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- Herausgeber: Packt Publishing
- Kategorie: Fachliteratur
- Sprache: Englisch
Microsoft Azure is one of the fastest growing public cloud service providers in the market currently, and also holds the second highest market share after AWS. Azure has a sophisticated set of services that will help you build fault-tolerant and scalable cloud-based applications.
Hands-On Azure for Developers will take you on a journey through multiple PaaS services available in Azure, including App Services, Functions, and Service Fabric, and explain in detail how to build a complete and reliable system with ease. You will learn about how to maximize your skills when building cloud-based solutions leveraging different SQL/NoSQL databases, serverless and messaging components, and even search engines such as Azure Search. In the concluding chapters, this book covers more advanced scenarios such as scalability best practices, serving static content with Azure CDN, and distributing loads with Azure Traffic Manager.
By the end of the book, you will be able to build modern applications on the Azure cloud using the most popular and promising technologies, which will help make your solutions reliable, stable, and efficient.
Das E-Book können Sie in Legimi-Apps oder einer beliebigen App lesen, die das folgende Format unterstützen:
Seitenzahl: 508
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018
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Hands-On Azure for Developers
Copyright © 2018 Packt Publishing
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Commissioning Editor: Gebin GeorgeAcquisition Editor: Shrilekha InaniContent Development Editor: Deepti Thore, Dattatraya MoreTechnical Editor: Sayali ThanekarCopy Editor:Safis EditingProject Coordinator: Jagdish PrabhuProofreader: Safis EditingIndexer: Rekha NairGraphics: Jisha ChirayilProduction Coordinator: Shraddha Falebhai
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Contributors
About the author
Kamil Mrzygłód is a skilled software developer, architect, and Microsoft Azure MVP. He is focused on delivering fast, reliable, and flexible cloud solutions based on the Microsoft Azure platform. He has spoken at multiple conferences and meetups, working on open source software (OSS) projects and driving workshops for different people and companies. Over recent years, he has developed an interest in Azure serverless architectures, data analysis, and big data components. Currently, he works at Demant Technology Center in Warsaw. His current goal is to make the world of cloud computing as accessible as it can be so that it's possible to lower the learning curve of this technology and help others start using it.
About the reviewers
Kasam Shaikh, a Microsoft Azure enthusiast, is a seasoned professional with a can-do attitude and 10 years of industry experience working as a cloud architect with one of the leading IT companies in Mumbai, India. He is a certified Azure architect, recognized as an MVP by a leading online community, as well as a global AI speaker, and has authored books on Azure Cognitive, Azure Bots, and Microsoft Bot frameworks. He is head of the Azure INDIA (az-INDIA) community, the fastest growing online community for learning Azure.
Praveen Kumar Sreeram works as an Azure architect at MNC. He has 12 years of experience in the field of development, analysis, design, and delivery of applications of various technologies, including custom web development using ASP.NET and MVC to building mobile apps using the cross-platform technology Xamarin for domains such as insurance, telecoms, and wireless expense management. He has been awarded two times as the Most Valuable Professional CSharpCorner. You can also follow him on Twitter at @PrawinSreeram. His current focus is on analyzing business problems and providing technical solutions for various projects related to Microsoft Azure and .NET Core. He is also an author of a book call Azure Serverless computing cookbook.
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Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright and Credits
Hands-On Azure for Developers
Dedication
About Packt
Why subscribe?
Packt.com
Contributors
About the author
About the reviewers
Packt is searching for authors like you
Preface
Who this book is for
What this book covers
To get the most out of this book
Download the example code files
Download the color images
Conventions used
Get in touch
Reviews
Azure App Service
Technical requirements
Creating and deploying Azure App Service
Creating Azure App Service using the Azure Portal
Selecting Azure Web App from available services
Configuring an Azure web app
Creating an App Service Plan
Creating an Azure App Service using Visual Studio
Deploying Azure App Service using FTP
Deploying Azure App Service with user-level credentials
Deploying Azure App Service using app-level credentials
Downloading app-level credentials from the Azure Portal
Configuring WebDeploy in Visual Studio
Creating Azure App Services using Visual Studio Code
Working with different operating systems and platforms
Selecting an operating system
Selecting different platforms
Working with application settings
Different App Service Plans and features
Dev/Test App Service Plans
Production App Service Plans
Isolated App Service Plans
Securing App Services using different security providers
Configuring authentication/authorization in the Azure Portal
Using Azure Active Directory to secure App Services
Using other authentication providers
