Steve Spencer's Blog

The Windows Azure Training Kit June 2012 release is out now with the following features:

• 12 new hands-on labs for Windows Azure Virtual Machines
• 11 new hands-on labs for Windows Azure Web Sites
• 2 new hands-on labs demonstrating Windows Azure with Windows 8 Metro-style applications
• Several new hands-on labs for Node.js and PHP using Mac OS X
• Updated content for the latest Windows Azure SDKs, tools, and new Windows Azure Management Portal
• New and updated presentations designed to support individual sessions to a full 3 day training workshops

The latest tools for windows Azure are located here:

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=29988

This version is supported in both Visual Studio 2010 & 2012 and will run on Windows 7 & 8 Server 2008 & 2012

This is a follow on post from my introduction to Windows Azure Websites and shows you how you can synchronise your website in TFS with Windows Azure.

One of the biggest problems with the way you deploy applications to  Windows Azure is that minor changes (e.g .markup, content and styling) require a redeploy to publish the changes. Windows Azure Websites solves this problem by allowing you to synchronise your website with Team Foundation Server or GIT.

In this post I will show you how easy it is to manage your websites in version controlled environment using Team Foundation Service. Team Foundation Service is a cloud hosted version of Team Foundation Server.

This works by creating a continuous integration build with your source code that will automatically deploy your website after successful build each time code is checked in.

This is configured as follows:

Click the “+” button at the bottom of your portal screen and select Website –> Quick Create

Enter the url details and click Create Web Site

An Empty site has now been created.

This site now needs to be link to your Team Foundation Service. Click on the website in the dash board and then select “Setup TFS Publishing”. you will also note that you can use a GIT repository as well as TFS.

Enter your TFS url (or create a new one), then click Authorize Now.

this connects through to your TFS service and setup the CI build that will deploy your application to the cloud.

The TFS site will now be displayed asking you to authorize the connection

You now need to pick the website you want to deploy. If you haven’t create a site yet then you need to go to ~Visual Studio, create your site and check it in to TFS.

You have now linked your web site in TFS to the Azure Website. This will take a few moments to synchronise.

Your website has not been deployed yet. You need to make a change and then check the changes in

upon check-in the build is started

When the build is complete the new website is deployed

You can also revert back to older versions of the web site by clicking the desired version and then clicking redeploy:

This will start the redeploy of the older version:

A new build is kicked off using the same changeset details as the original deployment. Once the build is complete the  web site is reverted back. this whole cycle only took a few minutes so it is a lot faster than the redeploy mechanism you had previously.

TFS and Windows Azure provide a good mechanism for version controlling your website. Adding application life cycle management to any software development activity is a good thing.

After the announcement about the new Windows Azure Services to Deliver a Hybrid Cloud and on Scott Guthrie’s blog, this blog post shows a little of what the Windows Azure Websites will bring.

These are additional services that allow quick and easy creation and deployment of websites to the Windows Azure environment. Websites can be deployed using templates from some of the leading CMS/Blog providers (e.g. Word Press, Umbraco, Orchard, DotNetNuke) as well as being able to deploy your own websites. Windows Azure websites supports a number of technologies (e.g. ASP.NET, PHP, Node.js and Classic ASP). Upon deploying a website to Windows Azure you will have all the benefits of the Windows Azure cloud computing platform for scalability, resilience and performance. This post will guide you through setting up a new CMS enabled website using one of the templates.

When logging in, the first thing to note is the new portal. This is a rewrite in HTML5.

Click on “Websites” in the left hand column:

The click “Create a website”:

Click “From Gallery”, enter your url and click “Create Web Site”

You can now choose from a number of templates

Pick the template you want and press Next

Enter the details on the form (don't for get to scroll down to enter your password)

click Next to specify your database settings

and Next again to specify your database server settings

Clicking Next will now provision your new Umbraco website

Clicking on the bar graph on the bottom right corner give you a status update.

The whole deployment took about 3 minutes. Your website is now ready to use. Although you will need to now add in the content and configure up Umbraco. Navigating to your new website will guide you through the install process.

In order to configure Umbraco you will need your database connection string. this can be found back in the Portal:

Click on the SQL Databases tab

Click the database name the View Connection String

You can now get the server and database names

Now you can finish installing Umbraco. when complete you will need to add your own content

This whole process is fast and easy and will allow you to deploy websites for your customers in a fast and efficient way. Now it is running one final  and useful feature that has been added to the portal is a dashboard where you can se the health of your website as well as  being able to scale the website if required

Look out for a follow on post that shows you how to synchronise your website in the cloud with Team Foundation Service.