I’m a small developer and all of the asp.net solutions I’ve created run on IIS on someone’s desktop computer in a small office environment.
When I develop a solution in VWD Express (2008 & 2010), I do so on my laptop and then copy/paste the files (literally) into the wwwroot folder on the computer that has been designated as the “web server” by a small office manager. When I’m finished, I setup IIS, point it to wwwroot, add the computer (server) name to everyone’s intranet exception list, and bam I’m done.
So at what point does “deployment” come in?
Looking forward to your guidance.
The definition of deployment changes depending on several factors. Including which version of studio you are using and whether you are building web sites or web applications.
In it’s purest form, it is the act of copying those files to the location where it will be run.
Deploying web sites is usually just copying the files. Deploying web applications usually involves compiling all of the code behind into assemblies, and copying the aspx pages and assemblies (no actual code).
However, you can build deployment scripts that go further and include things like setting up IIS, running tests, gac’ing assemblines, etc. Also scripts might include not just publishing the current site/app, but if you have dependency sites, like web services, it might include pushing those at the same time.