ASP.NET —

Conclusion: Managing and Deploying Web Applications

In this tutorial, we looked at how the various Visual Studio projects affect the end deployment strategy for your Web site. Visual Studio provides several models, including

  • HTTP sites that use IIS on the development machine

  • File system sites that exist in the development file system, using the Web server built into Visual Studio

  • FTP sites, where the bits are transferred to the target server via FTP

In addition to copying the software directly to the deployment machine, you may also precompile the application before copying it. By precompiling, you save the first end user to hit your site the few seconds it takes to compile the site. Of course, the subsequent hits take a much shorter time. However, if you foresee the site churning a lot, it may be worthwhile to precompile for performance. In addition, you may precompile the application so as to deploy it using an installer or a copying technique.

Tutorial 20 Quick Reference

Howt to work on a Web site locally without going through IIS

Create a file system Web site


How to work on a Web site using IIS

Create an HTTP Web site


How to work on a Web site by copying files over to the server FTP

Create an FTP site


How to precompile for performance or for deployment

Use the aspnet_compiler utility to precompile the code


How to create an Installer for your Web application

  1. Add a second project to your solution

  2. Make it a Web Setup Project

  3. Add the necessary files to the project to make it work

  4. Build the installer