Due to the hardware requirements that each cluster must have a minimum of 3 servers I'd like to use that hardware to support multiple branches/environments. Specifically we generally have 3 Dev and 3 Test branches running simultaneously for an application to support multiple parallel development project. After we release to production the code gets merged back into the other braches.
I understand I can create multiple instances of an Application Type, but what I think I really need is to have multiple versions of an Application Type on the same cluster. Its very possible that development could be happening in the A and B branches at the same time. We would want to test and deploy both branches to the Dev Cluster.
Similarly I would like to use the same cluster to expose a test environment endpoint. So as the code gets promoted I could deploy a TestB version of the application, if bug fixes happen those would be fixed and deployed in the DevB Version of that Application Type.
To handle the WebAPI endpoints Port issues we are planning on having the build script chose the environment specific WEBAPI Service manifest because it contains the port number that exposes the Service Fabric application to calling applications. So i'll have a ServiceManifest-DevB.xml file that gets renamed as plain old ServiceManifest.xml and packaged up with the DevB build when it goes out. Then ServiceManifest-TestB.xml will do the same but have a different port. Another option here is Tokenizer.
But I'm struggling on how can I have different versions of the same Application Type running on the cluster? Can I override Application Type in the parameter files or something along those lines? I am really hoping I don't need to build 6 clusters for this? That's a ton of hardware which won't fly.
Please help and thanks in advance, Greg
I had this question a year ago and had put this down. Now its back so this time I will document it!!!
I am using one cluster for both my Dev and Test environments and we use two branches for these. I needed to be able to deploy the application for these two branches under different application names.
To figure this out I followed the ps1 trail. First you look at Deploy-FabricApplication.ps1 which just passed the PublishProfile to Publish-NewServiceFabricApplication.ps1. This guy uses a method in the Utilities.ps1 called Get-ApplicationNameFromApplicationParameterFile. All this does is open the environment specific application parameter file and read it off the top:
Use this is my Dev Application Paramter file:
<Application xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" Name="fabric:/MyAppDEVA" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/2011/01/fabric">
Use this in my Test Application Paramter file"
<Application xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" Name="fabric:/MyAppTEST" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/2011/01/fabric">
Easy breezy when you know, and knowing is half the battle.