This is yet another tool in the armoury of a DevOps engineer. In simple terms, Capistrano is a remote server automation tool.
Developed on Ruby, Rake, and SSH, this tool allows the DevOps team to deploy web applications to several machines simultaneously. Additionally, it also allows the engineer to script arbitrary workflows over SSH and automate common tasks in software teams.
The tool has a scripting approach, and hence it is very easy to tie it up with other scripting tools and form a part of larger toolset.
Some key features of Capistrano are:
- Strong Convention: It has a standard deployment process that all Capistrano-enabled projects follow by default. Capistrano has a well defined structure which is easy to follow across the projects.
- Multiple Stages: Once a flow is developed, you can simply parameterise the script for different stages/environments (QA, staging, UAT, and production)
- Parallel Execution
- Community driver
- …
Many-a-times simple bash script can also do the job for a DevOps engineer. However, it always helps to have a structured way of automated deployment. Tools like this one allow the agile teams to achieve their goals in shorter timespan by automating simple tasks. Other similar tools include Ansible, Chef/Puppet etc. Even Docker can address some of the automation tasks if they are as simple as creating a new image and using it across the server farm.
Alternative DevOps Tools for Capistrano
- Ansible
- Chef
- Fabric
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