I'm surprised you use fabric for the last mile instead of ansible. There's really no sequence of run() commands that can't be done better as a quick module.
Although I may have been more frustrated than most by paramiko's performance and stability.
Although I may have been more frustrated than most by paramiko's performance and stability.
I've started thinking of server configurations in Ansible terms (i.e. "I want X module installed, Y directory present, etc"), but sometimes nothing beats a simple bash command to git pull && sudo service restart.
EDIT: nevermind, found it:
http://www.ansible.com/blog/ansible-performance-tuning
If you want to use paramiko (like Fabric does), you can -c paramiko too. This mode came first, but -c ssh offers more features and can be just as quick.
Have you tried it since they switched to using ssh by default (instead of paramiko)? Because in my experience Ansible can ship multiple modules faster than Paramiko can connect to a host. And it is vastly easier to build reliable tasks out of modules than bash scripts.