Sync multiple instances

Syncing instances involves copying projects and all of the required scaffolding data between Octopus Deploy instances with different environments, targets, tenants, or even variable values. Each instance has a separate database, storage, and URL.

Keeping multiple instances in sync is a complex task involving dozens if not hundreds of decisions across all the projects. This guide will walk you through suitable scenarios, unsuitable scenarios, tooling available, and how to design a syncing process.

Suitable scenarios

Split and sync instances only when Octopus lacks a critical feature to satisfy a company policy, industry regulation, or a business contract. The use cases we’ve seen in the past are:

• A separate Dev/Test instance and a Staging/Production instance so developers can have unlimited access to make changes, but Production must be locked down because of a business contract.
• A primary Dev/Test/Staging/Production instance with an isolated Production only instance for a set of targets to satisfy a contract requiring an instance hosted in Azure Gov.
• A separate instance for a specific set of tenants. Like the above use case, except all the environments are the same, only the tenants are different.

The expectation is the source instance is the source of truth and the destination instance(s) contain copies of that data. The syncing process will run periodically to ensure changes made on the source instance are added to the destination instance.

Consider alternatives

As you will soon see, a syncing process is complex an requires constant care and maintenance. Even if we provided a built-in tool, you’d still need to monitor and maintain the process. Below are the common reasons we hear for splitting an instance. Please reach out to reach out to customersuccess@octopus.com if your use case is not mentioned and you’d like to discuss alternatives.

Built-in role-based access control

In talking to users, the primary reason for splitting an instance is due to permissions. Before doing splitting an instance, research the built-in role-based access control as it supports a variety of common permissions use cases.

• Developers can modify the deployment process, deploy to Development, Test, and Staging but not Production.
• System admins can modify deployment targets in Octopus and deploy to Production, but cannot modify a deployment process.
• An engineering team is permitted to modify the set of projects they own. All other projects are read-only.
• Release managers can modify the variables on a set of tenants assigned to them. All other tenants are read-only.

Approval process

Another reason we hear about is needing an approval process for changes to the deployment process. Please see our config as code feature as that integrates with git, which allows for branching and pull requests.

Performance improvement

The final reason we hear about is to “speed up the deployment.” Typically we hear this when Octopus is located in one data center and deployment targets are located in a data center in another country or continent. That can lead to long package acquisition from the built-in repository and latency.

• If package acquisition is taking a long time to transfer to the targets, consider:
  • Enabling delta compression for package transfers to reduce the amount of data to transfer.
  • Leveraging an external feed such as Artifactory, GitHub Packages, AWS CodeArtifact, or Feedz.io and configure Octopus to download the packages directly from the external feeds.
• If there appears to be latency when running scripts on the Octopus Server to make database changes, run e2e tests, or any other similar task, then leverage workers. Workers can execute tasks that don’t need to run on individual deployment targets. They can be located in the same data center as your database or applications.

Unsuitable Scenarios

Do not split an instance and sync it for any of the following use cases.

• You want an approval process for any changes to your deployment process. Please see our config as code feature as that integrates with git.
• You want to move a project from the default space to another space on the same instance (or different instance). Please see our documentation on our Export/Import Projects feature.
• You want to create a test instance to test out upgrades or try out new processes. Please see our guide on creating a test instance
• You want to upgrade the underlying VM hosting Octopus Deploy from Windows Server 2012 to Windows Server 2019. Please see our guide on moving the Octopus Server.
• You want to move the SQL Server database from SQL Server 2012 to SQL Server 2019. Please see our guide on moving the Octopus Database.
• You want to migrate from self-hosted Octopus to Octopus Cloud. Please see our migration guide on how to leverage the Export/Import Projects feature to accomplish this.
• You want to consolidate multiple Octopus Deploy instances into a single Octopus Deploy instance. Please see our documentation on our Export/Import Projects feature.

Syncing is not cloning

Syncing is not the same as cloning. Cloning an instance will result in an exact replica (or copy) of data from the source. In addition to having all the same targets, environments, variables, tenants, projects, etc., the unique identifiers stored in the Octopus database will be the same; including the Server thumbprint and database master key. Cloning is typically a one-time operation, such as standing up a new server.

Syncing instances involves copying projects and all of the required scaffolding data between Octopus Deploy instances with different environments, accounts, lifecycles, targets, tenants, or even variable values. Each instance will have different ids, Server thumbprint, and database master key.