Diagnostics and monitoring of App Services
The Overview blade
Metrics
Monitoring
Summary
Questions
Further reading
Azure WebJobs
Technical requirements
Creating WebJobs
Creating and deploying WebJobs in Azure Portal
Creating an application in Visual Studio
Deploying a WebJob in the Azure Portal
Deploying WebJobs from Visual Studio
Working with the WebJobs SDK
Calling a job manually
Automatic triggers in WebJobs
Publish a job
Azure WebJobs limitations
Using different file types for WebJobs
Creating and deploying a Node.js application as a WebJob
Deploying a Node.js Azure WebJob from Visual Studio Code
Summary
Questions
Further reading
Deploying Web Applications as Containers
Technical requirements
Working with AKS
Preparing an application
Container Registry and Kubernetes clusters
Pushing a Docker image to Azure Container Registry
Creating a Kubernetes cluster using AKS
Running, scaling, and updating an application in AKS
Solving problems with authentication
Scaling a cluster
Updating an application
Azure Container Instances
Creating and deploying an application and container
Pushing an image to Azure Container Registry
Deploying an application to ACI
Web App for Containers
Creating a web app hosted in a container
Deploying a custom application
Summary
Questions
Further reading
Distributed Applications and Microservices with Service Fabric
Technical requirements
Understanding microservices
Monolith versus microservices
Microservice approach
Using different languages and frameworks
Scaling and updating services individually
Using well-designed interfaces and protocols
Dealing with state
Diagnosing and monitoring microservices
Containers, services, and actors in SF
Containers
Creating a cluster
Deploying a container
Packaging a service
Reliable services
Creating a SF application
Deploying an application to the cloud
Reliable actors
Creating a project with actors
Creating an actor's client
Communication between services
Creating a communication channel
Clusters in SF
Cluster security
Node-to-node security
Client-to-node security
Scaling
Scaling a cluster up or down
Monitoring and diagnostics
Application monitoring
Cluster monitoring
Health monitoring
Summary
Questions
Further reading
Using Azure Search
Technical requirements
Creating an Azure Search service
Using Azure Portal
Full-text search in Azure Search
Sending a request
Linguistic analysis in full-text search
Analyzers in Azure Search
Analyzer selection
Indexing in Azure Search
Importing more data
Push model
Pull model
Cognitive search – adding AI to the indexing workload
Configuring Cognitive Search
Summary
Questions
Further reading
Mobile Notifications with Notification Hub
Technical requirements
Reasons to use Notification Hub
Challenges for application design
Push notification architecture
Direct connection
Queued communication
Triggered communication
Registering devices in Notification Hub
Notification Hub device registration
Creating a Notification Hub
Registering in an application
Checking available registrations
Using installations
Sending a notification
Sending a test notification
Test notification in Azure Portal
Test notification in the SDK
Using the SDK to send a notification
Rich content notifications
Creating and sending a rich content notification
Summary
Questions
Further reading
Serverless and Azure Functions
Technical requirements
Understanding Azure Functions
Being "serverless"
Responsibilities of cloud vendors
Pricing model
Azure Functions concepts
Function app
Functions
Triggers and bindings
Pricing models
Scaling
Scaling in the consumption model
Scaling in the App Service model
Configuring the local environment for developing Azure Functions
Starting with Azure Functions locally
Creating a function
Using Visual Studio
Using Azure Portal
Azure Functions features
Platform features
Security
Monitor
Host.json
Publish
Workflow in Azure Functions – Durable Functions
Orchestrations and activities
Orchestration client
Orchestration history
Timers
External events
Integrating functions with other services
Function file
Input/output bindings
Custom bindings
Summary
Questions
Further reading
Integrating Different Components with Logic Apps
Technical requirements
What is Azure Logic Apps?
Azure Logic Apps – how it works
Azure Logic Apps – advantages
Connectors for Logic Apps
Connector types
Built-in connectors
Managed API connectors
On-premises connectors
Integration account connectors and enterprise connectors
Creating Logic Apps and integrating services
Creating Logic Apps in Azure Portal
Working with Azure Logic Apps in Visual Studio
B2B integration
Starting B2B integration in Azure Logic Apps
Summary
Questions
Further reading
Swiss Army Knife - Azure Cosmos DB
Technical requirements
Understanding Cosmos DB
Creating a Cosmos DB instance in the portal
Using Azure Cosmos DB in Visual Studio
Pricing in Azure Cosmos DB
Partitioning, throughput, and consistency
Partitions in Azure Cosmos DB
Throughput in Azure Cosmos DB
Consistency in Azure Cosmos DB
CosmosDB data models and APIs
SQL
MongoDB
Graph
Table
Cassandra
Different features of CosmosDB
Account level throughput
Database level throughput
Firewall and virtual networks
Azure Functions
Stored procedures
User-defined functions and triggers
Summary
Questions
Further reading
Reactive Architecture with Event Grid
Technical requirements
Azure Event Grid and reactive architecture
Reactive architecture
Topics and event subscriptions
Event sources
Event handlers
Topics and subscriptions
Connecting services through Azure Event Grid
Creating Azure Event Grid in Azure Portal
Azure Event Grid security
