Virtual platform-based deployment using Jenkins or TeamCity
If we have a cloud-based Instance such as AWS EC2 or a virtual machine such as VMware VM or Window's Hyper-V server, we can use Jenkins as a deployment tool instead of others such as GoCD or TeamCity. We can use Jenkins in many different ways, for both normal jobs and for complex pipeline-based deployment jobs.
Jenkins jobs can either be configured manually or we can use a Jenkins's descriptive scripting language (DSL) language that is one of the modified groovy forms, and normally you will find it in form of Jenkinsfile in your project. The following steps give a brief overview of how to create a new Jenkins job for deployment:
- Configure Jenkins jobs using Jenkin's DSL or using pure groovy language, and call the following script from your Jenkinsfile.
- Write your deployment steps using a traditional scripting language such as Bash or Python.
- The previous two steps will do your most of the work for deployment, and your script steps will define what exactly you would like to achieve in your Jenkins job.
- Finally, run your Jenkins deployment jobs.
We aren't showing these steps with screenshots, as there are many examples that can easily be searched for on the internet. We have a Jenkins-based deployment example in Chapter 4, DevOps as a Service, so that you can refer to how to configure and deploy using Jenkins.