Steps to deploying on Windows Azure
- by Vincent Grondin
Alright, these steps might be a little detailed and of few might not be necessary but still it's a pretty accurate road map to deploying on azure...
1) Open you solution
2) Rebuild ALL
3) Right click on your Azure project and click "Publish"
4) It should open a windows explorer window with your package to be uploaded (.cspkg ) and its associated configuration (.cscfg) to be uploaded too. Keep it open, you'll need that path later on...
5) It should also open a browser asking you to login to your passport account, please do so.
6) After this you will be redirected to the Azure Portal where you will see your Azure Project Name below the « Projet Name » section. Click on it.
7) Then you should be redirected to a detailed view of your account on Azure where you will create a new service by clicking the hyperlink on the top right corner.
8) Choose the right service type for you, most likely the "Hosted Service" type
9) Choose a « Label » name and click « next »
10) Choose a name for your service and validate that the name is available in the cloud by clicking the "Check Availability" button
11) At the bottom of this same page, you can choose to create a group for your service, use no group or join an existing group. Creating a group means that all applications that belong to the same group will see no cost to exchanging data between other applications of the same group. Most of the time when you create a single application, creating a group is not necessary. You should choose a region that's close to your own region.
12) On the next window, you should see a "Production" environment and a "Staging" environment. Beware because "Staging" and "Production" are two different environments in the cloud and applications in "Staging" even when not runing do continue to rack in charges... Choose an environment and click "Deploy".
13) In the following window, browse to the path where your cspkg resides and then do the same thing with your cscfg file. Choose a name for your Label, and click "Deploy"...
14) From now on, the clock is ticking and unless you have free Azure hours, your credit card is being billed…
15) Click on the « Run » button to start your application
16) Be patient.... be very patient…
17) Once your application has finished starting, you should see a GREEN circle on the left side of the screen indicating that your application is READY. Click the URL to test your application and remember that if your application is a service, you have to hit the "svc" class behind the link you see there. Something in the likes of http://testvince2.cloudapp.net/service1.svc (this is a fictional link)
18) Hopefully your application will show up or in the case of a service, you will see your service's wsdl meaning that everything is working fine.
Happy cloud computing all!
