Windows Azure - Publishing

In Windows Azure we can publish the developed application into the online cloud in multiple ways. The two common ways are listed below.

• Upload the package using Windows Azure Portal
• Publish directly from Visual Studio

We have already discussed the packaging. You can view the article here.

For trying the Publish feature of Visual Studio, please follow the steps:

Step 1: Open the Web Role

Open the web role from previous Packaging article.

Step 2: Use the Publish command

Right click on the project in solution explorer and click the Publish item.



You will get the following dialog.



Step 3: Create the Credentials

Use the Add option from the Credentials drop down to create new credentials.



On clicking the Add button the following dialog is displayed.



The 3 inputs have to be completed for creating the credentials. In the input 1, use the drop down to create a certificate.

After creating the certificate use input 2, Copy the full path option to copy the selected certificate path to clipboard. This is needed to upload the certificate from the Portal.

Now sign in to the Windows Azure Portal. From the Hosted Services section select Management Certificates item.



Now click the Add Certificate button from the header panel to add the certificate.



Use the Browse button to paste the certificate path to locate the certificate from the developer system. After selecting the certificate, you can see the Certificate file details in the above screen.

Click Ok button to continue and after waiting a while you can see the certificate ready as shown below.



Note: Certificates are key components of Windows Azure security.

Now select the Subscription Id from the above screen. You need to make the top level item selected as shown below. Copy the id from the right side pane. (You can right click on the ID area and use Copy menu)



Back in Visual Studio, paste the Subscription ID into the input 2. Enter a name for your Account for input 3 as shown below.



Now click Ok button and you are ready with the Credentails.

Step 4: Select Environment and Storage Account

On selecting the Credentials, the next two drop down lists are automatically populated online. If you do not have a storage account, you can create one using the Windows Azure Portal.



After selecting the appropriate values, the Publish dialog box looks like below.



Step 5: Click Publish

Now you can click on the Publish button from the above screen.

A dialog box will appear stating that selected deployment is in use. Click Delete and Continue button to continue.



You can see the following progress pane.



Waiting for a few minutes and you will be ready with the deployment.



On opening the application in browser we can see the updated page as shown below.



This concludes our Publish operation using Visual Studio.

Summary

In this article we have seen how to publish an application directly to the cloud. In real world scenarios this will be the convenient way of updating deployments.