Multi-environment sequential promotion

Promote product apps between multiple environments sequentially

Drag-and-drop is useful for on-demand promotion to a single environment, but a sequential promotion flow is better for managing changes across multiple environments.
In this scenario, we’ll see how to set up a Promotion Flow to move changes in the cf-101 product through three environments: dev, qa, and production. We’ll also trigger the promotion and monitor how the changes are orchestrated through each environment.

NOTE
You must be an account administrator to create Promotion Flows.
For successful promotion, each environment must have an application for the product in the Promotion Flow, with a consistent repo structure.

Adding Promotion Flow

We’ll go to Settings, from the sidebar select Promotion Flows, and then click Add Promotion Flow.

Trigger Environment

The Trigger Environment is the starting point for the promotion.

When you add a Promotion Flow, you are promoted to select the Trigger Environment.
We’ll select dev as our Trigger Environment.

The Promotion Flow has dev as its first environment.

Selecting target environments

Next, we’ll select the target environments in the promotion sequence: qa and production.

• Mouse over the right of the dev environment node, displays the add icon: .
• From the list, we’ll select qa as the first target environment to add to the flow.
• We’ll repeat the actions on the qa environment to add production as the final target environment in the flow.

Our Promotion Flow now has the three environments required: dev, qa, and production.

Saving Promotion Flow

The final step is to save the Promotion Flow by clicking Save Promotion Flow on the top-right.

The Name is required. The flow’s YAML file lists the environment sequence.

Clicking Save adds the new flow, three-env-promotion to the Promotion Flows page.

Triggering Promotion Flow

After creating the flow, we’ll trigger it to promote changes from the trigger environment to the defined target environments.

• Selecting the flow
  From the list of Promotion Flows, we’ll select three-env-promotion, and then click Trigger to initiate the promotion.

• Selecting the product
  We’ll select cf-101 as the product and continue by clicking Next.

• Selecting the application
  The application with the changes, cf-101-dev, is automatically selected, so we’ll click Trigger to initiate the promotion.

Monitoring release

A release is automatically created for cf-101 with a new Release ID.
In the release view, you can see that changes are orchestrated sequentially through the environments, following the order defined in the three-env-promotion Promotion Flow.

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