You have worked hard on the coding, got a "Test Pass" from the testers. Great! Now you have approval to deploy to production. Let's see some ways that allow for easy deployments.
Modern Projects
If you are using Entity Framework Code First migrations this can be handled within your pipeline.
Legacy Projects
With Visual Studio, deployment becomes easier and easier, you can choose different ways for different kinds of projects.
Web Clients
- Right-click "Publish" (recommended if you can directly connect)
OR - Right-click "Create Package"
Rich Clients
- Right-click "Publish" (recommended if you can use ClickOnce)
OR - Right-click "Create Setup" (Suggestion to Microsoft as menu doesn't exist)
Database
Now all this works beautifully first time, when there is no existing database... and no existing data to worry about. Now you have a reason to read the rest of the rules :-)
