How do you deploy your SharePoint solutions?

Question

I am now in the process of planning the deployment of a SharePoint solution into a production environment.
I have read about some tools that promise an easy way to automate this process, but nothing that seems to fit my scenario.

In the testing phase I have used SharePoint Designer to copy site content between the different development and testing servers, but this process is manual and it seems a bit unnecessary.

The site is made up of SharePoint web part pages with custom web parts, and a lot of Reporting Services report definitions.

So, is there any good advice out there in this vast land of geeks on how to most efficiently create and deploy a SharePoint site for a multiple deployment scenario?

Edit
Just to clarify. I need to deploy several "SharePoint Sites" into an existing site collection. Since SharePoint likes to have its sites in the SharePoint content database, just putting the files into IIS is not an option at this time.

Answer 1

We have a BizTalk 2006 with Web Application and Several WebServices that need to go from Dev to UAT to Live.

We use MSBuild right from within VS to build, run tests, dependent on test result, complie, zip and ship to servers.

Small MSBuild script on server to unzip, move the files, install clean web app, unlist biztalk bits, install new biztalk bits, re enlist and then start the stuff.

MSBuild is hugh and more people need to use it as it there now right in the platform =>

Use MSBuild

Answer 2

Lars

Check this post out =>

MOSS with MSBuild

Answer 3

I would also suggest checking out the SharePoint Content Deployment Wizard by Chris O'Brien. http://www.codeplex.com/SPDeploymentWizard

Should help smooth the process you describe, and it's a nice tool for your kitbag regardless

Answer 4

WSS has some built-in support for deploying wss components. See http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa543214.aspx

Answer 5

Note that "solution" has a specific meaning in Sharepoint: a collection of features (like web parts, list definitions and so on) packaged for deployment as a .wsp file.

You typically build sharepoint solutions in Visual Studio and package and deploy them using some tool like Sharepoint SmartTemplates http://www.codeplex.com/smarttemplates

However in your case you already have content in a live sharepoint site which you want to move to another site. It will probably be too cumbersome to use a solution for this, especially if you want to do it more than once (though it is possible to generate a solution from a live site using SharePoint Solution Generator).

The easiest way to deploy all content from one live site to another is to create a backup of the site using stsadm and then restore it to the new site again using stsadm restore. This completely overwrites the new site.

You can move select files/lists using import/export (rather than backup/restore). A tool like SharePoint Content Deployment Wizard makes it easier to select the content to move.

Answer 6

Check this framework at saf.codeplex.com This gives us the ability to automate the sharepoint component deployment using msbuild/features/stsadm etc.

Answer 7

Check out a guide that was released few weeks ago, that gathers all most popular methods to deploy and package SharePoint solutions.

http://www.starsoft.com.pl/files/Starsoft%20SharePoint%20Competencies%20Center%20-%20MOSS%202007%20-%20Deployment%20&%20Packaging%20guide.pdf

Answer 8

We found ROSS works the best: http://repliweb.com/products/ross/