Azure CI timed deploy

Azure DevOps aka VSTS Continuous Integration Pipelines.

This post has been sat around in my drafts for a long time. Anyway I thought I best post it before it becomes totally irrelevant due to Microsoft using more Infrastructure as code (IaC).

TODO: Find the other term I cannot think of right now. Config Driven Orchestration?

Deferred deployments

This is one way to make a deployment happen at a given time. However it relies on you ensuring you check that box every time. Which is very easy to miss one day. Let alone if you have a team of people who are expected to do the same. Sooner or later someone will slip up as humans are human.

A better way of doing timed deploys

Step 1 approval

Step 2 deployment

This is the actual deployment step which isn’t triggered until the scheduled time is hit.

Configurations

Approval task

Approval task triggers

Approval task job

Deployment task

You will want to set a different scheduled time here. Normally later in the evening out of hours.