The TutsPlus.com site has a new tutorial posted in their "CMS" section showing you how to use Deployer to deploy your sites. Deployer is a PHP-based deployment tool that makes it simpler to automate steps and create repeatable deployment methods.

Automated workflow for deployment is a great tool that every software development team must have. The release process, when it is fast, secure and fault tolerant, can save time for developing more great things. And the good news that there are many great tools for creating an automated release cycle.

In this article, I'm going to introduce you a deployment tool called Deployer. I like to use it because it is written in PHP, is easy to set up, and has many handy features to integrate the deployment process into your team's workflow.

They start with a brief overview of what a deployment process is and how to get the SSH certificates installed for the cross-server communication. The tutorial then shows how to get Deployer installed and create your first deployment script using a PHP configuration file and several built-in commands. They show the directory structure created on the server by the deployment, rollback functionality and how to define a custom task. The article wraps up with a mention of third-party recipes that can be added on to add more functionality (like the Slack plugin for deployment notifications).