significant changes, including a shift from RavenDB to SQL Server for improved performance and scalability, the replacement of the Pipefish communication framework with the open-source Halibut stack for easier support and debugging, and a new architecture that separates the Tentacle agent from the deployment logic, now managed by the open-source Calamari. This version supports Delta Compression for efficient package transfers, a more generic concept of Deployment Targets, and introduces Offline Deployment and enhanced support for Azure Web sites and Cloud Services, including SSH Deployments compatible with Mono. The pre-release encourages user feedback through the new Community Forum while offering a tool, the Migrator, to transition existing configurations to the new version. Users with a valid maintenance agreement can upgrade to 3.0 for free, while those needing support for version 2.* are advised to use existing channels.

Octopus 3.0, an eagerly anticipated update to the deployment automation tool, is now ready for users to explore, boasting enhancements such as increased speed, stability, and new features including SQL Server, offline deployments, and support for SSH, Linux, Azure Websites, and Cloud Services. To introduce these changes, the Octopus team is hosting a series of webinars next week to accommodate various time zones, where they will demonstrate what's new and how to get started with version 3.0. For those unable to attend, a detailed blog post will follow shortly, ensuring all users can access information about the update. This staged release aims to address common questions and allow users to transition from version 2.6 with ease, promising a significantly improved Octopus experience.