Deployment and Packaging of ASP.Net Application

ASP.NET Web Application Structure

As before deploying the web application, it is suitable for you to know about the structure of an ASP.NET application. An ASP.NET application consists of all the Web pages (.aspx and HTML files), handlers, modules, executable code, and other files (such as images and configuration files) that can be invoked from a virtual directory and its subdirectories on a Web server. An ASP.NET application also includes the compiled assembly (if the code-behind feature of .aspx files is used) and typically other assemblies that are used to provide functionality for the application. For example, you might have the business logic of the application encapsulated in a separate assembly. These assemblies are located in the bin directory underneath the virtual directory of the application. To understand how VS .NET simplifies the deployment process, you need to understand the structure of the assembly that provides for this simplification. An assembly includes four elements:

• MSIL (Microsoft Intermediate Language) Code: When you compile your application code, it gets compiled into an MSIL code. MSIL is the code that the common language runtime can understand. • Meta-data: The meta data contains information about the types, methods and other elements defined in the code • Manifest: The manifest consist of name and version information, a list of included files in the assembly, security information and so on • The file used as supporting files and resources.

As you can see from the structure, assemblies are so comprehensive and self-describing that VS .NET applications don't need to be registered with registry, as is the practice when you are dealing with COM components. This means that VS .NET applications can be installed by simply copying the required files to the target machine as long as the target machine has the .NET Framework installed. This is called XCOPY Deployment. However, it is also possible to automate the deployment process by making use of the deployment projects that are provided by VS .NET. In the next section, we will see how to deploy a Web application using various deployment options provided by VS .NET.