Looking for a .NET BuildServer SaaS

Question

I've a question regarding Build Servers for .NET Projects. Currently I'm using TeamBuild in conjunction w/ TFS 2010 to do automated builds in the .NET world. Some older projects are built using plain old MSBuild scripts.

To get rid of the administrative effort I'm currently moving my sources to github. Github offers, as many other sites service hooks to trigger build servers for doing automated builds such as CI or nightly builds.

Sure I could use TeamCity OnPremise and dynamically create Build Agents in Windows Azure using VMRole and Virtual Disks, but I think this hybrid solution is a little bit moronic.

So what are your thoughts about the following architectural idea?

Let's say you're using github as source control platform. When commiting sources to your repository an Azure WebRole hosting a WCF Service will be triggered. The WebRole itself will just use the Azure API to fire up a new instance of a custom Azure VMRole.

The Azure VMRole itself will use some kind of buildscript such as Rake or MSBuild to have as few developer tools installed on the build agent as needed. After building the entire project the artifacts will be published to Azure BlobStorage and the WebRole hosting the WCF service will be called again, but right now the Azure WebRole is going to terminate the BuildAgent.

While using such a setup you could minimize the costs for the build agent and build nearly any kind of project as far as you're able to install the required element for the build by using PowerShell.

So in bottom line: what are your thoughts on this architecture? Other Ideas? Is there an existing service offering such a solution?

Thorsten

Answer 1

have you looked at https://appharbor.com ? I know a number of people who are using it to do exactly what you are doing.

Answer 2

Check out Team Foundation Service as it can do the following:

• Continuous Delivery to Azure
• Deploy to production on Windows Azure with two clicks from Visual Studio, or automatically as part of your build process.

Answer 3

Just found this one http://www.appveyor.com/ AppVeyor is also free for OpenSource projects.