Author: John Benedetti

 
First, I’ll create the Web API project.  Since the article actually called for creating the resources inline with the project creation, I’ll actually skip the step where we create the Azure app itself.  Instead, I’ll just connect to the resources that are already there once the project is created.

 
Second, I’ll install the Angular SPA package outlined in the article.  I am a complete Angular noob but am looking forward to tinkering with the framework as a lot of developers I know make great use of it.  Angular will install several dependencies such as jQuery.  Once this is installed, you can move on to the publishing step.

Lastly, we’ll actually publish the newly created app ‘To The Cloud’.  You’ll go to the Publish dialog for your project and select Azure App Service to create a publishing profile.  I’ll look for the web app node previously created and ensure that it’s available for publishing.

 
Then I’ll add the connection criteria for the SQL database.  Please note, you will need to go into the Firewall settings for your Azure SQL Server and add your client IP in order to use SSMS or another tool to connect directly to the DB.  This includes the dialog for setting up the connection string for the app.  Once all your settings are in place, you can click Publish.

The publish may take a short while but once it’s complete, you can then navigate to the site and see the results.  If you’d like to take a look at mine, you can find it at http://jkbtestapp.azurewebsites.net/welcome

As you can see, once you get the hang of standing up the basic PaaS components, it’s very easy to deploy to an Azure environment. If any of you have suggestions around deploying to Azure or have any questions or comments, please feel free to add them here or address them to john@benedettitech.com.

Thanks for looking in!

It’s been a while since I’ve posted so I do apologize for the lag.  I’ve been doing some experimenting with Azure in my RL job and I’d like to share a couple of lessons learned with provisioning and deploying to Azure.

I was looking for an outline on simple deployments and found a quick walk-through at Useful Development Blog. Using this outline, I’m going to provision an environment and deploy a simple web app to Azure.

The prerequisites noted in the article are as follows:

* Visual Studio 2013 (Update 3+)
* The Azure SDK (you can get that here or use the Web Platform Installer)
* an account with Azure

I’m going to use the tools deployed previously to accomplish the same tasks. The only difference should be that I’m using Visual Studio 2015 Community rather than 2013.  Also, i’m going to provision my environment FIRST prior to deployment.  While you can automatically let Visual Studio create the necessary Azure nodes automatically in order to host your app, I feel that it will be necessary to know exactly what I’m provisioning and how much it will cost.

After reviewing the article, it looks like I’ll need a Web App node as well as a SQL database for the backend. In order to put all of this together, I’ll want to create the following resources:

* Azure Resource Group – This is a logical grouping of managed resources. It makes it easier to organize your nodes and identify which are related and dependent on each other. Also, in the event of any relevant notifications from Microsoft about impacts or changes to a region, you’ll want to know which one your resources are in.
* Azure Storage Group – This is a shared storage pool that can be used by any of your Azure nodes that require it.
* Azure Virtual Network – This isn’t truly required since we won’t be doing any network design or provisioning, but some of the nodes will require that one be set.
* SQL DB + DB Server – These will be PaaS (Platform as a Service) nodes to host my database.
* Web App – This will be another PaaS node to host the actual app.

I’ll begin by logging into the Azure portal and creating the Resource Group. You do this from your portal dashboard and clicking Resources Groups in the left sidebar then Add.  Choose an appropriate name, which subscription you want it to belong to, and where you want the Resource Group to be located.  The location may be relevant depending on where your customer base is for purposes of latency, etc.

Once the resource group is created, I’ll want to create a Storage Group. It can be more economical to use a shared storage group rather than many individual storage groups for each node. Additionally, you have more options for selecting the redundancy/fault tolerance of the storage as well as options for speed, etc.

To create the storage group, navigate to the Resource Group and click Add. A search window will pop-up where you can search for any of the myriad of nodes available in the Azure catalog. Select Storage Account and when prompted select Resource Manager for your deployment model and click Create.

You’ll be prompted for the parameters to be used for your storage account. I will pick Locally Redundant and disable Diagnostics. Also, I’ll be selecting the Resource Group created in previous steps. When selecting your storage parameters, the amount listed for pricing is per month/100GB. You should only be charged for what you actually use so the cost should be pro-rated for the month.

