WE are a MS shop (yes, we have TFS 2K8 and 10). I am the system administrator, not developer, so my POV is a bit different than most articles on deployment and config pre/post build tasks. I need to manage about 40 different applications/site, each with its own config settings, but within 2-3 concurrently operating dev, 2-3 concurrently operationg staging and 4-5 concurrently operating qa environments. Lets throw in production as well for this nightmare. The trick i'm looking for is to keep track and manage all configs, wether web or app for all applications in all environments. I need the ability to do comparisons and ad-hoc changes on a fly, and its doubtful we would create a build in tfs to change one qa environent 3's applications's 8th (some configs refereence over 12 different services) endpoint.
Most articles assume development is doing the config transformations at build time and moving to a particular qa arena. I don't have that luxury as the code can go anywhere and must be intergrated into the 40 different other apps and databases, and then move around again. The typical MS answer of "Just use TFS" is nice, but HOW never seems to get answered. I would need to be able to view and compare all applications in all environments and make changes on a fly, and i really don't see a need to do a build (which may cause other issues as now i'm modifying the app) to make a config change. Any insight into this issue and potential resolutions?