Assembly Deployment

Once your application is built, you will need to think about how to deploy it to additional computers. With your application’s dependency on AMPS.Client.dll, you need to include AMPS.Client.dll along with your application. The most straightforward way to accomplish this is to install AMPS.Client.dll into the same folder as your .exe file. For example, if you distribute your executable in a zip file that users are expected to unpack, simply include AMPS.Client.dll assemblies into that zip file. When your executable runs, Windows will attempt to load AMPS.Client.dll from the same directory as your executable, and if it is not found, your executable will fail to run.

If your organization develops and deploys many AMPS applications and would like more centralized control over the maintenance of these AMPS client deployments, consider installing AMPS.Client.dll into the Global Assembly Cache ("GAC"). The GAC allows you to share one copy of an assembly — like the AMPS client — across many applications on a computer. This technique requires that the assembly have a strong name, and that you use an installer that places AMPS.Client.dll into the GAC. Installing the assembly in the GAC is not recommended unless many applications will share an AMPS client. For more information on the GAC, follow the link http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/yf1d93sz.aspx to the Microsoft Developer Network documentation on the GAC.

You are now able to develop and deploy an application in C# that publishes messages to AMPS. In the following chapters, you will learn how to subscribe to messages, use content filters, work with SOW caches and fine-tune messages that you send.