We have nearly a dozen client/WPF projects that primarily consist of backing up a directory and then overwriting it with an updated package (size ranging from 20-350MB). Each of these projects push their packages to 20 remote servers, but the servers cannot host tentacles due to our security policies, so we run the steps from one of our Octopus hosts (via tentacle installed alongside the manager service). This is slow and expensive on the Octopus host, especially when there are many other deploys underway. Worst of all, it forces steps to deploy in serial versus parallel because all steps are running through a single agent.
After reading a bit on workers and worker pools, I thought they might provide a solution for our bottleneck by offloading the work from our Octo servers and enabling parallel deployments. However, after building a pool, I realized worker-enabled steps are seemingly limited to cloud and scripts. If I was pushing these packages to an S3 bucket, I’d be good to go, but I cannot choose a worker pool as the execution location for the ‘Deploy a Package’ steps we are using. I’ve also considered using PS scripts to push these packages around, but we enjoy using built in configuration features to uniquely configure each remote locations files.
Can worker pool support be enabled for the ‘Deploy a Package’ step so I can use workers to push packages to remote Windows servers?
You are 100% correct that what you are looking to do isn’t currently supported by workers. We are adding features to workers over time so what I would suggest is raising this request as a uservoice which will help us gauge how useful this will be to the overall community.