Applications can be deployed concurrently across a network cluster by utilizing a phased approach to deployment. A preparation operation is invoked each node on which an application is to be deployed. The preparation operation can utilize two phases, in which the deployment descriptors for an application are analyzed and in which each node is initialized for deployment. For each node that is successfully initialized, an activation phase is started in which the node is informed that it should prepare for requests on the application. The deployed application is then started on each successful node. For each node on which the preparation operation was unsuccessful, the deployment can be rolled back or attempted again.