Creating a subscription
Publishing custom events to Azure Event Grid
Event gateway concept
Handling a custom event
Integrating Azure Functions with Azure Event Grid
EventGridTrigger in Azure Functions
Testing Azure Event Grid and Azure Functions
Summary
Questions
Further reading
Using Azure Storage - Tables, Queues, Files, and Blobs
Technical requirements
Using Azure Storage in a solution
Different Azure Storage services
Different types of storage account
Securing Azure Storage
Replication
Storing data with Azure Storage Tables
Creating an Azure Storage service
Managing Table Storage
Storing data in Table Storage
PartitionKey
RowKey
Timestamp
General rules for entities
Querying data in Table Storage
Table API in Azure Cosmos DB
Implementing fully managed file shares with Azure Files
Azure Files concepts
Working with Azure Files
Blob Storage versus Azure Files
Queues in Azure Queue Storage
Queue Storage features
Developing an application using Queue Storage
Object storage solution – Azure Storage Blobs
Blob Storage concepts
Inserting data into Blob Storage
Containers and permissions
Blob Storage: additional features
Summary
Questions
Further reading
Big Data Pipeline - Azure Event Hub
Technical requirements
Azure Event Hub service and concepts
Azure Event Hub concepts
Azure Event Hub durability
Working with Azure Event Hub
Creating an Azure Event Hub in the Azure portal
Working with Azure Event Hub in the portal
Developing applications with Azure Event Hub
Azure Event Hub security
Event publishers
IP filters
Azure Event Hub Capture feature
How Azure Event Hub Capture works
Enabling Event Hub Capture
Summary
Questions
Further reading
Real-Time Data Analysis - Azure Stream Analytics
Technical requirements
Azure Stream Analytics introduction
Stream ingestions versus stream analysis
Azure Stream Analytics concepts
Input and output types
Create Azure Stream Analytics in Azure portal
Adding an input
Adding an output
Azure Stream Analytics query language
Writing a query
Event ordering, checkpoints, and replays
Event ordering
Checkpoints and replays
Summary
Questions
Further reading
Enterprise Integration - Azure Service Bus
Technical requirements
Azure Service Bus fundamentals
Azure Service Bus versus other messaging services
Azure Service Bus and Azure Storage Queues
Azure Service Bus in Azure portal
Queues, topics, and relays
Queues
Topics
Relays
Azure Service Bus design patterns
Developing solutions with Azure Service Bus SDK
Azure Service Bus security
Managed Service Identity
RBAC
Advanced features of Azure Service Bus
Dead lettering
Sessions
Transactions
Handling outages and disasters
Disaster recovery
Handling outages
Summary
Questions
Further reading
Using Application Insights to Monitor Your Applications
Technical requirements
Using the Application Insights service
Logging data in the cloud
Azure Application Insights fundamentals
Creating Azure Application Insights in the portal
Monitoring different platforms
.NET
Node.js
Azure Functions
Analytics module
Accessing the Analytics module
Application Insights automation
Alerts
Summary
Questions
Further reading
SQL in Azure - Azure SQL
Technical requirements
Differences between Microsoft SQL Server and Azure SQL
Azure SQL fundamentals
Advanced Azure SQL features
SQL Server on VMs
Creating and configuring Azure SQL
Creating an Azure SQL instance
Azure SQL features in the portal
Security
Firewall
Advanced Threat Protection
Auditing
Dynamic Data Masking
Scaling Azure SQL
Single database
Elastic pool
Read scale-out
Sharding
Monitoring and tuning
Monitoring
Tuning
Summary
Questions
Further reading
Big Data Storage - Azure Data Lake
Technical requirements
Understanding Azure Data Lake Store
Azure Data Lake Store fundamentals
Creating an Azure Data Lake Store instance
Storing data in Azure Data Lake Store
Using the Azure portal to navigate
Filter
New folder
Upload
Access
Files and folders
Microsoft Azure Storage Explorer
Using SDKs
Security
Authentication and authorization
RBAC
POSIX ACL
Network isolation
Best practices
Performance
Security
Resiliency
Data structure
Summary
Questions
Further reading
Scaling Azure Applications
Technical requirements
Autoscaling, scaling up, scaling out
Autoscaling
Scaling up and scaling out
Scaling Azure App Services
Manual scaling
Autoscaling
Scaling Azure Functions
Scaling serverless applications
Scaling Azure Functions
Scaling Azure Service Fabric
Scaling a cluster manually
Using Azure SDK to scale your cluster
Summary
Questions
Further reading
Serving Static Content Using Azure CDN
Technical requirements
Azure CDN fundamentals
Working with CDNs
Creating an Azure CDN in the portal
Optimization and caching
Configuring the endpoint
Compression
Caching rules
Geo-filtering
Developing applications with Azure CDN
Configuring Azure App Service with Azure CDN
Summary
Questions
Further reading
Distributing Load with Azure Traffic Manager
Technical requirements
Azure Traffic Manager fundamentals
Functions of Azure Traffic Manager
Creating Azure Traffic Manager in the Azure portal
Routing method – performance
Routing method – weighted
Routing method – priority
Routing method – geographic
Routing method – MultiValue
Routing method – subnet
Working with Azure Traffic Manager in the Azure Portal
Configuration
Real user measurements
Endpoints
Monitoring
Nslookup
Traffic view
Summary
Questions
Further reading
Tips and Tricks for Azure
Technical requirements
The Azure CLI and Cloud Shell
The Azure CLI
Cloud Shell
Locks
Creating and managing locks
Naming conventions
Finding the best naming convention
Resources in Azure
Azure Resource Explorer
