Month: January 2018

Categories
.Net AWS CI Code Deployment CodeDeploy Continuous Delivery

Creating AWS CodeDeploy Deployment Groups Using .NET SDK

In a previous post, I shared how to create codedeploy applications using the AWS .NET SDK. Adding an application is the foundation to get codedeploy working correctly. In this post, I want to continue this series and show you how to add deployment groups.

To see what parameters we need to add deployment groups, I’m going to read the official documentation here. Find the Amazon.CodeDeploy documentation on the left of the page, and then click on AmazonCodeDeployClient. All codedeploy operations will be handled by the AmazonCodeDeployClient. The method we need is CreateDeploymentGroupAsync. Since we are using .NET Core 2, we need to use the Async methods. CreateDeploymentGroupAsync takes 2 parameters: CreateDeploymentGroupRequest and CancellationToken.

These are CreateDeploymentGroupRequest’s properties:

– AlarmConfiguration: Gets and sets the property AlarmConfiguration. Information to add about Amazon CloudWatch alarms when the deployment group is created.

– ApplicationName: Gets and sets the property ApplicationName. The name of an AWS CodeDeploy application associated with the applicable IAM user or AWS account.

– AutoRollbackConfiguration: Gets and sets the property AutoRollbackConfiguration. Configuration information for an automatic rollback that is added when a deployment group is created.

– AutoScalingGroups: Gets and sets the property AutoScalingGroups. A list of associated Auto Scaling groups.

– BlueGreenDeploymentConfiguration: Gets and sets the property BlueGreenDeploymentConfiguration. Information about blue/green deployment options for a deployment group.

– DeploymentConfigName: Gets and sets the property DeploymentConfigName. If specified, the deployment configuration name can be either one of the predefined configurations provided with AWS CodeDeploy or a custom deployment configuration that you create by calling the create deployment configuration operation. CodeDeployDefault.OneAtATime is the default deployment configuration. It is used if a configuration isn’t specified for the deployment or the deployment group. For more information about the predefined deployment configurations in AWS CodeDeploy, see Working with Deployment Groups in AWS CodeDeploy in the AWS CodeDeploy User Guide.

– DeploymentGroupName: Gets and sets the property DeploymentGroupName. The name of a new deployment group for the specified application.

– DeploymentStyle: Gets and sets the property DeploymentStyle. Information about the type of deployment, in-place or blue/green, that you want to run and whether to route deployment traffic behind a load balancer.

– Ec2TagFilters: Gets and sets the property Ec2TagFilters. The Amazon EC2 tags on which to filter. The deployment group will include EC2 instances with any of the specified tags. Cannot be used in the same call as ec2TagSet.

– Ec2TagSet: Gets and sets the property Ec2TagSet. Information about groups of tags applied to EC2 instances. The deployment group will include only EC2 instances identified by all the tag groups. Cannot be used in the same call as ec2TagFilters.

– LoadBalancerInfo: Gets and sets the property LoadBalancerInfo. Information about the load balancer used in a deployment.

– OnPremisesInstanceTagFilters: Gets and sets the property OnPremisesInstanceTagFilters. The on-premises instance tags on which to filter. The deployment group will include on-premises instances with any of the specified tags. Cannot be used in the same call as OnPremisesTagSet.

– OnPremisesTagSet: Gets and sets the property OnPremisesTagSet. Information about groups of tags applied to on-premises instances. The deployment group will include only on-premises instances identified by all the tag groups. Cannot be used in the same call as onPremisesInstanceTagFilters.

– ServiceRoleArn: Gets and sets the property ServiceRoleArn. A service role ARN that allows AWS CodeDeploy to act on the user’s behalf when interacting with AWS services.

– TriggerConfigurations: Gets and sets the property TriggerConfigurations. Information about triggers to create when the deployment group is created. For examples, see Create a Trigger for an AWS CodeDeploy Event in the AWS CodeDeploy User Guide.

To keep my code example concise, I’m going to only use required properties to add a deployment group. Let’s start by adding the controller actions. Take a look at the gist below:

The first action returns a view so we can fill out application name, deployment group name, and service role arn. Take a look at the view:

I’m only displaying the required fields to create a new deployment group. This is how I like to develop my applications: add small features that work and then add more features and keep improving those features. It is very difficult to add perfect code at first. It is constant improvements that will yield better applications.

