Continuous deployment between TFS and AWS - amazon-web-services

Question

I'm working for a company where we're using on-prem TFS for dev and continuous build, however our environments are hosted on AWS. We need to setup a continuous deployment pipeline from our build servers to AWS.
Any recommendation for an enterprise continuous deployment tool for such an environment? We've already done a POC with Octopus Deploy. Is it possible to set up a continues deployment pipeline using just Microsoft tools? Any pointers and documentation with examples would be highly appreciated.

Answer 1

Octopus Deploy is indeed a good choice. Octopus Deploy and TFS/VSO can work together to make automated, continuous delivery easy. For more information, see the Octopus Deploy documentation at http://docs.octopusdeploy.com/display/OD/Team+Foundation+Server
It's also possible to set up a continues deployment pipeline using just Microsoft tools. You need to use Microsoft Release Managerment.It can Run automations to deploy your app to each environment.
If you are working on vNext build, just like James mentioned, this is only support for Team Foundation Server 2015 (update 2 and above) and Visual Studio Team Services. Detail features you can refer this link:Release Management vNext
If you are working on XAML build, here is a good documentation about Continuous Integration, Continuous Deployment with Team Foundation Server 2013 & VS 2013

Answer 2

You can easily integrate the new Release Management tools from Microsoft with TFS.
!!Release Management tools in TFS 2015 Update 2
The easy way would be to install the TFS 2015 Update 2 RC. It's fully supported by MS and works great.
http://nkdagility.com/the-high-of-release/
!!Release Management in VSTS with TFS
An alternative until Update 2 is to use VSTS Release Management Online to do the deployments from your local TFS.
https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/visualstudioalm/2015/11/28/deploy-artifacts-from-onprem-tfs-server-with-release-management-service/
I would recommend that you use one of the two above methods or move your TFS server to VSTS in it's entirety.
!!Release Management Server for TFS
For now the released version of RM is available for download and install. It's not as good as the new one, but also works fine.
http://nkdagility.com/create-release-management-pipeline-professional-developers/

Answer 3

You can do it without octopus. All you need is an EC2 based build agent with (PAT) authentication and you can deploy almost any artifact. How to do this is given in following tutorials.
How to Build a CI/CD Pipeline Using AWS CodeDeploy and Microsoft Team Foundation Server (TFS)
(For hybrid/complex deployments, you can use this. You can deploy IIS websites, MSI packages, services, exe). The beauty of this is that with a single deployment you can deploy to both on premises and cloud environment.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIE0P3m9eEY
How to Integrate AWS Elastic Beanstalk with Microsoft Team Foundation Server (TFS) or (VSTS)
(for IIS websites/batch jobs you can use this)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRLZZefLDqU
How to Integrate AWS Cloudformation with Microsoft Team Foundation Server (TFS)
(fully infrastructure automation and manage infrastructure as code)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WU93NJT0_3s