Summary
Questions
Further reading
Assessments
Chapter 1: Azure App Service
Chapter 2: Azure WebJobs
Chapter 3: Deploying Web Applications as Containers
Chapter 4: Distributed Applications and Microservices with Service Fabric
Chapter 5: Using Azure Search
Chapter 6: Mobile Notifications with Notification Hub
Chapter 7: Serverless and Azure Functions
Chapter 8: Integrating Different Components with Logic Apps
Chapter 9: Swiss Army Knife – CosmosDB
Chapter 10: Reactive Architecture with Event Grid
Chapter 11: Using Azure Storage – Tables, Queues, Files, and Blobs
Chapter 12: Big Data Pipeline – Azure Event Hub
Chapter 13: Real-Time Data Analysis – Azure Stream Analytics
Chapter 14: Enterprise Integration – Azure Service Bus
Chapter 15: Using Application Insights to Monitor Your Applications
Chapter 16: SQL in Azure – Azure SQL
Chapter 17: Big Data Storage – Azure Data Lake
Chapter 18: Scaling Azure Applications
Chapter 19: Serving Static Content Using Azure CDN
Chapter 20: Distributing Load with Azure Traffic Manager
Chapter 21: Tips and Tricks for Azure
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Preface
Cloud technology is currently one of the most popular trends within the IT industry. Every day, a new company embarks on its journey with cloud computing, distancing itself from traditional on-premise setups, which have a tendency to hinder quick development and impede scaling operations. As the modern world requires us to adjust rapidly to changing expectations and dynamic workloads, knowledge of how to develop applications in the cloud is becoming more and more valuable.
You are holding in your hands a book that will guide you through the different capabilities and services of one of the most popular cloud offerings around—Microsoft Azure. We will focus mostly on Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) components, which allow you to skip the cumbersome process of provisioning the infrastructure and focus directly on configuring various features and deploying your code, so that your application will be scalable, highly available, and resilient. The goal of each chapter is to give you a better understanding of multiple cloud patterns, connections, and integrations, so you can quickly start your very own project with an understanding of which Azure service you should use in this particular architecture.
Who this book is for
This book is designed to act as a journey through different Azure PaaS offerings. It covers many basic and intermediate concepts of different services, an understanding of which is crucial when it comes to developing reliable and robust solutions based on the Microsoft cloud platform. The main audiences are developers and IT pros who have just started working with Azure, or who want to do so, and who are seeking a detailed guide to enable them to extend their cloud skills.
What this book covers
Chapter 1, Azure App Services, covers how to work with and develop web applications, monitoring, and diagnosis.
Chapter 2, Azure WebJobs, explains how to develop jobs co-hosted with Azure App Services.
Chapter 3, Deploying Web Applications as Containers, explains how to develop a web application and host it within a container using Azure App Services.
Chapter 4, Distributed Applications and Microservices with Service Fabric, is a basic introduction to a microservice platform called Azure Service Fabric.
Chapter 5, Using Azure Search, explains how to develop a search engine using Azure Search and utilize it in your application.
Chapter 6, Mobile Notifications with Notification Hub, covers the development of applications that leverage push notifications.
Chapter 7, Serverless and Azure Functions, outlines the building of applications based on the FaaS model.
Chapter 8, Integrating Different Components with Logic Apps, discusses the integration of different parts of your system using Azure Logic Apps.
Chapter 9, Swiss Army Knife - Azure Cosmos DB, covers the utilization of a modern storage solution with multiple APIs and a consistency model.
Chapter 10, Reactive Architecture with Event Grid, demonstrates how to reverse a control with another serverless Azure component called Azure Event Grid.
Chapter 11, Using Azure Storage - Tables, Queues, Files, and Blobs, covers a common Azure storage service with many different features.
Chapter 12,Big Data Pipeline - Azure Event Hub, explains how to create applications handling thousands of requests per second.
Chapter 13,Real-Time Data Analysis - Azure Stream Analytics, explains how to perform analyses on a stream of data.
Chapter 14,Enterprise Integration - Azure Service Bus, introduces an enterprise-class Azure service for messaging.
Chapter 15,Using Application Insights to Monitor Your Applications, explains how to use Azure Application Insights to log data from different Azure services as well as from your own applications.
Chapter 16,SQL in Azure - Azure SQL, introduces a relational database PaaS offering that is available in Azure.
Chapter 17,Big Data Storage - Azure Data Lake, introduces a limitless storage service for storing schemaless data.
Chapter 18,Scaling Azure Applications, covers more advanced topics on scaling applications and how scaling works in Azure.
Chapter 19,Serving Static Content Using Azure CDN, introduces your very own CDN hosted within Azure.
Chapter 20, Distributing Load with Azure Traffic Manager, explains how to achieve high availability and offload traffic using Azure Traffic Manager.
Chapter 21, Tips and Tricks for Azure, provides a bunch of tips for working with Azure and Azure resources.
