I dislike WebDeploy for a number of reasons:

0. Fundamentally, WebDeploy operates using a "sync" concept. It tries to
make a machine look like other machines. You can package up a bunch of
these settings but it's still just applying settings to make the machine
look like another. That fundamental approach leads to the real issues.

1. The changes are not transacted. If WebDeploy fails it leaves your
machine in whatever state it is halfway through the install. You have to
keep banging on install and hope it completes or deal with the halfway
state. There isn't anyway to go back to the way it was (that you can get
with a properly written .msi file).

2. There is no indication that a piece of software is installed. WebDeploy
doesn't register anything anywhere. Wondering later what software is on the
machine? Uhh, do a "human-based appsearch" to inspect the machine and
guess. <smile/>

Those are the things I can think of this morning. I've used WebDeploy to
post to my cheap ISP and have hit the above issues. The second is less a
problem because the apps I'm pushing to my ISP are just my tiny apps that
only have the "current" version. The first bit me though. My site was
offline for quite a while one day as I tried to bang through a WebDeploy
because some FTP component running on the server kept locking one of the
files it wanted to deploy. WebDeploy just kept choking on the file in
use... eventually they rebooted the server (did I mention it is a cheap
ISP?) and then I could finish my WebDeploy.

That said, with cloud machine images being treated like throwaway parts,
some people don't care about the issues above and are happy to just start
over when anything goes wrong. Personally, I still prefer a bit more
knowledge and ability to verify that something went wrong before brining
the images online but that's just me.


On Tue, May 7, 2013 at 6:48 PM, Christopher Painter <chr...@iswix.com>wrote:

> A question for the group, and Rob,
>
> I've been a big believer in MSI for 10 years now.  If you were looking at
> deploying ASP.NET apps to an AWS environment,  would you still package the
> app as an MSI or would you consider another paradigm such as WebDeploy?
>
> Thanks,
> Chris
>
>
>
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Learn Graph Databases - Download FREE O'Reilly Book
"Graph Databases" is the definitive new guide to graph databases and 
their applications. This 200-page book is written by three acclaimed 
leaders in the field. The early access version is available now. 
Download your free book today! http://p.sf.net/sfu/neotech_d2d_may
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