Pushing The Big Red Button

One of the things we’ve been wanting to do for ages was automate our release process so that with the click of a button we’ve deployed a new version out to customers. Today, at least for EditLive! itself, that became a reality, with the “autodeployer” being tested out with it’s new release capabilities.

At first glance it looks like releasing a commercial product like ours would be really straight forward, but there’s a surprising amount to it. No one step is difficult, but there are a lot of different systems involved from our main web site, to our source control, build machine, release notification system, integrations, demos etc. As usual for automation projects, the biggest challenge is working out exactly what you are doing manually. Finding the right way to automate it tends to be pretty simple once you understand what you actually do.

Anyway, after about an hour an a half of upload time, all of it pretty nerve wracking wondering if it would work, everything went well. No I just need to get an actual big red button to push for next time…