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TeamCity 3.0: build agents’ workload improvements

TeamCity’s Build Agents run the software builds and altogether make the company’s Build Grid. To be able to run some build, the Build Agents must meet the requirements of the build configuration. If there is a free build agent matching the build configuration requirements is found when triggering the build, the build is started. Otherwise the build enters the Queue and is processed when a compatible build agent becomes free.

In TeamCity 3.0 you can establish a run policy for different build configurations selecting to run:

  • only specific build configurations
  • all build configurations compatible with the build agent

Such approach as we believe will allow to manage the build agents’ workload more effectively. Lets look at a quite common situation: if performance tests (as a rule taking much time) are run, the build agents which have low hardware resources may slow down, more builds will enter the build queue, and the feedback is not so quick as you would like it to be. To avoid such situation, define the run policy for the build configurations which can be run on the build agent. Do it when setting up the project or build configuration and any moment you need:

  1. Click the Agents tab.
  2. Navigate to the desired build agent.
  3. Click the Compatible Configurations tab.
  4. Select Run selected configurations only and tick the desired build configurations names to run on the build agent.

The changes are applied on the fly as usual.

And vice versa: you can make the build agent name or property a must-have requirement for the build configuration. As a result, TeamCity will create builds of the build configuration only on specific build agents.

More details on this are available in TeamCity online reference.

Technorati tags: TeamCity,build agent, build queue, JetBrains, IntelliJ IDEA, continuous integration, build management,agile development

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