The mode of deployment determines whether you update the site directly or indirectly. Two deployment mode options are available:
Online Deployment deploys updated assets directly to the live site
Switch Deployment deploys updated assets to off-line areas, then swaps these with live assets as a single transaction.
For demonstration and evaluation purposes, both the Publishing agent and the Publishing Web agent are configured by default to manage online deployments. The decision to configure a site for online or switch deployments depends on various factors, such as the configuration of staging and production environments, and the number and type of assets to deploy.