Creating Azure Web Apps from Visual Studio

Setting up Kentico in Azure Web Apps

The following scenarios describe how to create a new Kentico website as an Azure Web Apps service. You have the following options:

From Visual Studio Uploading Kentico to Azure Web Apps over FTP See other options for deploying Kentico to Azure Web Apps in the Microsoft documentation

Creating Azure Web Apps from Visual Studio This scenario presumes that you already have a Kentico project installed on a local computer and you want to deploy it to an Azure Web App service using Visual Studio. You can also create the Web App service directly from Visual Studio.

Deploying MVC sites

For sites created using the MVC development model, you need to perform the deployment process for both the MVC live site project and the Kentico administration project (using a separate Web App service for each project). However, the database is shared – only create the database once and then use the same connection string in both projects.

1. Open your project in Visual Studio. 2. Open the Server Explorer. 3. Expand the Azure section, right-click App Service, and select Create New App Service... The Create App Service dialog opens. 4. Enter the web app name (the resulting URL of your application). 5. Select the Azure subscription under which the Web App will be created. 6. Select an existing Resource Group or create a new one. 7. Select an existing Hosting plan or create a new one.

For MVC sites, we strongly recommend using two different hosting plans – one for the MVC live site application and another for the Kentico administration application. This allows you to scale the applications independently. In most cases, the MVC live site will receive the bulk of the traffic and have different performance requirements than the administration interface.

8. Click Create a new SQL Database and create a new database for the application.

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a. Enter the name of the database. b. Select an existing or create a new SQL server. c. Provide administrator credentials for the server. d. Set the Connection String Name field to CMSConnectionString. e. Click OK.

9. Back in the main dialog window, click Create.

Visual Studio creates the App Service. Continue by adjusting the configuration of your project's web.config file:

1. Right-click the created web app (you might need to refresh the App Service section for the app to appear) and select Vie w settings. 2. Copy the connection string value and paste it to the web.config file of your project.

Replace YourServerName, YourDatabaseName, YourUsername and YourPassword with your own values.

Configuring the connection string after deployment

You can also configure the connection string through the Azure Management Portal in App Services -> select a web app -> Application settings-> Connection strings section. To set the connection string for the web app, change the defaultConnection name to CMSConnectionString.

3. Make sure that the sessionState mode is set to InProc in the web.config file.

Use InProc mode if you plan to use only one instance of the Web App service. If you want to scale your web app to more instances, you need to configure the session state differently. See Storing session state data in an Azure environment.

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You can now deploy the project:

1. Right-click the project in the Solution Explorer and select Publish (or Publish Web App). A Publish dialog opens. 2. Click Microsoft Azure App Service. 3. Select the created web app located under the resource group you specified. 4. Click OK. 5. Do not modify the default settings.

6. Click Publish. 7. Once the publishing process is finished, Visual Studio automatically opens the base URL of your project in your default browser. Follow the on screen wizard to complete the database installation.

Once everything is set up, we recommend you perform the following configuration:

Adjust the web hosting plan mode on your web app. Configure the tier of your Azure SQL database according to our recommendations. For MVC sites, make sure your live site and administration apps are configured to use the same server time zone. See Cha nging the server time zone on Azure Web Apps.

Uploading Kentico to Azure Web Apps over FTP

This scenario presumes that you already have a Kentico project installed on a local computer and you want to deploy it to the Azure Web App service over FTP. Uploading Kentico projects to Azure Web Apps through a FTP client is easy, but it can take a lot of time, so we recommend using a reliable client, for example FileZilla.

You also need to create the Web Apps service first, through the Azure Management Portal.

Deploying MVC sites

Creating Azure Web Apps through the Azure Management Portal

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Creating Azure Web Apps through the Azure Management Portal

1. Open the Azure Management Portal. 2. Open Create a resource -> Web + Mobile -> Web App + SQL -> Create. 3. Enter the URL (name) of the web app. 4. Select the Azure subscription under which the Web App will be created. 5. Select an existing Resource Group or create a new one. 6. Select an existing Hosting plan or create a new one.

7. Select an existing SQL database and server or create a new one. 8. Click Create.

The system creates a new Web App service and an Azure SQL database.

Uploading Kentico to Azure Web Apps over FTP

When you have created a Web App service, you can upload your Kentico project over an FTP connection. You can also upload just updated files over FTP after the deployment.

1. Open the Azure Management Portal. 2. Select your web app on the App Services tab. 3. Switch to the Deployment credentials tab. 4. Enter a user name and password and click OK. 5. Use the FTP host name and Deployment / FTP User information displayed on the application's Overview tab to configure your FTP client.

6. Upload the file content of your project to the site\wwwroot folder on the Web App file system. For Kentico projects, copy the CMS folder. For MVC live site projects, copy the sub-folder containing the project's files (the name and location depends on your development environment and site name).

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When the copying is finished, open the website and finish the database installation.

Perform the following final configurations:

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