Why I prefer WebApplication deployments over GAC deployments

SharePoint

This article is written with scope on SharePoint 2013. With SP 2013 the default TrustLevel in the web.config is set to “FullTrust”. On previous version the value is “WSS_Minimal”.

When you develop Farm-Solutions for SharePoint, you can deploy assemblies to the Global Assembly Cache (GAC) or configure the solution for a “bin-Deployment”.

The bin-way puts assemblies into the bin folder of the WebApplication, where the solution is deployed to.

You can switch the target of the assemblies by modifying the properties of a SharePoint project. The default value is GlobalAssemblyCache.

What does the changed property do to your solution?

Changing the value to WebApplication will deploy the assembly to the bin-directory of your IIS directory, as mentioned earlier. Because of the narrowed scope of the assembly, only the associated application pools needs to be recycled.

The classes you implemented, will be available only to your Website, which is fine in most cases. Assemblies within the GAC are available for all processes on the server.

In the past (prior SharePoint 2013) assemblies did not have FullControl permissions if they were deployed to the bin-directory. Instead Partial Trust was granted with the “WSS_Minimal” policy. A custom Code Access Security (CAS) had to be configured.

An advantage was the least privileges approach, a disadvantage the overhead of creating this CAS.

This is a list with advantages and disadvantages for bin-deployments. Pick your items and weight them the way you prefer.

My result was to deploy to bin, if possible. The faster development and deployment together with minimal impact on productive servers was worth it.

Advantages

  • Faster Deployment – With a GAC Deployment all application pools (incl. CentralAdministration) will be recycled
  • Less impact on other components

Disadvantages

  • TimerJobs need assemblies within the GAC
  • Using Feature Receivers, you’ll need to recycle the CentralAdministration application pool as well. Otherwise activating a Feature through the UI, could load the old assembly
  • Only one version of an assembly

What do you think? Why do you deploy to bin or to GAC?