Microsoft Windows Azure team has released a new version of Windows Azure which is providing many excellent features.
The new Windows Azure provides Web Sites which allows you to deploy up to 10 web sites for free in a multitenant shared environment and you can easily upgrade this web site to a private, dedicated virtual server when
the traffic is grows.
The Meet Windows Azure Fact Sheet provides
the following information about a Windows Azure Web Site: Windows Azure Web Sites enable developers to easily build and deploy websites with support for multiple frameworks and popular open source applications, including ASP.NET, PHP and Node.js. With just a few clicks, developers can take advantage of Windows Azure’s global scale without having to worry about operations, servers or infrastructure. It is easy to deploy existing sites, if they run on Internet Information Services (IIS) 7, or to build new sites, with a free offer of 10 websites upon signup, with
the ability to scale up as needed with reserved instances. Windows Azure Web Sites includes support for
the following: Multiple frameworks including ASP.NET, PHP and Node.js Popular open source software apps including WordPress, Joomla!, Drupal, Umbraco and DotNetNuke Windows Azure SQL Database and MySQL databases Multiple types of developer tools and protocols including Visual Studio, Git, FTP, Visual Studio Team Foundation Services and Microsoft WebMatrix Signup to Windows and Enable Azure Web Sites You can signup for a 90 days free trial account in Windows Azure from here. After creating an account in Windows Azure, go to https://account.windowsazure.com/ , and select to preview features to view
the available previews. In
the Web Sites section of
the preview features, click “try it now” which will enables
the web sites feature Create Web Site in Windows Azure To create a web sites, login to
the Windows Azure portal, and select Web Sites from and click New icon from
the left corner Click WEB SITE, QUICK CREATE and put values for URL and REGION dropdown. You can see
the all web sites from
the dashboard of
the Windows Azure portal Set up Git Publishing Select your web site from
the dashboard, and select Set up Git publishing To enable Git publishing , you must give user name and password which will initialize a Git repository Clone Git Repository We can use GitHub for Windows to publish apps to non-GitHub repositories which is well explained by Phil Haack on his blog post. Here we are going to deploy
the web site using GitHub for Windows. Let’s clone a Git repository using
the Git Url which will be getting from
the Windows Azure portal. Let’s copy
the Git url and execute
the “git clone” with
the git url. You can use
the Git Shell provided by GitHub for Windows. To
get it, right on
the GitHub for Windows, and select open shell here as shown in
the below picture. When executing
the Git Clone command, it will ask for a password where you have to give password which specified in
the Windows Azure portal. After cloning
the GIT repository, you can drag and drop
the local Git repository folder to GitHub for Windows GUI. This will automatically add
the Windows Azure Web Site repository onto GitHub for Windows where you can commit your changes and publish your web sites to Windows Azure. Publish
the Web Site using GitHub for Windows We can add multiple framework level files including ASP.NET, PHP and Node.js, to
the local repository folder can easily publish to Windows Azure from GitHub for Windows GUI. For this demo, let me just add a simple Node.js file named Server.js which handles few request handlers. 1: var http = require('http');
2: var port=process.env.PORT;
3: var querystring = require('querystring');
4: var utils = require('util');
5: var url = require("url");
6:
7: var server = http.createServer(function(req, res) {
8: switch (req.url) { //checking
the request url
9: case '/':
10: homePageHandler (req, res); //handler for home page
11: break;
12: case '/register':
13: registerFormHandler (req, res);//hamdler for register
14: break;
15: default:
16: nofoundHandler (req, res);// handler for 404 not found
17: break;
18: }
19: });
20: server.listen(port);
21: //function to display
the html form
22: function homePageHandler (req, res) {
23: console.log('Request handler home was called.');
24: res.writeHead(200, {'Content-Type': 'text/html'});
25: var body = '<html>'+
26: '<head>'+
27: '<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; '+
28: 'charset=UTF-8" />'+
29: '</head>'+
30: '<body>'+
31: '<form action="/register" method="post">'+
32: 'Name:<input type=text value="" name="name" size=15></br>'+
33: 'Email:<input type=text value="" name="email" size=15></br>'+
34: '<input type="submit" value="Submit" />'+
35: '</form>'+
36: '</body>'+
37: '</html>';
38: //response content
39: res.end(body);
40: }
41: //handler for Post request
42: function registerFormHandler (req, res) {
43: console.log('Request handler register was called.');
44: var pathname = url.parse(req.url).pathname;
45: console.log("Request for " + pathname + " received.");
46: var postData = "";
47: req.on('data', function(chunk) {
48: // append
the current chunk of data to
the postData variable
49: postData += chunk.toString();
50: });
51: req.on('end', function() {
52: // doing something with
the posted data
53: res.writeHead(200, "OK", {'Content-Type': 'text/html'});
54: // parse
the posted data
55: var decodedBody = querystring.parse(postData);
56: // output
the decoded data to
the HTTP response
57: res.write('<html><head><title>Post data</title></head><body><pre>');
58: res.write(utils.inspect(decodedBody));
59: res.write('</pre></body></html>');
60: res.end();
61: });
62: }
63: //Error handler for 404 no found
64: function nofoundHandler(req, res) {
65: console.log('Request handler nofound was called.');
66: res.writeHead(404, {'Content-Type': 'text/plain'});
67: res.end('404 Error - Request handler not found');
68: }
.csharpcode, .csharpcode pre
{
font-size: small;
color: black;
font-family: consolas, "Courier New", courier, monospace;
background-color: #ffffff;
/*white-space: pre;*/
}
.csharpcode pre { margin: 0em; }
.csharpcode .rem { color: #008000; }
.csharpcode .kwrd { color: #0000ff; }
.csharpcode .str { color: #006080; }
.csharpcode .op { color: #0000c0; }
.csharpcode .preproc { color: #cc6633; }
.csharpcode .asp { background-color: #ffff00; }
.csharpcode .html { color: #800000; }
.csharpcode .attr { color: #ff0000; }
.csharpcode .alt
{
background-color: #f4f4f4;
width: 100%;
margin: 0em;
}
.csharpcode .lnum { color: #606060; }
If there is any change in
the local repository folder, GitHub for Windows will automatically detect
the changes. In
the above step, we have just added a Server.js file so that GitHub for Windows will detect
the changes. Let’s commit
the changes to
the local repository before publishing
the web site to Windows Azure.
After committed
the all changes, you can click publish button which will publish
the all changes to Windows Azure repository.
The following screen shot shows deployment history from
the Windows Azure portal.
GitHub for Windows is providing a sync button which can use for synchronizing between local repository and Windows Azure repository after making any commit on
the local repository after any changes.
Our web site is running after
the deployment using Git
Summary
Windows Azure Web Sites lets
the developers to easily build and deploy websites with support for multiple framework including ASP.NET, PHP and Node.js and can easily deploy
the Web Sites using Visual Studio, Git, FTP, Visual Studio Team Foundation Services and Microsoft WebMatrix. In this demo, we have deployed a Node.js Web Site to Windows Azure using Git. We can use GitHub for Windows to publish apps to non-GitHub repositories and can use to publish Web SItes to Windows Azure.
