C# Web Services Deployment Version Roll Back / Removal

Question

OK, Apologies if this has already been asked and/or Answered but I'm struggling to find the right situation to the problem that I'm investigating as the correct terminology is hard to come by!

I have been tasked into looking for a Roll-Back solution for our deployment if for any reason we have an unsuccessful release. Other than heavily structuring our source control and, if an unsuccessful release occurs, getting the previous version from the SVN and re-publishing to the Live Server is there any better quick solution?

Is there any quick and suitable way to Roll-Back to the previously released version? I am mainly focussing on Web Services currently as these are front facing and any problems with these could obviously cause a problem to customers and will need to be fixed ASAP.

Please don't hesitate to provide any suggestions and comments as I am eager to hear of any and all ideas.

Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

I have always created an installer for my WCF services. I can only assume that this would work for ASMX services.

If you haven't created an installer before, there is a learning curve. I only glanced over this: http://aspalliance.com/622, but it looked pretty close to what I have done. Let me know what you think.

Answer 2

Just a thought but have you considered running versions side by side?

IE: You deploy you new versions under a different URL and then have customers switch to this version in a staged process?

This allows you to control the switch in a more granular manner, not an all or nothing step. It also means if your web service interfaces have changed customers with older versions of the client can continue to function against the old versions.

If you are also deploying client software that is dependant upon the services then you may want to keep the older clients working on the older versions until the client is upgraded.

Answer 3

hi why don't you just copy the old directory into a backup directory. if deployment fails, than just copy it back from the backup directory. should be easily done with a small batch script or maybe nant for better configuration possibillites