To get the most out of this book
Activate your Azure subscription (whether a trial version, MSDN subscription feature, or a commercial one).
Since most of the examples are based on the .NET stack, some prior knowledge of this technology will make things easier for you, although, where possible, other technology stacks are also included, while a basic understanding of HTTP concepts (such as the protocol or communication model) will be an advantage. A basic understanding of container-related topics will also be beneficial.More advanced topics and detailed instructions will often be included in theFurther readingsections. Make sure you cover them all after finishing exercises from this book.
Download the example code files
You can download the example code files for this book from your account at www.packt.com. If you purchased this book elsewhere, you can visit www.packt.com/support and register to have the files emailed directly to you.
You can download the code files by following these steps:
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Download the color images
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Azure App Service
Azure App Service is one of the biggest and most commonly used services available in the Azure cloud. It allows for easy development of web applications with multiple features available (such as support for different platforms, including .NET, PHP, and Java), manual and automated scaling, and different performance options. It's a general platform and runtime that fuels other services, such as WebJobs and Azure Functions.
In this chapter, you will learn about the following:
Creating and deploying Azure App Service
Working with different operating systems and platforms
Choosing the right App Service Plan and what their features
are
Securing App Service using different security providers
Diagnosing and monitoring your applications
Technical requirements
To perform the exercises in this chapter, you will need the following:
Access to an Azure subscription
Visual Studio 2017 with Azure development workload installed
Visual Studio Code installed (available at
https://code.visualstudio.com/
)
Creating and deploying Azure App Service
To get started with Azure App Service, you have to learn how to create that service and deploy your code. You will see how Azure provides many different ways for doing so, and each path can be easier or harder, depending on your current needs and the specification of your application. However, the strength of a cloud and Platform as a Service (PaaS) offering lies in the straightforward and intuitive process of provisioning new components of your system.
Creating Azure App Service using the Azure Portal
To begin with App Service, I will show you how you can create your very first web app using the Azure Portal. In fact, all you need is your mouse and keyboard (because each application has to have a name)—neither external hardware nor detailed configuration information is required here, because Azure will do everything for you.
Selecting Azure Web App from available services
To create Azure App Service in the Azure Portal, you first have to find it in the list of available services. The easiest way to do so is to click on + Create a resource button and search for Web App:
As you can see, the Azure Portal tries to help you find the service most relevant to the search string. When you click on the Web Appitem, you will see another screen containing multiple similar items, all related in some way to the one you are searching for:
For the purpose of this exercise, select Web App, and then click on the Create button at the right bottom of the screen.
Configuring an Azure web app
When you click on the Create button, you will see a screen where you can enter all the information needed to create a web app. All required fields are marked using an * (asterisk) symbol:
As you can see, when creating a web app, we have to fill almost all fields (with a little exception regarding the Application Insightsradio button, which we will cover in the next chapters). Let's focus on each field separately, so we have a better understanding of how they work:
App name
: This field represents the domain name of your application. It is important to select both a unique and valid name, as it cannot be changed later on. Please note that you can easily attach your own custom domain if needed.
Subscription
: If you have access to more than one subscription, you will be given an opportunity to select the right one for this particular resource. Thanks to that, you will be able to differentiate the cost between, for example, different projects.
Resource Group
: In Azure, each resource has to be a part of a logic container, called a resource group. This does not imply any additional cost by itself, so you do not have to worry about creating multiple r
esource groups.
OS
: Currently in Azure, you can create a web app using the different operating systems of
Windows
,
Linux
, or
Docker
containers. This choice can impact both cost and performance, so make sure you have chosen the right operating system for your needs.
App Service plan/Location
: App Services in Azure are directly linked to App Service Plans, which provide different features and performance depending on the option you choose.
Since you are just starting with Azure, you probably do not have any App Service Planscreated. As we cannot create an App Service without an App Service Plan, we will sort this now.
Creating an App Service Plan
When you click on App Service plan/Location,you will see a screen with the + Create newbutton, allowing for the creation of a new App Service Plan. It should look like this:
As you can see, we have to enter three fields:
App Service plan
: This is the name of your App Service Plan, which has to be unique within a resource group.
Location
: Thanks to this setting, we can locate our App Service Planin a specific region. This sometimes implies different features are available.
Pricing tier
: When you click on this item, you will see another screen presenting available features for different available tiers. This choice is really important feature-wise, and will depend in most cases on the environmental characteristics you are planning (such as
Dev / Test
environments,
Production
applications, whether you need deployment slots or not, and so on):
As you can see in the preceding screenshot, we have three categories of App Service Plans:
Dev / Test
: This one contains F, D, and B tiers (which stand for free, shared, and basic). They are designed for simple dev/test scenarios and lightweight web applications that do not need features such as autoscaling or backups.
Production
: This offers powerful machines and advanced features that are useful in many realistic scenarios,
such as
APIs, e-commerce, and popular portals.
Isolated
: This uses the same hardware as the
Production
tier, but with even more features and possibilities to isolate your web apps from external access. This is the most expensive category, but can be helpful when creating systems that cannot be made available publicly.
