How to make GitOps deploy in multiple env's ?

[jurabek]

Hi guys, I am really struggling to get an idea for deployment for multiple env's, currently, I am adding the GitOps+Flux approach in our company.
The problem is I am bumping the version after merging to master let’s say, I had a version 1.0.0 and I bumped to 1.1.0 in the manifest file then creating PR for deployment if someone approves the changes, Flux2 will deploy it into ENV’s.
The question is, I have 3 environments DEV, STAGING, PROD, how I will deploy by approving PR’s, should I create 3 PR’s for each env? I would really appreciate any suggestions here.

Thanks,
Jurabek

[kingdonb]

Greetings, have you had a look at the https://github.com/fluxcd/flux2-kustomize-helm-example example repo? It shows a solution with two environments, "staging" and "production" – I think this is the recommended approach.

Some background discussion is here: fluxcd/flux#1071 – you may find some helpful information there; the discussion was quite long, and it culminated in the flux2-kustomize-helm-example that I have linked above.

Please have a look at the flux2-kustomize-helm example that was linked above, and let us know if that helps!

[o6uoq]

@kingdonb would you mind sharing the semver tag automation approach? Please and thank you!

[jurabek]

@o6uoq recently I implemented semver tag automation with Kustomize + GithubActions in monorepo, if you want I will share it

[kingdonb]

The migration guide has a semver example which is probably the best place to start: https://toolkit.fluxcd.io/guides/flux-v1-automation-migration/#how-to-use-semver-image-tags

Also don't miss this one, https://toolkit.fluxcd.io/guides/flux-v1-automation-migration/#how-to-use-sortable-image-tags

[o6uoq]

@jurabek sure, that would be great! Thank you.

[jurabek]

@o6uoq
I am sharing just POC of my idea that we realized at work.
check it out example CI/CD pipeline

the pipeline contains steps below:

• build (packaging app if passes automatically bumping SemVer and will commit it)
• release (pushing docker image into the registry with new bumped version)
• update manifest files (updates new image tag in kustomize and will commit it)

our pipeline commits new "Deployment to commit" automatically into the develop branch and then we will create a Pull Request: from dev -> staging -> master

manifests folder structure:

├── clusters
│   ├── prod
│   └── staging
├── infrastructure
│   ├── fluentd
│   ├── istio
│   │   ├── istio-init.yaml
│   │   ├── istio-operator.yaml
│   │   └── kustomization.yaml
│   ├── kustomization.yaml
│   └── namespaces.yaml
└── services
    ├── basket.api
    │   ├── base
    │   │   ├── config.env
    │   │   ├── deployment.yaml
    │   │   ├── kustomization.yaml
    │   │   ├── redis.yaml
    │   │   ├── service.yaml
    │   │   └── virtual-service.yaml
    │   ├── prod
    │   │   ├── config.env
    │   │   ├── kustomization.yaml
    │   │   └── vs_hosts_patch.yaml
    │   └── staging
    │       ├── config.env
    │       ├── kustomization.yaml
    │       └── vs_hosts_patch.yaml
    └── order.api
        ├── base
        └── prod

don't hesitate if you have any other questions

[jurabek]

@kingdonb thanks for your answer, I create a branch per environment and now flux syncing based on branches.

[g3kk0]

Just stumbled across this when trying to figure out how to manage progressive rollouts e.g. deploying to a test environment first before rolling out changes to other environments. Using Flux with OCI for this really help. You're able to simply to treat your platform code exactly like your app code and bundle it into a versioned deployable artifact and publish it to an immutable registry (just like you do with Docker). This separation between code and artifact provides real freedom in how and when you want to update things. Also it avoids all the merge hell and entanglement with managing multiple git branches for things.

[matheuscscp]

This is what we have for environment promotion at the moment, takes a bit of building but the concept can also be applied to Flux Kustomizations: https://fluxcd.io/flux/use-cases/gh-actions-helm-promotion/