I am trying to setup up a continuous integration type environment for BizTalk. When source code is checked in, I need it to build then deploy to a build server. I have found BTSTask.exe but this seems to only be able to install an application from an existing msi.
I need a way of basically doing what visual studio does when you right click on the project and say deploy. Has anyone encountered a way of a doing this via MSBuild or some other way?
A few years back I switched over to using the BizTalk Deployment Framework and haven't looked back. It uses MSBuild and WIX in building the perfect way to handle deployments for BizTalk. I highly recommend it.
You can use MSBuild ExtensionPack there will be MSBuild.ExtensionPack.BizTalk Namespace, here you can find it: http://msbuildextensionpack.codeplex.com/
Another tool is Microsoft Sdc Tasks which has a huge functionality: http://sdctasks.codeplex.com/
BTSTask supports adding resources (i.e. dlls) directly; check out the MSDN documentation for the AddResource command.
Check out Sayeds answer to a similar question of mine and my answer to a related question after I implemented and improved Sayeds suggestion.
For some tasks BTSTask isn't powerful enough so you'll have to use Microsoft.BizTalk.ExplorerOM from within PowerShell scripts as I suggested in this answer.
I did not look into TFS yet an how much it supports BizTalk deployment out-of-the-box.
If you are interested I'll add a complete sample MSBuild .proj.
We use the IDE (devenv.exe) to compile then a series of BTSTask commands to deploy to BizTalk. The full process is documented here:
http://blog.kynetix.com/2009/12/15/automated-testing-with-biztalk-server-3/
Hope that helps.
-Krip
