Abstract: A hosted service may include multiple applications and have a large number of active features, each in varying stages of deployment, that are gradually rolled out in one or more deployment environments. The hosted service may include a flight state machine, which may provide policy based flight management for feature rollout. For example, in response to receipt of a flight request associated with a feature of the hosted service, the flight state machine may be configured to retrieve a policy associated with rollout of the feature, determine a flight state, and determine a deployment state of the feature. The flight state machine may then be configured to initiate or continue deployment of the feature in a current deployment environment or initiate deployment of the feature in a next environment based on the policy, the flight state, and the deployment state of the feature.

Abstract: A hosted service may include multiple applications and have a large number of active features, each in varying stages of deployment, that are gradually rolled out in one or more deployment environments. The hosted service may include a flight state machine, which may provide policy based flight management for feature rollout. For example, in response to receipt of a flight request associated with a feature of the hosted service, the flight state machine may be configured to retrieve a policy associated with rollout of the feature, determine a flight state, and determine a deployment state of the feature. The flight state machine may then be configured to initiate or continue deployment of the feature in a current deployment environment or initiate deployment of the feature in a next environment based on the policy, the flight state, and the deployment state of the feature.

Abstract: Scalable hosting of user solutions is provided. A system for hosting application software includes a local server, one or more remote servers, a configuration database and a content database. The local server includes a web front end module that processes a request from a client computer over the Internet to host application software on a server. The web front end module determines whether the local server or the one or more remote servers will host the application software. The remote server includes a back end module that manages the installation and operation of application software hosted the remote server. The configuration database includes topology information that has descriptions of the server computers that can host application software. The content database includes information on the content of the software applications to be hosted on a server computer.