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Overview of Deployment Using Deployment Reports

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The deployment report contains the information you need to deploy applications in a distributed system. The deployment report contains information about those applications and the logical servers that host those applications. The report also contains information about the settings, endpoints, connections, and resources for those applications and logical servers.

Note

You can generate a deployment report from a deployment diagram. The deployment diagram defines and validates the hosting relationship between applications in a system and the logical servers to which those applications need to deploy. For more information, see Overview of Deployment Reports.

The following sections contain more information about using the deployment report to deploy applications:

  • Before Generating Deployment Reports

  • Generating Deployment Reports

  • Finding Information in Deployment Reports

  • Deployment Tasks using Deployment Reports

Before Generating Deployment Reports

Before generating the deployment report, make sure that the appropriate resources are added to applications, endpoints, and logical servers and that their settings are configured to reflect the deployment environment. These settings are needed for deployment and are included in the deployment report. For more information, see the following topics:

The following list contains some settings needed for deployment:

You can use the deployment report to deploy those applications designed and implemented using the .NET Framework. These applications include ASP.NET Web applications, Windows applications, and Office applications and have settings that are defined by the System Definition Model (SDM). Though you can use the SDM SDK to add custom SDM application and logical server types as well as custom settings to existing application types, you need to customize the deployment process to interpret these custom types and settings. For more information, see Overview of the System Definition Model (SDM) and the System Definition Model (SDM) SDK (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=55395).

Generating Deployment Reports

Before you can generate the deployment report, you must configure certain properties on the deployment diagram. For example, you need to specify a location in the Destination Path property on the deployment diagram. This property specifies the location for copying application binary, source, and content files when the deployment report is generated. For more information, see How to: Generate Deployment Reports.

Generating a deployment report creates two versions-an HTML version and an XML version. The HTML version provides a human-readable format that you can use to communicate requirements about the system and its applications. The XML version provides a machine-readable format that you can use to automate your deployment process, for example, to write deployment scripts.

Note

If you choose to include only validation errors in the deployment report, then the HTML version will display only those errors. The XML version will include those errors as well as deployment information.

For more information, see Overview of Key Sections in Deployment Reports.

Finding Information in Deployment Reports

The following list contains information you can find in the deployment report:

  • Settings that need to be updated in application configuration files.

  • IIS metabase settings required by ASP.NET applications for deployment.

  • IIS metabase settings for IIS Web servers that need validation on the target servers at deployment.

  • Paths to deployment output files.

  • Connection information for applications, logical servers, and zones.

  • Relationships between applications and the logical servers that host those applications.

  • Absolute URIs (deployment location) for Web service and Web content provider endpoints.

For more information, see the following topics:

Deployment Tasks using Deployment Reports

The following table contains tasks to perform using information from the deployment report:

Task

Related topic

Retrieve the location of deployment output files.

Create and configure each use of an application in the deployment report.

Application Information in Deployment Reports

Update application configuration files with settings in the deployment report.

How to: Find Application Configuration File Settings in Deployment Reports

Update the IIS metabase with the required ASP.NET application settings.

How to: Find IIS Metabase Settings for ASP.NET Applications in Deployment Reports

Verify that target servers match the logical server configuration.

How to: Find IIS Metabase Settings for IIS Web Servers in Deployment Reports

Update Web service consumer application configuration files with the absolute Web service URIs used in the deployment environment.

Update the clients of Web content provider endpoints with the absolute Web content URIs used in the deployment environment.

Tip

Although configuration file entries are not automatically generated for Web content consumer endpoints, you can add custom entries to configuration files.

How to: Find Web Service and Web Content Absolute URIs in Deployment Reports

Update database consumer application configuration files with database connection strings used in the deployment environment.

How to: Update Database Connection Strings in Configuration Files

Create and configure a new Web site or choose an existing Web site on the target computer for each Web site endpoint on an IIS Web server.

Logical Server Information in Deployment Reports

Verify installation prerequisites for deploying Office applications.

Requirements for Office Application Deployment

See Also

Other Resources

Creating Deployment Reports