For the purpose of this exercise, I would recommend selecting any tier from the Dev / Testcategory. Once you are satisfied with the option you've selected, you can click the Apply button. My configuration, for example, looks like this:
Now, you can click OK, and you will return to the Web Appblade, where you can enter missing fields. Here, you can see the whole configuration of my web app:
Now the only thing left is to click on the Create button and wait several seconds for the creation of a new resource. During this time, Azure will validate the template and parameters, and orchestrate multiple underlying controllers to create a service. Once a new resource is created, you should see a notification and be able to see in your resources. To quickly validate this, click on the All resourcesbutton on the left and filter all of them using, for example, the name of the App Serviceyou have created:
Creating an Azure App Service using Visual Studio
If you do not want to create your web apps using the Azure Portal, you can use Microsoft Visual Studio, which has built-in integration for many different Azure services.
In Visual Studio, click on File | NewProject. This will display a New Projectwindow, where you can find plenty of different templates for starting with a new application. Because we are interested in cloud projects, let's start with the Cloud category:
Since we are working with App Services in this chapter, the template we are interested in is ASP.NET Web Application (.NET Framework). The other valid option here is also ASP.NET Core Web Application—feel free to use it if you feel confident enough to work with the latest .NET releases, as we will cover both scenarios. When you are satisfied with your choice, click OK.
The next step is the selection of the proper template. Here, you have multiple options, such as the following:
Empty
: The most simple option, which lets you have full control over installed packages and overall structure
Web Forms
: The oldest available framework for building web applications, using many built-in controls with data access
MVC
: A well-known
model-view-controller
(
MVC
) architecture, which took the place of
Web Forms
Web API
: A template for creating RESTful HTTP services using the .NET programming stack
Single Page Application
:This template comes with plenty of additional tools for building client-side interactions
All the preceding options should be more or less familiar to you. However, thanks to installing the Azure toolset, you should have access to two additional templates:
Azure API App
: This offers additional integrations with different Azure services such as Azure AD, API Management, and Logic apps
Azure Mobile App
: A template for building mobile backends
However, we will cover those two in the next sections of this chapter. For now, to proceed, let's select MVC,as this is the most common and simplest of all templates listed here. Use the default options for this template and clickOK.
After several seconds, Visual Studio should generate a project based on the selected template. I believe it should look familiar to you, as it is not that different to a traditional web application created from an MVC template. I am sure you cannot wait to see whether it works—do not wait any longer, and press F5 to start the application.
You should see a screen similar to mine:
As you can see, it is the same generic template that you would see when starting with a traditional project. The question is, how can we deploy it to Azure to have our website working in the cloud?
Let's stop our website running locally and go back to Visual Studio for a moment. When you right-click on a project icon, you will see a context menu. There, between multiple different options, you can click on Publish...:
Since this is a cloud project, you will see additional options besides IIS, FTP, and Folder:
App Service
: This is for deploying your application to a PaaS service
Azure Virtual Machines
: This is for deploying your application to a virtual machine that you have configured
For now, let's select App Service. You should see two different options:
Create new
: For deploying an application to a freshly created App Service
Select existing
: This option is only useful if you have already deployed your site
Because we are just starting, the option we are interested in is Create new. After clicking on Publish..., you will see another screen, where you can enter all the required parameters. If you read the previous section about creating an App Service using the Azure Portal, some fields should look familiar—in fact, you are doing the very same thing as you would do in the portal. If you skipped this section, I strongly recommend that you go back and read the descriptions. After configuring my web app, my screen looks like this:
If you are satisfied with the current configuration, the last thing left is to click on the Create button and wait a moment for the application deployment to complete. Additionally, Visual Studio will prepare a publish profile that you can reuse whenever you want to. We will have a look at it, as it will help us in the next section of this chapter. Once deployment is completed, you should see your web application open automatically in your default browser:
Congratulations! You have just created and deployed your very first App Service. If you take a look at the URL, you'll see that it contains the name you set in the Visual Studio wizard. All web apps in Azure can be accessed using the following URL format:
http(s)://{appservicename}.azurewebsites.net
This also explains why a name has to be unique: since, by default, all web applications hosted as Azure Web Apps are available publicly, you have to select a name that is not already in use in another URL. In the next section, we will try to use FTP to deploy our application, as an alternative to using Visual Studio.
Deploying Azure App Service using FTP
Using Visual Studio for deployments is a good idea for testing things and development, but for sure, it cannot be used for deploying production environments. The easiest option to upload files to App Service is FTP, which is already integrated with this particular Azure resource.
