Tag: windows azure

  • Deploying a Visual Studio 2012 Project to Azure

    Deploying a Visual Studio 2012 Project to Azure

    This has probably been covered about a million times on the net, but I have included it to complete my previous post on Installing Umbraco Visual Studio Install using Nuget.

    This post assumes you have a Windows Azure account and know a little bit about whats in there (databases, web applications etc.)

    To sign up for Azure, please click the following link: http://azure.microsoft.com/en-gb/pricing/free-trial/. This link covers in more detail setting up a web application in Azure for the first time http://azure.microsoft.com/en-gb/documentation/articles/web-sites-dotnet-get-started/. I am going to be a bit briefer here in this post.

    Step 1: Deploy the SQL/Server database to Windows Azure
    Deploy Database to SQL Azure menu option in SQL Server 2012
    Deploy Database to SQL Azure menu option in SQL Server 2012
    The following page appears. You should connect to SQL/Azure (assuming you have opened the Firewall at the Azure end) and enter the connection details for your Azure database server, along with the name of the new database.

    Deploy to SQL Azure Settings
    Deploy to SQL Azure Settings
    Step 2: Create the web application in Azure

    Go to your Azure portal and create a web application using quick start. No need to specify any database details at this point.

    Azure Management Portal Create Web Application
    Azure Management Portal Create Web Application
    Step 3: Download your Azure Publish Profile

    After the web application has created, go into the dashboard for it and on the right hand side, you should choose the download the publish profile option to download the publish profile to your local machine.

    Azure Web App Dashboard - Download Publish Profile Link
    Azure Web App Dashboard – Download Publish Profile Link
    Step 4: Import your Azure Publish Profile into Visual Studio

    The final step is to right click your project and click Publish, and then at the first step Import the publish profile into Visual Studio. See below.

    Publish Visual Studio 2012 Project - Step 1
    Publish Visual Studio 2012 Project – Step 1
    You also need to specify the connection string that the web app will use to connect to your Azure database. This information is available in the Windows Azure Management Portal for your database – there is an option to show the connection strings. You should use the ADO.NET connection string listed on this page in the Windows Azure Management Portal.

    Specifying connection string in the Visual Studio 2012 publish wizard
    Specifying connection string in the Visual Studio 2012 publish wizard

    I hope somebody finds this useful. For sure, deploying to Azure is easy enough, but setting up Umbraco via Nuget was not.