[nathancope]

Interesting article. Frank and honest. Good to read the experiences of others.

To get the disclaimer out of the way I'm a co-founder of Vamos Deploy. Our product addresses many of the deployment problems that have been discussed here so I thought I'd mention it. We are looking for feedback on the product and an early adopter or two - https://vamosdeploy.com

I'd like to cover some techie details here. Vamos Deploy encapsulates an application with it's dependancies and runtime config so it can be deployed as one to any number of machines irrespective of the OS (well, Linux and Windows at the moment). This encapsulation is achieved by configuring a 'grid' with all the application package versions, library/runtime dependancies, runtime property values and local repository names (hostnames usually). When the grid is deployed (all via CLI) the respective local repos get updated. You can have multiple grids on a host (in a local repo) thus enabling multiple, differently configured, encapsulated applications that don't conflict. It avoids duplication by the grid sharing the underlying application packages and libraries in the local repo. There is a audit log of all actions for traceability and transparency. A simple ownership model prevents non-prod code getting into production and restricts who can deploy to production. It can be combined quite easily with any config management tool for release orchestration. You don't need RPM/Deb packages or deal with Yum repos. We have concentrated on making it easy to learn and use so max benefit can be attained quickly.

I'll stop there. Be interested in anyones feedback here or https://vamosdeploy.com#contact for a chat.