Visual InterDev

Deploying a New Web Application

See Also

You can choose from a variety of methods for making your Web application available to your users. Your choice may depend on the software available on the production server. The following three methods help you choose what might work best for you.

• Copy Project is the easiest method and is found on the Project menu of Microsoft^® Visual InterDev™. This method requires the Microsoft^® FrontPage^® Server Extensions on the production Web server. For more information about this feature, see Deploying through FrontPage Server Extensions.
  
  
• Microsoft Posting Acceptor does not require the FrontPage Server Extensions. For more information, see Setting Up a Web Server For Deployment.
  
  
• Manual Deployment is possible through the Windows^® Explorer and your Web server administration software. However, if you have all your files included in your Web project, Visual InterDev can set up everything for you.

For any method you use, you need to provide some basic information so that the application is copied to the correct Web server with the correct application name. The information you provide when you copy your Web application to the production server includes the elements of the URL for the Web application.

Typically you can’t specify a server unless it already exists, but you can rename your Web application when you copy it to the server. For example, if you used a code name for your application during development, you can rename the application when you copy it. When deploying, you can use a new name for the application’s URL that is easy for a user to remember.

• Deploying through FrontPage Server Extensions
  
  
• Deploying without FrontPage Server Extensions
  
  
• Deploying Manually

Deploying through FrontPage Server Extensions

If your production server has FrontPage Server Extensions installed, you can quickly deploy your application by copying the project. The extensions are provided with Microsoft^® Internet Information Server (IIS).

To deploy through FrontPage Server Extensions

1. In the Project Explorer, select the project that points to the Web application you want to deploy.
   
   
2. From the Project menu, choose Web Project, and then Copy Web Application.
   
   
3. In the Copy Project dialog box, choose the copy of the application you want to deploy. Typically, you deploy the master version.
   
   
4. In the Server name box, enter the name of the destination Web server.
   
   
5. In the Web project box, enter the name you want the users to type for the URL.
   
   
6. Clear the Copy changed files only checkbox.

Note   If you want to use secure transmissions while deploying to the production server, select the Connect using Secured Socket Layer check box.

A new application root is created on the destination Web server and the files in the Web application are copied to that new folder. The name you specified in the Copy Web dialog box becomes part of the application's URL. You can now perform a final verification of the application.

Deploying without FrontPage Server Extensions

If your production server does not have FrontPage Server Extensions or if your application requires special deployment configurations, you can use Posting Acceptor available with the Visual InterDev Enterprise Edition.

For more a detailed description about deployment mapping and Posting Acceptor, see Setting Up a Web Server For Deployment.

Deploying Manually

You might prefer to manually deploy some of your files. Because the detailed steps depend on the tools you actually use, they are not covered here. However, here is a list of tasks you should consider.

• Specify an application root in the Web server administrator.
  
  
• Set Web folder permissions.
  
  
• Make and save a copy of each file used by the application.
  
  
• On the production server, register components marked as server components.
  
  
• Create transaction packages for use by Microsoft^® Transaction Server.

For more information about possible deployment tasks, see Solution Building and Packaging Reference.