IT:AD:MSTest:HowTo:Start WebApps Before Integration Tests
Summary
The issue is that Unit Tests are just dll's and without further instruction, the test runner won't ensure that other projects – such as the website they are testing, will be fired up before the tests run.
This is specifically the case when using Developer Server when dev'ing. The ports can be made static across all devs and CI server – but that only solves half the problem. Starting the darn website first when running tests is still required.
Using Attributes
The following looks so complicated that I'm not sure if it's instead a test of whether we're intelligent enough to understand it.
But it's the only indepth link I've found to the matter
Use IIS ?
A counter solution is simply using IIS everywhere, with well-known App names across all devs and CI server.
Note that this solution will fail at least in the following scenarios: * if building multiple branches.