Tools and features to avoid

Unfortunately, there is not first-class tooling available to support syncing two instances, due to the many decisions and business rules when working with different environments, tenants, variable values, etc. In the past, our users have attempted to repurpose provided features and tooling to support their syncing process. However, they were not designed for syncing use cases; the result was often frustration because of lack of customization, or hand editing files causing corrupted projects.

Migrator and Export/Import Project

The Migrator and the Export/Import Project feature were designed to migrate or clone a project to another instance (or space for Export/Import Project). The primary use case for both tools is that a user wants to move a project to a new instance and deprecate the older instance. For example, when migrating from a self-hosted Octopus Server to Octopus Cloud.

The Migrator and Export/Import Project feature can be run multiple times for the same project. But they will ensure the source and destination instances match. There is no way to exclude specific environments, tenants, or any specific data you wish to keep separate. While it is possible to modify the JSON exported by those tools, such an approach is error-prone and unsupported.

Octopus CLI

The Octopus CLI includes the export and import commands. Those commands are deprecated and should not be used.

Config as Code and Octopus Terraform Provider

Terraform uses Hashicorp Configuration Language or HCL. The Config as Code feature uses Octopus Configuration Language (OCL) and that is based on HCL. HCL does not support complex logic. That means you’d need a unique set of files per instance. To sync instances using these features, you’d need to use a comparison tool such as Beyond Compare to move changes between instances manually. Anything manual is error-prone and will eventually fail.

You can write a tool to compare files between instances automatically and make the necessary modifications. You will run into the a lot of the same roadblocks as below as you’ll need to consider dependencies, environment mis-matches, and more.

Tooling to use

We recommend creating a custom tool that leverages the Octopus Deploy REST API, or one of the API wrappers, such as the Octopus.Client .NET library, Octopus Go API Client, or the TypeScript API Client.

We make that recommendation because, as you’ll soon see, there are a lot of business rules and decisions to make.

The Octopus team has written a sample PowerShell tool, SpaceCloner, you can use as a reference or example for your syncing process. A lot of this documentation used lessons from writing that tool. While the SpaceCloner supports syncing instances with a known delta, we recommend using that tool as a guide. It was created with specific use cases in mind and probably won’t support your hyper-specific use case.

Syncing process

If you do determine the best course of action is to sync projects across multiple Octopus Deploy instances, then you will need to start designing a syncing process. While the actual business rules and decisions will vary between implementations, the core rules for any syncing process will remain the same.

Avoid mismatched versions

It is possible to take JSON data retrieved via a GET request on an instance running 2020.1, make some modifications, and then POST that data to an instance running 2021.3. But there is no guarantee that the data model will be the same between versions. Something could’ve changed, a new required property, a property type was updated, or any other reason a model changes when there are over 12 months between releases. The risk of error is directly correlated to the delta between versions—the greater the delta, the greater the risk.

A rule of thumb to follow is don’t have instances more than one minor version apart. For example, the source instance runs Octopus 2021.2, and the destination instance runs Octopus 2021.3. Ideally, all instances would be on the same Major.Minor version. Do not sync between major releases, for example the source instance runs Octopus 2020.6 and the destination instance is on Octopus 2021.3. If you run into unexpected 400 bad request errors, the typical remediation is to upgrade both instances to the same version.

Have a single source of truth

It is much easier to sync everything in a one-way direction. The source instance should remain the source instance every time the syncing process runs. It shouldn’t be the source instance one day, and the destination instance the next day.

It will be nearly impossible to know which instance is “right” and whether the change should be accepted when a conflict is found. For example, both instances have a step added to the same deployment process; on one instance, it is a new manual intervention step, while in the other instance, it is a run a script step. Should both exist? Only one copied over? You’d need a comparison tool similar to Beyond Compare to reconcile this conflict.

It’s okay to have known differences between the instances, such as different environments, lifecycles, variable values, tenants, deployment targets, channels, and more. But when something new is added, such as a new variable or step, it should be done on one instance and synced to the other instance. It is hard enough to detect when something is “new”. A one-way sync will help keep conflicts to a minimum, and reduce complexity.