Next, I’ll create the Virtual Network. Follow the previous steps of navigating to your Resource Group and clicking Add. This time, type Network for your search criteria and select Virtual Network. As before, select the Resource Manager option and click Create.

For my parameters, I’ll be choosing an appropriate name and selecting my existing Resource Group and Location. Once this is selected, click Create.

The next step, creating the SQL Server and DB, will be a bit more complicated but will follow the same basic pattern. As before, go to your Resource Group and click Add, then use SQL as your search criteria. The type of node you’ll select to create will be SQL Database. Once you’ve selected that option, click Create.

Inside of the SQL Database create panel, you’ll have an option to select your Server. Since we don’t have a server yet, our first step will be to create one. Click in the Server panel and then select Create a New Server. When creating a new server, you’ll choose an appropriate SQL Server name as well as creating your SA Account and password.  You’ll also select a location for the node.

Now that we have our Server, we can finish creating our DB. You can select an existing DB backup to map from or even use the sample Northwinds database. I’ll be selecting Blank DB for this example. There are a large number of pricing options to choose from for your DB performance and sizing options. Select the one that’s most appropriate for your app. Your subscription and Resource Group options should auto-populate. Once you’ve selected your options, click Create. The SQL DB creation takes a few minutes.

Lastly, we’ll need to provision a Web App node to host the actual app. Again, from your Resource Group, click Add and use Web App for your search criteria. Select the Web App option and click Create.

Once inside the creation dialog, you’ll choose an appropriate name for your app as well as confirm that your subscription info and Resource Group is correct. The last thing you’ll do is select a Service Plan. This is a configuration that can help you standardize your pricing and performance expectations for multiple apps. If you’re doing large scale or automated deployments, these can be useful to have for future tasks.

Under App Service Plan, click Create New.  Inside of the App Service plan creation panel, choose an appropriate name for the plan.  Under pricing options, you have various levels of availability and performance. Select the one most appropriate for you.  Again, rates are for the month and pro-rated for actual usage.  So, if you take your app down periodically or only need the services available at certain times, you can bring them down in the Azure portal and you should save that cost.

If you’ve completed all the above steps, then congratulations!  You’ve successfully provisioned your first Azure environment and are ready to deploy an app!

My next post will cover the creation of the project as well as the deployment steps.  If any of you have suggestions around provisioning in Azure or have any questions or comments, please feel free to add them here or address them to john@benedettitech.com.

Thanks for looking in!

In order to use my Azure trial, I’ll probably want a local copy of Visual Studio to build and publish content. In order to download Visual Studio Community (formerly Professional), I’ll need a Microsoft Live account eligible for the IDE. The good news is that in order to start my Azure account, I had to register a Microsoft Live account anyway. So, I’m halfway there.

Next step will be to log into Visual Studio with my live account: Link  Then click the Free Visual Studio option in the upper right and elect to join Visual Studio Dev Essentials.

This brings up a page full of Microsoft tools. While I might have to come back to some of these later, right now I want to click the Download button under Visual Studio Community. This brings me to a download screen for the installer. Once that’s downloaded, I’ll run the setup.

The setup wizard is pretty standard Microsoft boilerplate. Accept the defaults and next through. The wizard will install any dependencies your platform is missing, so you might be in for a bit of a wait and maybe a reboot or two. Once it’s finished, you’ll have the IDE installed and ready to go!

Another thing you’ll want for Azure is the Azure SDK. This has template for projects that are Azure specific as well as other useful plug-ins for Visual Studio. It can be installed at this link : Link  Select the SDK most appropriate to your installation. (VS 2015 for me)

One dependency that was required for my install was SQL Server Data Tools 2015.  This can be installed either by selecting custom options during your installation or by going back into the install wizard (Control Panel -> Programs & Features) and selecting the option.  As with all things, your mileage may vary depending on your environment.

Once you have the IDE installed and are authenticated inside of Visual Studio, you will be able to publish content to Azure resources or nodes associated with your subscription.

 
Thanks for looking in!