Managing Database Connections with WebAPI

Question

I am working to implement a Web API solution for development. I have a few C# console apps that run on a server and have their own data access operations, as well as a MVC app running on a similar server. I want to centralize the DAL to a WEB API that can be hosted somewhere. My question is, what is the best way to manage connection strings and QA/PROD/DEV environments? Do i have to publish a DEV/QA/PROD version of the web api for each instance? If i am using Visual Studio to publish my Project, is there an easy way to adjust the configuration file so that it points to the correct Web API instance?

Answer 1

Here is the solution i came up with if anyone ran into the same issue:

I ended up publishing three versions of the API for DEV/QA/PROD to various servers. I have a section in my App.Config/Web.Config for the ApiLocation that i read at runtime for any application that needs the API. I then added configurations for QA and PROD, and changed the Config transform files for each of them to update the API Location per the documentation: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd465318(v=vs.100).aspx

Heres what they look like

<configuration xmlns:xdt="http://schemas.microsoft.com/XML-Document-Transform">

  <appSettings>
    <add key="APILocation" value="server/API_QA/"
      xdt:Transform="Replace"
      xdt:Locator="Match(key)" />

  </appSettings>
</configuration>