Data to sync

Octopus Deploy is more than a deployment process and variables. A lot of scaffolding data is needed for everything to work correctly. The syncing process should allow for the syncing of the following data:

• Infrastructure
  • Accounts
  • Environments
  • Worker Pools
• Library
  • Certificates
  • External Feeds
  • Lifecycles
  • Script Modules
  • Step Templates
  • Variable Sets
  • Tenant Tags
  • Packages
• Server Configuration
  • Teams
  • User Roles
• Tenants
• Project Groups
  • Projects
    • Deployment Process
    • Runbooks and Runbook Processes
    • Variables
    • Channels
    • Settings

Matching by name

Each instance will have different database identifiers. For example, Project “OctoFx” in the source instance can have an id of Projects-1234 while the destination instance’s project id is Projects-7789. That means all data matching between instances must be by name.

What makes that complex is that items such as lifecycles, environments, accounts, etc., are referred to by id in projects, deployment process steps, and more. For example, a project has a default lifecycle. When syncing any project, the process will need to:

1. Translate the lifecycle id on the project to the lifecycle name using data from the source instance.
2. Translate the lifecycle name to the lifecycle id on the destination instance.
3. Update the project’s default lifecycle id before saving it on the destination instance.

That complexity is further exacerbated by the fact that some data is required, for example, a project’s default lifecycle, while other data is not, for example, a step scoped to an environment.

Data that must be an exact match

The following items must be an exact match between your instances. Otherwise you’ll get missing data errors, corrupted projects, 400 bad requests or unexpected results from deployments or runbook runs.

• Script Modules
• Step Templates
• Tenant Tags

Data with the same name but different details

Most of the data referenced by your deployment and runbook processes have to exist, but the details of the data can be different. For example, a deployment process references the worker pool Ubuntu Worker Pool. On the source instance that worker pool could have 5 EC2 instances in a West Coast region, while the destination instance could have 3 EC2 instances in a different region. As long as the worker pool Ubuntu Worker Pool exists in both instances with running workers, everything will work fine.

The data that must exist but can have different details is:

• Infrastructure
  • Accounts: Same account type, different credentials
  • Worker Pools: Different workers
  • Machine Policies: Different health check frequency, tentacle, and calamari update settings
• Library
  • Certificates: same certificate type, different cert
  • External Feeds: same feed type, different credentials
  • Lifecycles: different phases and retention policies
• Server Configuration
  • Teams: user role mapping, different members
• Project Groups: You don’t have to sync all the projects in a project group; only the project group has to exist.

Variables can be used instead of directly referencing that data in a deployment or runbook process. The deployment process will work as long as the variable exists, is of the correct type, and is assigned to something that exists on the destination instance. For example, a variable named Project.AWS.Account refers to an account called Dev/Test Account on the source instance. That same variable can refer to the Staging/Prod Account on the destination instance.

Items that can be variables are:

• Infrastructure
  • Accounts
  • Worker Pools
• Library
  • Certificates

Data not to sync

The astute reader will note that the above list of data items is not ALL the data stored in Octopus Deploy. It is possible to sync the following data, though we recommend against it.

• Infrastructure
  • Deployment Targets
  • Workers
  • Machine Proxies
• System Configuration
  • System Settings (server folders, SMTP, etc.)
  • External Auth Providers
  • Issue Trackers
  • Users
  • Subscriptions
  • System Level Teams

One of the primary reasons for having separate instances is to isolate deployment targets and workers. Besides, each tentacle would have to be configured to trust all the instances.

Items in the system configuration list are set and forget. Or, set and update once a year. Most of that data requires admin-level permission. It is too risky to include system configuration in a syncing process.

Syncing Packages

Packages size can be substantial; we’ve seen some that are 1 GB+ in size. Syncing files of that size between instances can take a tremendous amount of time. We recommend excluding them from your syncing process and instead do one of the following:

• Switch over to an external feed such as Feedz.io, Artifactory, Azure Artifacts, etc.
• Update your build server integration to push to multiple instances.

Data you cannot sync

The Octopus Deploy REST API is powerful, but it has intentional limits put in place for security and auditability. Namely, it doesn’t return sensitive information or allow you to modify audit history. Because of that, you cannot sync:

• Sensitive Data
  • Sensitive Variables
  • External Feed Credentials
  • User Passwords
  • Infrastructure Account Credentials
• Audit Data
  • Releases
  • Runbook Snapshots
  • Deployments
  • Runbook Runs
  • Audit history
  • Task history

For sensitive data, decrypting and returning that data via the API has never been built into Octopus Deploy. We have considered it, but there are several security concerns, and we’d want to ensure they were all met or mitigated before adding such functionality.

