Automate the release process for .Net projects

Question

We are using TFS to build our source code, and then we deploy to different environments by copying. We are looking for Red Gate Release Manager or Octopus to do the automatic release. However, I cannot find documentation how to integrate TFS with those tools. Any suggestions how you integrate those deployment tools with TFS. Or do you have other alternatives to deploy from TFS build?

Answer 1

I am not sure about Red Gate Release manager. I guess Red Gate also internally use Octopus Source code. Ref : http://octopusdeploy.com/support/red-gate

This link may help you to use Octopus Deploy using TFS http://octopusdeploy.com/blog/using-octopus-and-tfs-builds

You may also consider Inrelease which is recently bought by Microsoft which works very well with TFS Build. Microsoft Currently working to include it to the Next version of TFS.

Answer 2

To integrate Deployment Manager with TFS you need to call two command lines from your build definition:

• RgPublish.exe to create and publish your applications to Deployment Manager.
• DeploymentManager.exe to create a release and (optionally) deploy to an environment that you've defined.

For example, when publishing an ASP.NET web app for deployment, call:

RgPublish /source="C:\Source Code\My Web App\MyWebApp.csproj" /configuration=Release /platform=x86 /target=feed:http://MyDeploymentManagerServer:8080/nuget/

And to deploy to staging for the associated project, call:

DeploymentManager create-release --server=http://MyDeploymentManagerServer:8080/ --apiKey=ABC94PPM3DZGHCQSIJRAPWE7TG --project=MyProject --deployto=Staging --waitfordeployment

Calling command lines and correctly logging messages and errors from TFS isn't always straight forward. I created a custom build template that allows for better integration of the Deployment Manager tools into TFS.

Answer 3

The best way to integrate Octopus and TFS is using a Continuous Integration server, such as JetBrains TeamCity. The CI server can pull your code from source control, build it, wrap the code in a NuGet package and then use Octopus Deploy or RedGate deploy to publish it. TeamCity has a plugin developed by the Octopus Deploy Team to help with this.