How to deploy web sites in Microsoft Azure?

Halloween Week - a population of articles about websites in the Microsoft Azure cloud doubles.

As many know, Microsoft Azure has a very simple service for hosting websites on .NET, Java, PHP, Python, Node.js. This article can be used as a cheat sheet to keep on hand a list of deployment options and links to instructions.
In the cheat sheet: Visual Studio, Git, Mercurial, TFS, WebMatrix, MSBuild and WebDeploy.


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Expand your website with a version control system located in the cloud

A simple and good way to deploy a website is to set up a version control system in the cloud . This removes the need to install and configure it locally.

Visual Studio Online (VSO)

Visual Studio Online (formerly Team Foundation Service) is a cloud-based service in the form of a version control system and other features for collaboration within teams. The service is free for use by up to 5 developers. VSO is fully integrated with Azure Websites, and the repository can be Git or TFVC .

More details:

• Integration and deployment with VSO and TFVC . A short tutorial on how to set up web site deployment from VSO to Azure Websites using TFVC. Detailed instructions.
• Integration and deployment with Visual Studio Online and Git . Same as previous instructions, only Git is used instead of TFVC.

Git in the cloud

Azure has a set of features to automate the deployment of websites from Git repositories to Azure WebSites ( GitHub , CodePlex and BitBucket ).

More details:

• Deploy a website to Azure WebSites using a version control system . Instruction: how to deploy from local Git (in terms of Azure, this approach is called Local Git), GitHub, CodePlex and BitBucket.
• Git , Mercurial and Dropbox support forums .

Mercurial

Azure has support for Mercurial with repositories in CodePlex and BitBucket .

More details:

• Deploy a website to Azure WebSites using a version control system . Instruction: how to deploy from local Git (in terms of Azure, this approach is called Local Git), GitHub, CodePlex and BitBucket.
• Git , Mercurial and Dropbox support forums .

Dropbox

Dropbox is not a version control system, but you can store the code, respectively, and deploy it.

• Deploy to Microsoft Azure from Dropbox . Instructions: how to use Azure Management Portal to set up deployment from Dropbox.
• Dropbox and Azure Web Sites . Video: how to connect your Dropbox folder to Azure Websites, how to create a web site and do a drag-n-drop deployment.
• Git , Mercurial and Dropbox support forums .

Deploying from IDE

Visual Studio and WebMatrix are Microsoft development tools that can be used for web development. Both tools have built-in functions for deploying to Azure WebSites, both can use Web Deploy to automate tasks, such as database deployment, and both can deploy via FTP or FTPS ).

Visual studio

More details:

• Get started with Azure and ASP.NET : how to create and deploy a simple ASP.NET MVC project using Visual Studio and Web Deploy.
• Deploy a Secure ASP . NET MVC 5 app with Membership , OAuth , SQL Database and an Azure Web Site : how to create and deploy an ASP.NET MVC project with a SQL Database using Visual Studio, Web Deploy and the Entity Framework Code First Migrations.
• Web Deployment Overview for Visual Studio and ASP . NET : Basics of deploying web projects using Visual Studio - how to deploy a database along with a web application, etc.
• Asp . NET Web Deployment using Visual Studio : a series of 12 articles about web project deployment.

Webmatrix

More details:

• Develop and deploy a web site with Microsoft WebMatrix : how to create a simple ASP.NET website from a template and deploy it to Azure WebSites.
• Build and deploy a Node.js web site to Azure using WebMatrix : same but Node.js website
• Create and deploy a PHP-MySQL Azure Web Site using WebMatrix : the same, but a PHP website with MySQL.
• WebMatrix 3: Integrated Git and Deployment to Azure : WebMatrix integration with the Git repository.

Deploy via FTP

You can deploy websites to Azure WebSites via FTP — for example, using Internet Explorer or FileZilla . Azure Websites support FTPS. However, deploying via FTP does not support additional tasks, such as database deployment, and does not support comparing files at the source and destination.

More details:

• Create a PHP-MySQL Azure Web Site and Deploy Using FTP : how to create a simple PHP + MySQL website and deploy to Azure WebSites via FTP.
• How to Manage Web Sites : Configure Web Sites, including specifying an FTP account.

Deploy using a version control system locally

If you are using local TFS, Git or Mercurial, then from these repositories you can also deploy websites to Azure WebSites.

Local Git or Mercurial

In Azure, simply enter the URL of the Git or Mercurial repository to deploy from them.

More details:

• Deploy a website to Azure WebSites using a version control system . Instruction: how to deploy from local Git (in terms of Azure, this approach is called Local Git), GitHub, CodePlex and BitBucket.
• Git , Mercurial and Dropbox support forums .
• Deploying TWO websites to Azure from one Git Repository : how to deploy two websites from the same Git repository by Scott Hanselman.

Deploy using command line utilities and Azure REST API Management API

Automating is always good, but if this does not work with the version control system, you can always use command line utilities. In Azure, many management tasks are simplified, plus there is a REST API for managing the platform and several frameworks for working with it.

Msbuild

If you are using Visual Studio IDE for development, you can use MSBuild for automation by configuring it to use Web Deploy or FTP / FTPS . Web Deploy can automate tasks such as database deployment.

More details:

• Asp . NET Web Deployment using Visual Studio : Command Line Deployment : article about deploying to Azure from Visual Studio using the command line.
• Inside the Microsoft Build Engine: Using MSBuild and Team Foundation Build : MSBuild book and other tools.

FTP scripts

Accessing Azure WebSites via FTP / FTPS is quite simple, and the created account for access can be used to execute FTP scripts.

More details:

• Using FTP Batch Scripts .

Windows powershell

You can deploy MSBuild or FTP using Windows PowerShell using a large number of cmdlets specialized in working with the Azure REST API.

More details:

• Building Real-World Cloud Apps with Azure - Automate Everything : A detailed description of an application that uses Powershell to create a test environment in Azure and further deploy it.

.NET management API

For MSBuild or FTP, you can write C # code to access the REST API.

More details:

• Automating everything with the Azure Management Libraries and .NET : an introduction to the .NET management API

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Cross-platform command line utilities (xpat-cli)

Command line utilities for platform management and deployment are also available on Mac and Linux.

More details:

• Command line tools . A page on the Azure.com portal dedicated to command line tools.

Web deploy

More details:

• Web Deployment Tool : official documentation.
• Using Web Deploy : Official documentation on the IIS.NET site.
• Asp . NET Web Deployment using Visual Studio : Command Line Deployment : Deploy using command line tools.

What's next?

Deployed?
Read about how to test Azure WebSites in production .
Learn how your websites work and how they are made.
Read the rest of the documentation .

useful links

• Try Azure for free for 30 days!
• Explore Microsoft Virtual Academy courses on cloud and other technologies
• Download free or trial Visual Studio
• Microsoft Azure Development Center (azurehub.ru) - scripts, tutorials, examples, design recommendations
• Twitter.com/windowsazure_ru - the latest Microsoft Azure news
• Microsoft Azure Community on Facebook - experts, questions
• Become a universal Windows application developer