For auditability, Octopus Deploy prevents the updating of any auditable / snapshot data as well as limiting how that data is created. For example, the release endpoint accepts a POST command. In addition to creating a release, the variables, package versions, and deployment process is snapshotted using data as it exists at that point in time. That prevents the ability to sync a release created six months ago via the Octopus Deploy REST API. If you did, it wouldn’t use the variables and deployment process from six months ago; it would use the variables and deployment process as it exists right now on the destination instance.

A deployment, and runbook run, have the same limitation. Issuing a POST command to those endpoints will trigger a deployment or a runbook run. You cannot copy the task history, artifacts, or task logs via the Octopus Deploy REST API. That is because that deployment or runbook run you are attempting to sync did not happen on the destination instance, only the source instance. Not only that, the associated releases and runbook snapshots will have different variable values and deployment processes.

What this comes back to is auditability. If that data can be modified by any outside process then it is not auditable.

Syncing order

In our experience, it is far easier to group data by type and sync them all together. For example, sync all the Project Groups before syncing Projects. That requires an order of precedence in syncing due to data dependencies. That order of precedence is:

• No Dependencies, can be done in any order
  • Environments
  • Project Groups
  • Tenant Tags
  • External Feeds
  • Teams (exclude any scoped permissions on creation)
  • Machine Policies
  • Worker Pools (not workers)
• Dependencies, order matters
  • Infrastructure Accounts
  • Step Templates
  • Script Modules
  • Lifecycles
  • Tenants (Tenant name only)
  • Workers
  • Targets
  • Certificates
  • Library Variable Sets
  • Projects
    • Project Settings
    • Channels (no channel version rules)
    • Deployment Process
    • Runbooks and Runbook Processes
    • Variables
    • Channel Version Rules
    • Release Version Strategy
    • Auto Release Creation settings
    • Logo
  • Tenants
    • Tenant / Project relationship
    • Variables
  • Team Permissions

Keep a log of data to clean-up

The syncing process will encounter data it can’t sync precisely because of a limitation, for example, a sensitive variable. The variable name must exist on both the source and destination instances because it is referenced by the Deployment or Runbook process. But the value will be different. If the sensitive variable name doesn’t exist on the destination instance, it should create the variable but insert dummy data. When that occurs, a log entry should be written to know that data needs to be clean-up once the syncing process is complete.

Please Note: The syncing process should only do that only for new data. Any existing data where it can’t match and sync exactly should be left alone. For example, if the sensitive variable already exists on the destination instance.

Log everything

Log everything, from API calls, before and after logic gates, to lookups. There is no such thing as too much logging with a syncing process. The syncing process is translating JSON data from one instance to another. You are going to find it fail in strange and unexpected ways. There are many business rules, meaning there are a lot of potential bugs.

Handling different environments

There is a ripple effect when the source and destination instance have different environments. These are the three possible use cases for instances with different environments.

• The destination instance has a subset of environments of the source instance. For example, Dev/Test/Staging/Production on the source instance and Staging/Production on the destination.
• The destination and source instance has a different set of environments. For example, Dev/Test on the source instance and Staging/Production on the destination.
• It is a combo of both use cases. For example, Dev/Test/Staging on the source and Staging/Production on the destination.

One or more environments are excluded from the syncing process in all those use cases. Consider all the data that can reference an environment:

• Infrastructure
  • Accounts
  • Deployment Targets
• Library
  • Certificates
  • Lifecycles
  • Library Variable Sets
• Tenants
• Projects
  • Channels
  • Deployment Process Steps
  • Runbook Process Steps
  • Variables

Lifecycles and Channels

Different environments per instance mean different lifecycles, which can mean different channels, and channels can be scoped to deployment process steps and variables.

For example, there are two lifecycles on the source instance:

• Default lifecycle with Development, Test, Staging and Production.
• QA lifecycle with Development and Test.

The project to be synced also has two channels on the source instance:

• Default channel
• QA channel
  • A manual intervention step is scoped to only run on the QA channel.
  • A variable value is scoped to the QA channel.

The destination instance has Staging and Production.

It makes sense to include the Default lifecycle and channel and exclude the QA lifecycle and channel in the sync for this scenario. Excluding the QA lifecycle and channel has a cascading effect.

