Creating development and production environments?

Question

Hi everyone, currently all my application that is released is always release in production. However I would like that changed and also have a development side (For testing).

I've tried searching for steps on how to create a development server however I cannot seem to find a tutorial.

In the past I've seen someone release their application in development by having it in on "Debug" option and have it released in production by having it on the "release" option. (I apologize for the vagueness as it was along time ago since I saw it).

But anyways to my question, can someone tell me the general steps for creating a production and development environment for my project? I'm currently using winform application on VB (Microsoft visual Studio 2008)

Thanks for the help

Answer 1

I'm not sure I entirely understand your question, but I believe that if you are trying to build a testing/staging server for testing your software prior to release, then this should be an exact copy (if possible) of your production server (this allows you to iron out any environment specific bugs).

Answer 2

Your development environment should be an exact copy of your production environment. Typically this means buying a duplicate set of hardware, duplicating a production disk, and running that on your local dev/test lan. From there, you can set visual studio up to do a few different things:

1) build > configuration manager > debug (or optionally the build menu bar) to be able to debug your application with your IDE

2) set up remote debugging to your new dev / test server - project > properties > debugging > change local windows debugger to remote windows debugger and fill out the blanks. You will also need to install msvsmon on the dev or test server.

3) copy your assemblies to the remote box - do this manually, OR - project > properties > build events > post build events > add a couple command line copies to get your exe and dlls over to your mapped server. Don't forget to use environment variables and macros to make your life easier.

4) finally press play like you probably used to do in the IDE, and you should see the application fire up on the remote box.