When the user clicks on add button, the post action will take care of sending the request to the codedeploy client. If the call to CreateDeploymentGroupAsync is successful, we will see a new deployment group in the aws console. To be able to understand deployment groups, we have to understand development environments. We usually have dev, test, and production environments. These environments are usually separated from each other. Dev environment is usually open for all developers. Test might be use to test actual deployments. And production only a couple of engineers should have access to that environment. In CodeDeploy, deployment groups allow you to mirror your development environment when it comes to deployment. For 1 application, you can setup 3 deployment groups (dev, test, and production). Each group will be linked to an EC2 instance(s) or on-premises servers. In a future post, I will provide examples with all these properties. Stay tuned!

Next: Creating AWS CodeDeploy Deployments Using .NET SDK

Categories
General

How to be Consistent with your Writing

I started writing on this blog on April 2014. This was my second attempt in starting a blog. During my first attempt back in 2013, I was very excited to start writing and sharing with my fellow software developers. I bought a domain and paid for hosting thru GoDaddy. I had big dreams with this new project but I could not write. I didn’t produce a single article. When it came time to renew my domain, I decided to cancel my hosting account and also not to renew my domain. I came up with so many excuses not to write anymore.

However, with the start of the new year, I decided to create a new blog. This time I decided to use solutionsByRaymond.com because I wanted to share solutions to common software problems. My goal was to create 1 article for month. So far I have only missed couple of months. To stay consistent on my blog, I read everyday. Currently I’m concentrating on cloud computing articles. AWS is my favorite cloud provider and there are blog posts everyday. My second favorite topic is .NET framework, C#, and its related tools. Let’s not forget about HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.

After reading, I like to write for a few minutes using my cell phone. I use Evernote and take notes without paying attention to grammar or errors. During this time, I want to capture my ideas because I will forget later. When I’m using my MacBook Pro, I write directly on my blog. I also use Visual Studio Code to take notes. When I’m ready to publish an article, I read it multiple times to find any errors.

This is my advice to other developers starting with a blog. Make it a habit to write everyday. It doesn’t have to be 500 or 1000 words. Your goal should be to write something everyday. This will help you stay consistent with your writing. If you write something this week and don’t produce any content the following 2 weeks, it’s going to be difficult to stay consistent.

Stop reading now and go write something. See you next time.

 

 

Categories
.Net ASP.NET MVC AWS Code Deployment CodeDeploy Continuous Delivery

Creating AWS CodeDeploy Application Using .NET SDK

I’m a big fan of AWS and its cloud services. S3 has changed the way we store objects. EC2 has enabled us to spin up instances quickly and in a cost effective way. CodeDeploy helps developers deploy applications to EC2 instances and also on-premises servers. In this post, I want to share how to create a CodeDeploy application using the AWS .NET SDK.

First, create a new asp.net mvc project using Visual Studio or Visual Studio Code. Make sure to target .NET Core 2.0. Now that we have a new project, let’s add codedeploy nuget package. If you are using VS Code, use the built-in terminal and type “dotnet add package AWSSDK.CodeDeploy”. This will add the latest version of CodeDeploy. We also need to add an AWS nuget package to inject codedeploy service in our Startup.cs file. Run in the terminal “dotnet add package AWSSDK.Extensions.NETCore.Setup” to add this package.

Let’s modify our Startup.cs file to look like below:

In order to have access to AWS CodeDeploy api calls, we need to setup our credentials. For this example, I’m using a profile to store AWS access key id and secret access key. I’m storing the credentials outside my source code in a profile file so I can keep them secure. Also those credentials will be different between developers. To help you with this setup, follow this document to setup your AWS credentials and make sure to pay special attention to the profile section.

With the AWS profile in place, we need to add a reference to it. Take a look at my appsettings.json file. I named mine dotnetdeployments-profile since you can have multiple profiles.

We are ready to start looking that controller. Take a look at the controller below:

In connection with the controller, we also need to look at the view:

The add action in our controller displays the add view only. The view has a reference to a model called CreateApplicationRequest and this class has a property named ApplicationName. When the user clicks on the add button, a post will be triggered back to our controller. And finally, it will call the api method CreateApplicationAsync. If everything is setup correctly, we will receive a successful response and our application will be visible on the AWS console.

If you want to see a fully functional example, go to the github project dotnetdeployments and clone it locally to see a working example. Creating a CodeDeploy application is the first step in using this api. We also need to create deployment groups, deployment configs and other settings. Stay tuned for the next post in this series.

Next: Create deployment groups