• What should happen to the manual intervention step scoped to the QA channel? In this scenario, it makes sense to exclude it. However, what if the step ran an E2E test that QA wants to run on the other instance?
• What should happen to the variable value scoped to the QA channel? If the manual intervention step only uses it, it makes sense to exclude it, but if other steps use it, should that value be synced across or something else?

Tenants

In Octopus Deploy, a Tenant is tied to both a Project and 1 to N Environments. There are two data items to consider when mixing tenants and environments:

• Not all tenants should be synced between instances. It is common to have a different list of tenants on each instance. There could be some overlap (typically with test tenants) or no overlap.
• The environments a tenant is scoped to for a project affect the Tenant Variables to copy over.

For example, the source instance has Development, Test, Staging and Production and the destination instance has Staging and Production. On the source instance, the Tenant Internal tied to all four environments and another tenant Development Team A is tied to Development and Test.

For this scenario, should both tenants be cloned? It makes sense to sync the Internal Tenant and tie it to Staging and Production on the destination instance and not sync Development Team A. For the Internal Tenant, should all the variables in Staging and Production for that Tenant be copied over as well? Or, should you have to manually enter the values as they’ll be different between instances?

Deployment and Runbook Processes

A common use for environments is to scope them to steps in Deployment and Runbook Processes. For example, the source instance has Development and Test with a manual intervention step scoped to Test. That step pauses a deployment so the QA team can review the newly deployed release before starting their integration tests. Should that step be included with the destination instance if it has Staging and Production? There are valid use cases for both yes and no.

• Yes, QA runs integration tests in Staging. It should be cloned but scoped to run in Staging.
• No, QA only runs integration tests in Test.
• Yes, QA needs to sign off on each release before promoting to Production. It should be cloned but scoped to only run in Staging.
• Yes, QA needs to sign off on each release in each environment after Development. It should be cloned but configured to run in any environment.

Accounts and Certificates

Both Accounts and Certificates are referenced by variables in either projects or library variable sets. They can be scoped to environments directly or by environment variable scoping.

Best practices recommend different AWS, GCP, and Azure accounts per environment or instance. For example, an AWS account for Non-Production workloads and another account for Production.

• Certificates can either be a wildcard, for example, *.octopusdemos.app, or tied to a specific domain and subdomain, for example, mail.octopusdemos.app. We typically see either a different domain per environment, testoctopusdemos.app and octopusdemos.app or different subdomains, test.octopusdemos.app and octopusdemos.app.

In most cases, it doesn’t make much sense to sync Accounts and Certificates. But the variables referencing the Accounts and Certificates are used in Deployment and Runbook processes. You have a few options:

• Create an Account or Certificate with the same name on each instance but different details. You don’t have to modify any variables.
• Re-use the same variable name but associate it to different Accounts or Certificates. The syncing process will only create new variables and insert dummy data.

Variable scoping

Syncing variables between instances with different environments is very complex due to scoping and variable types.

For all the examples below, the source instance has Development and Test while the destination instance has Staging and Production. The source instance has the following variables.

Syncing ConnectionString as-is to the destination instance makes sense as it has no scoping. You’ll need to sync over the variable Application.Database.Name as ConnectionString references it. But what about the values? Those values are tied to environments that do not exist on the destination instance.

There are a couple of options. Clone the variable values as-is with no environment scoping and then change the values after the sync. That is useful when the destination instance has unique values per environment. The initial sync would look like this:

The downside to the above option is knowing the values to clean up. Another option is to copy the variable name with text indicating that it needed replacing and exclude any scoping. The initial sync would look like this:

That only covers the initial sync. Recurring syncs will add additional challenges, as there will be a combination of:

• Changed variable values
• Changed variable scoping on existing variables
• Additional variable values
• New variables
• Unchanged variables

The syncing process will need to compare the variable lists and determine the status of each variable. The hardest challenge to solve is calculating which variables are “new” vs. existing with updated scoping. That is because a variable can be scoped to 0 to N of these items:

• Environments
• Channels
• Process Owner (deployment process or runbooks)
• Deployment Process Steps
• Roles
• Deployment Targets
• Tenant Tags

Some of those items, Tenant Tags, Roles, Process Owner, will be exactly alike between instances. While other items, Environments, Channels, Deployment Process Steps, Deployment Targets, will be different.

