Question : Tomcat - Best practices to "re"-deploy a webapp?

I am wondering what the best practice is for re-deploying a web application after I've made updates to the application on my development server.  My current method is to upload my *new* war file to the server using MS Remote Desktop (which takes about 14 minutes), shut down Tomcat, manually delete the old war file and app folder, manually delete the "work" directory (just in case), manually copy the new war file into the webapps directory, and restart Tomcat.  

Of course when I use this method, everyone's session expires and it takes several steps.  I've used the manager servlet in Tomcat before but I've noticed sometimes all the new changes don't take affect. And I still need to manually copy the war file to the server (I don't want to make the manager public to the internet do I - I hope not)?!

Just curious the best way to perform this action?  Many thanks.

System:
MS Server 2008
Apache HTTP Server
Tomcat 6.x

Answer : Tomcat - Best practices to "re"-deploy a webapp?

I deploy it manually (right now btw.)

But I do this just once every month or so. (Servicepack etc)