Rails - Mar 2006 - Capistrano, multiple instances of an application

I''ve been meaning to look into using Switchtower/Capistrano for some
time now, and after briefly taking a look, it seems geared towards
deploying ''an application'' perhaps to multiple machines and
keeping it
in check in all cases.

I was wanting to use it in some legacy situations where the case is
more that I deploy an instance of an application multiple times,
sometimes on multiple machines but usually just one. It''s maintenance
heavy to keep all the different sites up to date and looking at the
crystal ball I forsee a day when one instance will handle what the
multiple instances handle today but it wont be happening today or
tomorrow so I''m wondering if/how others in similar situations may be
using Capistrano to help manage such scenerios?

Just to make sure I''m not being too vague, I have several applications
and they were each designed such that they each serve one customer and
I have many customers. So, I deploy ApplicationX out once for every
customer, potentially on multiple machines. As I make changes to
ApplicationX I push the changes out to each of the deployed instances.


When''s the book expected to be out, btw? :)

-Mike

We''re shooting for around RubyConf 2006 time. Thanks for asking. :)

Obie
> When''s the book expected to be out, btw? :)
>
> -Mike
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>

On Mar 31, 2006, at 8:03 AM, Mike Vincent wrote:
> I''ve been meaning to look into using Switchtower/Capistrano for
some
> time now, and after briefly taking a look, it seems geared towards
> deploying ''an application'' perhaps to multiple machines
and keeping it
> in check in all cases.
>
> I was wanting to use it in some legacy situations where the case is
> more that I deploy an instance of an application multiple times,
> sometimes on multiple machines but usually just one. It''s
maintenance
> heavy to keep all the different sites up to date and looking at the
> crystal ball I forsee a day when one instance will handle what the
> multiple instances handle today but it wont be happening today or
> tomorrow so I''m wondering if/how others in similar situations may
be
> using Capistrano to help manage such scenerios?
>
> Just to make sure I''m not being too vague, I have several
applications
> and they were each designed such that they each serve one customer and
> I have many customers. So, I deploy ApplicationX out once for every
> customer, potentially on multiple machines. As I make changes to
> ApplicationX I push the changes out to each of the deployed instances.
Capistrano can certainly aid in automating this. That''s the good news.

The bad news is that in order to do it, you''ll need to write your own  
deployment tasks. The standard tasks that ship with Capistrano are  
focused on deploying an application only once per machine.

It''s easy to confuse Capistrano with it''s standard tasks.
Capistrano
itself is a general-purpose remote-automation tool. The standard  
tasks that it ships with are more specific to deploying rails apps to  
multiple machines.

Hope that helps,

Jamis