Deploy custom code to Sharepoint 2010 remotely?

Question

I'm relatively new at creating custom content for Sharepoint 2010 and have been having some difficulty understanding how to get non-design related components (ie. web parts, custom classes, ...) into a Sharepoint site. I have created a new visual web part on the company's development server and deployed it successfully from Visual Studio 2010 and also packaged the solution into a WSP file.

What is the best way to go about getting that web part onto the production server? There is currently no Visual Studio install on the production server but from searching around I get the feeling that it might be possible to do this remotely using Powershell or STSADM. Has anyone faced a similar situation?

Answer 1

Use PowerShell. Stsadm is considered to be obsolete and is included in SharePoint 2010 only for backwards compatibility with SharePoint 2007. So, since you are new to SharePoint, pretend Stsadm doesn't even exist.

My PowerShell scripts keep evolving, but they are based on samples from Ted Pattison:

1. Chapter 2: SharePoint Foundation Development (scroll down to Using Windows PowerShell Scripts to Automate Tasks in Visual Studio)
2. PowerShell Boot Camp for SharePoint Professionals