A new series of tutorials about how to configure deployment of ASP.NET web applications in a continuous integration (CI) environment has been published on the ASP.NET site. A sample Visual Studio solution that goes with the tutorials is available for download.  The tutorials include many topics relevant to web development work in an enterprise environment:

  • An introduction to MSBuild project files, the Web Publishing Pipeline, Web Deploy, and related technologies.
  • How to choose the right deployment method for your environment (Remote Agent, Web Deploy Handler, offline deployment).
  • How to configure Web Deploy parameters to customize deployment for different destination environments.
  • How to configure web servers and database servers for various deployment methods.
  • How to deploy database projects.
  • How to use the Web Farm Framework (WFF) to automate deployment to a server farm.
  • How to configure Team Foundation Server for automated deployment and manually triggered deployment of specific builds.
  • How to manually install web deployment packages.
  • How to perform "what if" deployments to verify before deploying that the right deployment tasks will be performed.
  • How to customize database deployment for different environments.
  • How to deploy ASP.NET membership databases.
  • How to exclude specific files or folders from deployment.
  • How to take an application offline during deployment.
  • How to run Windows PowerShell scripts from MSBuild.
  • How to troubleshoot the process of creating web deployment packages.

The technologies used in the tutorials include the following:

  • Visual Studio 2010 SP1 and Team Foundation Server (TFS) 2010
  • MSBuild and TFS Team Build
  • Internet Information Services (IIS) 7.5
  • Web Deploy 2.1
  • The VSDBCMD.exe database deployment utility

The tutorials follow a typical application life cycle in the enterprise: automated deployment from development to a QA environment, automated deployment for specific builds to a staging environment, and manual deployment to production.  The tutorials are profusely illustrated with diagrams and screen shots. The following example illustrates the different deployment methods for each destination environment.

The following links take you to the first tutorial in each of the five tutorial sets:

Feedback is welcome, and you can post your comments either here or in the tutorials themselves.

-- Tom Dykstra
ASP.NET and Web Tools Developer Content