Deploying Azure App Service with user-level credentials
When you go to the Azure Portal and select the Web App you created previously, take a look at the Overview screen—you will see plenty of information regarding this service, such as current Status, Location, and URL. Among all that information, there is an FTP section containing three different parameters:
FTP/deployment username
: A name that you will use when connecting to your Web App using FTP client
FTP hostname
: A host that should be used when creating an FTP connection
FTPS hostname
: The same host as the previous one, but allowing for secure connection
My App Service currently looks like this:
All FTP information can be found in the bottom-right corner of the whole section. What we need now is the FTP client that we will use to connect to the server. I do not have any particular recommendation when it comes to selecting such an application. Personally, I prefer using FileZilla for managing my FTP connections and file transfers. You can, however, use whichever client you like, as all are quite similar regarding functionality. Before we start uploading files to the server, we need one more thing, a password for the user. To generate a new password, go to the Deployment credentialsblade, which can be found on the left in the DEPLOYMENT section of App Servicefeatures:
Here, you can set two fields:
Username for FTP user
Password for this particular user
You may wonder how this is connected to the previous username, which can be found on the Overview screen. The difference is quite simple: using Deployment credentials,you are creating a new user that will be used for all applications in all subscriptions associated with your Microsoft Azure account. This has the implication that you will be able to use the very same credentials for each App Service you deploy. This is not ideal for every scenario you will face, but for the purpose of this exercise, let's set a user and use it for deployment. In the next part of this section, I will show you how to retrieve credentials from a Publish Profile generated by Visual Studio. Once you enter a username and a password, press Save. Now, we can go to the FTP client and use these credentials for setting a connection. Here, you can see my configuration (note that your username has to be in the following format: <appservicename>\<ftpusername>):
Once you connect to a server, you will see a list of available directories. The very first level contains the following:
LogFiles
: Files containing diagnostic information regarding running App Service
site
:
Your Web App working files are stored here
We will cover LogFiles in the next sections of this chapter, describing monitoring and diagnosing an application. For now, we are interested in the site folder. When you enter it, you will see other directories: deployments, locks, and wwwroot. The last one should be familiar for those of you who have worked with IIS, as this is the most common name of the folder containing a web application. In fact, this is the working directory of your App Service, where all necessary files should be uploaded. Here, you have the full structure of an empty web app:
Now that you know how App Service is structured, you can deploy your files and see whether or not it works. If you want, you can reuse a project from the previous exercise, or upload a brand new website.
Here are the files from a previous project of mine uploaded to my FTP server:
Now, when I go to the URL of my website, I will see a working application:
Great—you have just learned how to leverage the FTP feature of App Services to deploy an application from any location and environment. However, as I mentioned earlier, we are using user-level credentials, which will be the same for all web apps that you deploy within your subscription. How do we achieve the same result using an app-level username and password?
Deploying Azure App Service using app-level credentials
There are two ways to deploy an application using app-level credentials:
Download them from the Azure Portal
Configure WebDeploy in Visual Studio
Downloading app-level credentials from the Azure Portal
When you go to your App Service and click on the Overview blade, you will see the Get publish profilebutton at the top, as shown in the following screenshot:
Now, when you click on it, your browser will download a .PublishProfilefile. Please open it to check its content. Here is an example file from my web app:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <publishData> <publishProfile profileName="cloudcomrade01 - Web Deploy" publishMethod="MSDeploy" publishUrl="cloudcomrade01.scm.azurewebsites.net:443" msdeploySite="cloudcomrade01" userName="$cloudcomrade01" userPWD="LEebknaDdg0KS6SgScLuXlwtzxvwYway7ssoKxCSkCLi6Gw0HRyt2iEGMLbP" destinationAppUrl="http://cloudcomrade01.azurewebsites.net" SQLServerDBConnectionString="" mySQLDBConnectionString="" hostingProviderForumLink="" controlPanelLink="http://windows.azure.com" webSystem="WebSites"> <databases /> </publishProfile> <publishProfile profileName="cloudcomrade01 - FTP" publishMethod="FTP" publishUrl="ftp://waws-prod-am2-197.ftp.azurewebsites.windows.net/site/wwwroot" ftpPassiveMode="True" userName="cloudcomrade01\$cloudcomrade01" userPWD="LEebknaDdg0KS6SgScLuXlwtzxvwYway7ssoKxCSkCLi6Gw0HRyt2iEGMLbP" destinationAppUrl="http://cloudcomrade01.azurewebsites.net" SQLServerDBConnectionString="" mySQLDBConnectionString="" hostingProviderForumLink="" controlPanelLink="http://windows.azure.com" webSystem="WebSites"> <databases /> </publishProfile> </publishData>
As you can see, it is a simple XML file containing plenty of useful information. What we are interested in currently is both the userName and userPWD properties. Those are what we have been searching for—app-level credentials automatically created on App Servicecreation. You can use these instead of the user-level ones that we created previously.
Configuring WebDeploy in Visual Studio
To check how to configure WebDeploy in Visual Studio, please go through all steps from the beginning of Creating an Azure App Service using Visual Studio section about publishing an application from this IDE. If you have done that, go once more to the Publish screen.
When you click on the Configure button, you will see another window containing the whole configuration of your deployment:
As you can see, it contains a completely different set of information, which does not reflect the user-level settings you have configured.
The choice between app-level and user-level credentials depends solely on the process of delivering your application. In most cases, you don't need to check by checking and setting them, as tools such as Visual Studio or Azure DevOps (formerly Visual Studio Team Services) obtain and use them implicitly. App-level credentials are often only used when we are in need of manual deployment.