For example, the variables on the source instance were changed from:

To this:

The desired result on the destination instance will be:

• Leave Application.Database.Name alone.
• Add the scoping of SQL-Server to the ConnectionString variable with the value Database=#{Application.Database.Name}.
• Add an additional ConnectionString option with the value set to Data Source=#{Application.Database.Name} and the scoping set to Oracle.

Variable syncing is so complex because the rules for each project and variable scoping mismatch are different. The syncing process will need some logic in it that you can configure.

• Should you ever overwrite values on the destination instance?
• How to handle scoping mismatches.
  • Options
    • Skip the variable unless the scoping is an exact match. For example, a variable on Dev/Test is scoped to the role OctoFX-Web; any variables with the same name would be ignored unless it is also scoped to OctoFX-Web.
    • Skip the variable unless the scoping is a partial match. For example, a variable is scoped to Staging and Production on a source instance with Dev/Test/Staging/Prod. The destination instance only has Production. Include the variable value because it is scope to one of the environments.
    • Ignore mismatch. Clone the value regardless of the scoping.
    • Ignore mismatch on new but leave existing alone. If the variable is new, ignore the mismatch; otherwise, leave everything as is.
  • Potential Scoping Mismatches
    • Environments: guaranteed to be different.
    • Channels: will most likely be different.
    • Process Owners: will be the same (unless runbooks are not synced).
    • Deployment Process Steps: will most likely be the same (depends on the rules for syncing the deployment process)
    • Roles: will be the same.
    • Deployment Targets: guaranteed to be different.
    • Tenant Tags: will most likely be the same.

Handling different Tenants

It is common to have a different list of Tenants on each Octopus Deploy instance. Unlike Environments, a different Tenant list is much easier to support in the syncing process. Tenants are directly tied to the following in Octopus Deploy:

• Deployment Targets
• Accounts
• Certificates
• Team User Role Scoping
• Projects

Deployment Targets

If a Tenant isn’t synced between instances, chances are the deployment targets associated with that Tenant do not need to be synced either. Deployment and Runbook processes do not reference deployment targets directly. Instead, they are referenced by the roles tied to the deployment target.

The one thing to watch out for is that it is possible to scope variables to specific deployment targets. In that case, the best option is to skip the variable value unless there is a partial match. For example, Application.Database.Name has the value OctoFX-Tenant scoped to Machine1, Machine2, and Machine3 on the source instance. That value should be skipped unless the destination instance has one of those deployment targets.

Accounts and Certificates

Both Accounts and Certificates are referenced by variables in either projects or library variable sets. It is common to have different Accounts and Certificates per Tenant.

In most cases, it doesn’t make much sense to sync Accounts and Certificates. But the variables referencing the Accounts and Certificates are used in Deployment and Runbook processes. In this case, the best option is to re-use the same variable name but associate it with different Accounts or Certificates.

Team User Role scoping

The Team user role scoping is used for permissions. For example, a team has access to edit a specific set of Tenants. In this case, it makes sense to exclude any Tenants not found on the destination instance from the team user role scope. It won’t hurt anything as that Tenant doesn’t exist. Most likely, the list of Tenants that particular team has permission to edit will be very different.

Projects

The Tenant/Project relationship indicates that Tenant can deploy releases from that project to a specific set of Environments. There is no impact if the Tenant doesn’t exist on the destination instance. The Tenant/Project relationship won’t exist.

Handling different Deployment Targets

It is common to have a different list of Deployment Targets on each Octopus Deploy instance. Deployment Targets are not referenced anywhere directly within Octopus Deploy outside of variable scoping.

All other references are indirect; the role associated with a Deployment Target is how it is tied to a Deployment or Runbook process. A Deployment or Runbook process can reference a role not associated with any Deployment Targets. Each project has a setting to tell Octopus what to do when that happens, fail the deployment, or let it skip steps associated with that role.

For variable scoping, the best option is to skip the variable value unless there is a partial match. For example, Application.Database.Name has the value OctoFX-Tenant scoped to Machine1, Machine2, and Machine3 on the source instance. That value should be skipped unless the destination instance has one of those deployment targets.

Ongoing maintenance

Each new major/minor release of Octopus Deploy will require significant testing of your syncing process. Along with fixing any bugs found because of an unexpected edge case.

As you can see with all the rules and decisions from above, this is a complex problem requiring time and money to solve. We only recommend syncing and splitting two instances when no other options are available.

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Page updated on Wednesday, October 4, 2023