Chapter 7
Packaging and Deploying SharePoint 2013 Apps
WHAT YOU WILL LEARN IN THIS CHAPTER:
- Packaging an application you have built
- Deploying each SharePoint application type
- Creating a private app catalog
WROX.COM DOWNLOADS FOR THIS CHAPTER
The wrox.com code downloads for this chapter are found at http://www.wrox.com/WileyCDA/WroxTitle/productCd-1118495845.html on the Download Code tab. The code for this chapter is divided into the following major examples:
- MyAutoHostedApp.zip
- MySharePointHostedApp.zip
- SharePointProviderHostedApp.zip
- SharePointAppPackage.app
In SharePoint 2010 and earlier, code and artifacts were packaged and deployed to the SharePoint farm as either full-trust solutions or sandbox solutions. In both cases the assets in the solutions were extracted and installed upon installation, or at runtime in the case of sandbox solutions. Additionally, code assets were deployed and at runtime were loaded and run from within the SharePoint code processes. This meant that great care had to be taken so the code didn’t break any of the rules of best practice; otherwise, you would face a poorly performing solution. In the new app model, things are similar in that some assets are deployed when an application is installed; however, how apps are built, packaged, and where and how they are deployed are significantly different. The new app model has been fundamentally designed to address the concerns and issues of running code in the SharePoint execution processes, thus allowing more flexible deployment options, cloud-enabled applications, and better APIs and programming models for developers.
Much of the content in this book focuses on SharePoint apps and the options they offer developers. This chapter is all about what makes up an application from the inside out and how to deploy applications in a variety of scenarios.