Web Application Deployment

See Also      Tasks

When your Web application has been tested, you are ready to deploy the application from the development server to the production server.

The production server is where your users see the live Web application. Deployment ensures your end users have access to a properly functioning version of the Web application. The figure below shows a Web application in a project that becomes the deployed version of the application in a Web browser.

Moving from the development to the deployment environment

Considerations for successful deployment include the following:

• Production Server Capabilities
  
  
• Deployment Activities and Results
  
  
• Tips for Easy Deployment

Production Server Capabilities

Your production server and system capabilities determine how you deploy your Web application. One typical system includes multiple servers handling a combination of purposes. For example, one system dedicated to master Web application and database development, one dedicated to live Web applications, and one dedicated to production databases. You might need to determine if each has everything your Web application requires to run properly.

To be ready for deployment, your production server requires Microsoft^® Internet Information Server or another Web server installed. Depending on your Web application, the server may also need the following:

• Microsoft^® FrontPage^® Server Extensions to use the Microsoft^® Visual InterDev™ deployment features
  
  
• Microsoft Posting Acceptor 2.0 to use the Microsoft^® Visual Studio™, Enterprise Edition deployment features.
  
  
• Microsoft^® Transaction Server to use transaction packages

These server components are available from the installation CD.

Deployment Activities and Results

Deploying your Web application accomplishes the following tasks:

• Specifying an application root on the Web server.
  
  
• Making and saving a copy of each file used by the application.
  
  
• Registering components marked as server components.
  
  
• Creating transaction packages for use by Microsoft Transaction Server.
  
  
• Performing the copy using the Secured Socket Layer.

Visual InterDev makes deployment of your Web application as easy as a simple copy. To do everything manually, you would need to copy files and folders and use the Web server administrator, as well as set up the Web server’s application root.

You can use a variety of methods to deploy your application, but the quickest, if your production server has FrontPage Server Extensions, is copying to the production server through Visual InterDev.

Visual InterDev uses the FrontPage Server Extensions to communicate with the Web server. Your Web application is ready to run as soon as the operation is complete. For more information, see Deploying and Maintaining Web Applications.

If your production server does not have FrontPage Server Extensions installed, you can use the Posting Acceptor 2.0. For more information, see the Solution Deploy Reference.

Tips for Easy Deployment

Before deploying your application, you can ensure that your application runs smoothly once deployed through proper preparation.

In preparing for deployment, you need to consider the following areas:

• Protect Links
  
  
• Ensure Data and Data Connection Portability
  
  
• Verify Production Web Server Capabilities
  
  
• Include All Web Items in the Web Project
  
  
• Mark Components for Server Registration and Microsoft Transaction Server Packages, If Appropriate

Protect Links

• Use relative paths to specify links between application pages. Relative paths for links between pages that reside on the same Web server are portable. You can move your application to any Web server and the links do not break because the Internet Host name or Web server is not specified in the link.

  For example, you would specify links to other pages and to images using the path relative to the current page as in the following: <a href ="mypage1.asp" and <img src ="../images/myimage.gif">.

• Use absolute paths to link to external sites. Absolute paths specify the protocol and the Internet Host name or Web server name.

  For example, if you link to the Visual InterDev site on Microsoft.com, you would use <a href = "http://www.microsoft.com/vinterdev/default.asp">.

Ensure Data and Data Connection Portability

• Make sure the production database is properly configured, deployed, and connected to the production Web server.
  
  
• Make sure the current data connection points to the production database you want to use during run time.

  If using a file Data Source Name (DSN), make sure the Use Connection String option was specified. If using a machine DSN, make sure a matching machine DSN has been specified on the production Web server.

  If you did not use the data environment to specify recordsets, you may need to update the connection information for each page referencing data. For more information about data connections, see Data Access Architecture or the ODBC documentation for your database.

Verify Production Web Server Capabilities

• Check that the production Web server has all of the necessary software for the Web application to run correctly, such as FrontPage Server Extensions and ODBC drivers.
  
  
• Verify that the security settings in the operating system and Web server are appropriate for your Web application. For general Web security, see Security. For details about using Windows NT^® and Internet Information Server, see "Authentication and Security for Internet Developers" at http://www.microsoft.com/workshop/server/feature/security.asp.
  
  
• If the Web server is Internet Information Server, you need to make sure the Identity is set to one of the administrators and not the Interactive User. For more information on setting the Identity option, see the Configuring Security for Internet Information Server documentation.
  
  
• If your Web project includes components that are part of a package used by Microsoft Transaction Server, you need to make sure that Microsoft Transaction Server is installed on the production server.
  
  
• If your Web project includes server components that you want to register on the server, you need to make sure you have permissions to register the components.

Include All Web Items in the Web Project

• Ensure that your Visual InterDev project contains all of the files the application needs to run properly. For example, it’s easy to remember the pages that bring the core functionality, but you should also include any downloadable documents and other items that are offered on the Web pages.

  If you have files that are used by the Web application but not included in the Web project, you need to deploy them manually.

Mark Components for Server Registration and Microsoft Transaction Server Packages, If Appropriate

• Verify that application components that need to run on the server are marked as server components in the project. For more information, see Deploying an Integrated Web Solution.
  
  
• Ensure that you have appropriate permissions on the production Web server to register server components.
  
  
• Make sure any components requiring Microsoft Transaction Server have been added to a package in the project. For more information, see Deploying an Integrated Web Solution.