I read a great blogpost recently by my friend and fellow MVP Jakob Ehn. In this post he outlines how he created a multi-stage Dockerfile to run .NET Core tests. I've always been on the fence about running tests during a container build - I usually run the tests outside and then build/publish the container proper only if the tests pass. However, this means I have to have the test frameworks on the ...

Last week I posted an end-to-end walkthrough about how to build and deploy web apps using Team Build and Release Management – including config management. The post certainly helps you if you’re on the .NET 4.x Framework – but what about deploying .NET Core apps? The Build Once Principle If you’ve ever read any of my blogs you’ll know I’m a proponent of the “build once” principle. That is, your ...

I’ve posted previously about deploying web applications using Team Build and Release Management (see Config Per Environment vs Tokenization in Release Management and WebDeploy, Configs and Web Release Management). However, reviewing those posts recently at customers I’ve been working with, I’ve realized that these posts are a little outdated, you need pieces of both to form a full picture and the ...

Most development requires working against some kind of database. Some teams choose to use Object Relational Mappers (ORMs) like Entity Framework. I think that should be the preferred method of dealing with databases (especially code-first), but there are times when you just have to work with a database schema. Recently I had to demo ReadyRoll in VSTS. I have to be honest that I don’t like the ...