This seems like it should be obvious so maybe I am not understanding something. I have TFS setup. My web apps code is in source control. I can check-in/out and create builds but I don’t quite understand what the recommended method for publishing the code to the production environment is? I was looking for something like “publish release to web server” but can’t find anything. I think my larger problem is that I can’t find a good work-flow diagram for how a team is supposed to move from editing code to testing and then to deploying to the production servers all within the TFS system. If anyone has any thoughts or links to good walkthroughs on publishing a website from within TFS that would be fantastic.
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For the workflow I would suggest the code promotion model.
Within TFS you have the idea of build quality. SO when you initially check code in the build will kick off with a quality of say “ready for test” if the build passes the testers can decide when they want to take a build for testing, when they have tested a build they can mark it as “ready for deployment”, you can then use that realeas to deploy.
Unless things have changed in TFS 2010 you have to roll your own implementation for deployment. We used MS build to build MSIs using Wix, then had the testers test the deployment process for us.
Have a look at the following msbuild extensions to help with deploying to test/live environments:
http://msbuildtasks.tigris.org/
http://msbuildextensionpack.codeplex.com/
I would really recommend you spend a little time on your build process and get it water tight, there is nothing more embarrassing that deploying a release to live that doesn’t work and the client loosing faith over it.