Creating Azure App Services using Visual Studio Code
Microsoft Visual Studio is not the only available IDE that allows you to work with Azure App Services. Because this Azure service supports different technology stacks, including .NET, JS, PHP, Java, and so on, you can easily leverage its capabilities to host different websites using different runtimes. For instance, let's assume that we have the following PHP code that displays a Hello World message:
<?phpecho('Hello world from Azure App Service - PHP here!');?>
Such a simple PHP application can be easily created in any available IDE that supports the PHP language. For the purpose of this exercise, I chose Visual Studio Code, an open source editor, as it can easily beextended using many different plugins. To make things easier, you can install the following extensions:
With this plugin installed, you will be able to easily deploy your applications from within the IDE, without the need to go to the portal or use other methods. To push the application to the cloud, you have to go to the AZURE tab and find the APP SERVICEsection.
Before we deploy our simple PHP application, we have to create an Azure App Service. To do so, you will have to click on the Create New Web App...button:
The wizard is a little bit different than in Microsoft Visual Studio, as it acts similarly to a command line, where you provide all fields and information one after another. In Visual Studio Code, you will have to enter the following:
The Azure App Service name
The operating system of your choice
The runtime version
In this particular example, I specified the following:
handsonazure-euw-appservice
Linux
PHP 7.2
Once the provisioning is complete, Visual Studio Code will ask you whether to deploy the application. Select OK,and then choose the folder to deploy to:
Once everything is set and ready, you will see a notification informing you that you are now able to browse the website:
When you click on the Browse Websitebutton, you will be forwarded to the freshly deployed web application. Note that this extension allows you to directly manage the service from within the IDE, and gives you access to different features, including application settings, deployment slots, and Azure WebJobs (the latter of which is described in Chapter 2, Azure WebJobs). Here, you can see the working example hosted within Azure:
The important thing here is that by using the same path, you will be able to host a variety of different runtimes inside different Azure App Services. It doesn't matter whether it is a Java application, a Python script, or a Node.js backend—they are all supported and can be easily developed using IDEs such as Visual Studio Code.
Working with different operating systems and platforms
Currently, App Services supports a couple of different configurations when it comes to selecting operating system, runtime, and a platform. The following are some of the possible options for running your website using App Services:
.NET Core
.NET Framework
Node.js
PHP
Java
Python
Static HTML website
Additionally, you can select a platform (32-bitor 64-bit), HTTP version (1.1 or 2.0), and underlying operating system (Windows, Linux, or Container). Let's start by selecting a proper operating system for our application.
Selecting an operating system
To select an operating system to run your web app, we have to create a new application in Azure. Currently, there is no possibility to change this setting after an App Service is created. To create a new website, go to the Azure Portal and click on + Create a resource. On the new screen, search for Web Appand select the first item displayed (or just return to the beginning of the Selecting Azure Web App from available services section and perform all the steps mentioned there).
On the Web App - Createscreen, you have an OS field. You'll have three options:
Windows
: The most common option for .NET applications, suitable for running .NET Framework, Java, Node.js, or PHP sites.
Linux
: If you have an application written in .NET Core, you can leverage this
operating system
and its unique features. Additionally, you can run Java, Node.js, PHP, and Python applications as well.
Docker
: Offers Web App for Containers, which we'll cover later in this book. Besides running all of the previous platforms, it allows hosting applications written in languages not currently supported in App Services (such as Go, for example).
The choice is yours. Each operating system has different characteristics: Linuxis perfect for running Python applications, as Windows has some performance issues regarding this language; on the other hand, you may have many websites written in .NET Framework, which are optimized for Windows systems. Each of the operating system options also has different pricing. Let's compare Windows and Linux here:
BASIC
STANDARD
PREMIUM
ISOLATED
Price per hour (Linux)
$0.071
$0.095
$0.19
N/A
Price per hour (Windows)
$0.075
$0.10
$0.20
$0.40
As you can see, there are small differences between these two operating systems. More importantly, Linux does not currently support theFree and Shared tiers. The Isolated tier is currently in public preview, and should not be used for production workloads, but this, of course, can change in the future. When you have considered all the pros and cons, you can create an App Service powered by the operating system of your choice.
Selecting different platforms
In the previous section, you learned how to choose a proper operating system for your application. This is, of course, not everything needed to run a website—you have to also enable a specific language if you want to deploy, for example, PHP code. To do so, go to your App Service (you have many options by which to do this: either choose App Servicesfrom the Azure Portal menu on the left and select your Web App, or go to the resource groupyou created by choosing it from Resource Groupsblade) and then select the Application settings blade:
Initially, you could feel a bit overwhelmed by all those options available, but soon, as you gain more and more experience, all will become clear. You might have noticed the Upgrade to enablelinks here—some features, such as Platform or Always On,are only available from the B1tier upward.
Currently, we are interested in all options mentioning a programming language. These options include the following:
.NET Framework version
PHP version
Python version
Java version
