Deploying Azure apps in 1000 words or less

  • Article

If you are in a hurry and want the bottom line about deploying -

Read the following:

The beginning…

Absolute Step 1 (The link below talks about the process about getting tokens)

https://blogs.msdn.com/brunoterkaly/archive/2009/12/06/absolute-step-1-for-getting-started-with-azure.aspx

I now assume you have a token. It came into your email account.

You will need your token for the creation of hosted services.

Navigate to https://windows.azure.com using a Web browser and sign in using your Windows Live ID.

You’ve been invited, so cash in…

Redeem your invitation token.

Create 2 things:

  1. Storage Account
    • You will note 2 main things:
      • Endpoints
      • Primary Access Key
  2. Hosted Service Account
    • You will provide name (https://YOURSTUFFHERE)
    • Selecting what region you want to be hosted in (South Central US, etc)

What it looks like:

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Deployment Steps – Let’s stage our app

  1. If it is not already open, launch Microsoft Visual Studio 2008/2010 in elevated administrator mode
  2. Generate the package to deploy to the cloud
    • To do this, right-click the Cloud project you have created and and select Publish
    • After few seconds, Windows Explorer will open with the current folder set to the location where Visual Studio generated the package
    • In the hosted service Summary page of the Windows Azure portal, click Deploy to upload the service package to the portal
    • Choose “Upload a file from your local storage”
    • Select the ServiceConfiguration.cscfg file that your previously created
      • The storage settings will be updated later in the exercise
    • Enter a label to identify the deployment
    • Click Deploy to start uploading the package to the Windows Azure Developer Portal

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    • Wait until the deployment process finishes, which may take several minutes
    • Notice that the portal assigned this deployment a Web Site URL that includes a unique identifier.
    • Shortly, you will access this URL to test the application to determine whether it operates correctly in the Windows Azure environment, but first you need to configure it.

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  • Enter your account shared key

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  • You will enter your AccountSharedKey that explained just above this

  • You will modify your Instances to control how much hardware is used to run your app

    Testing the Application in the Staging Environment
    You will enter your Web Site URL to make sure it runs correctly
    You will click "RUN"

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You will notice that the worker role and web roles are running.

 

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Promoting the Application to Production

Promote it to final production.

When you deploy the application to production, Windows Azure reconfigures its load balancers so that the application is available at its production URL.

In the Summary page, under the Hosted Service section, click the Swap button (this is the circular button located between the Production and Staging areas). When prompted, click OK to confirm that you wish to promote to the production deployment.

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There you have it. The most abbreviated to the point depiction about taking your app to the next level.