I have IIS-Hosted WCF application and services. I want to automate the process to deploy this application into test/Acceptance test/production environments What is the best way to automate the process and make it very easy to the system administrators? assuming that the web site / (or virtual directory) is already there and I don't have to re-create it.
the test environment has virtual directory for this service. acceptance test and production have a web site for this service.
You could use a powershell script or some other type of script to x-copy deploy the site. Then if you have any config changes to make add those into the script as well.
You could use setup and install packages but I don't recommend them unless your distributing your software. They can be a pain at times.
AFAIK, WCF services support xcopy just like any other IIS-hosted website. If your build process can copy the necessary configuration files and assemblies, that should be all that's necessary. You may need to include separate sections in your config files to tailor the settings to each environment.