Sometimes in our website which is deployed on Azure web roles, issue comes related to small bugs in javascript and HTML. We go to all instances of webroles and fix these JS and HTML file on machines.
But I was looking into some automated way of doing this, downloading the files to patch from some central location and replace the files in all azure web roles. I am using ASP .net MVC for website.
It is possible to redeploy the website with the patch in the package but we don't want to wait for long deployment time. Please let me know if it is possible via some internal WEB API which replaces the content on all azure web roles.
There are 2 ways to deploy a new webrole:
redeploy
inplace update
The first one is the slowest, meaning new VM's are booted.
With inplace upgrade (https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/cloud-services-update-azure-service/)
The new application package is mounted on a new drive (usually F: instead of E:) and the IIS website is swapped to the new drive.
You can try this by going to the old portal and upload a new application package. In just a few seconds/minutes the update is done.
After digging many things on stackoverflow, I crafted my own solution which is creating a topic and subscribing to the topic in code when website starts. When I want to patch the web app then I send a message to Topic to start patching then each machine in the web roles will get notification from topic and start patching themselves. Patching itself is very easy, which is going to a web storage and downloading files from there and replacing files in approot.
When azure maintenance happens this patching may go away, so for this situation I made patching work started at start up of website too.
Cloud service deployment packages tend to be slow since they are basically a recipe on how to build and configure your deployment. The deployment not only puts the recipe out in Azure (so it can be used again if it needs to move your machine), but also follows the recipe to build out a VM for your Cloud Service (WebRoles/WorkerRoles are platform as a service so you don't have to worry about the OS and infrastructure level like you would if you were using the Virtual Machine Azure product but they do still run in VMs on physical hardware).
What you are looking to do is something that will update the recipe (your cloud service package) and your deployment after it is out and running already ... there is no simple way to do that in Cloud Services.
However, yes you could create a startup script that could pull the site files from blob storage or some other centralized location - this would compare to how applications (fiddler for example) look for updates then know how to update and replace themselves. For that sort of feature you will likely need to run code as an elevated user - one nice thing about startup scripts are they can run as an elevated user - so they can do about anything you need done on a machine (but will require you to restart the instance for them to run). Basically you would need to write some code that will allow your site to update itself. This link may help: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/cloud-services-startup-tasks/
If you have the ability to migrate to WebApps and WebJobs, I would recommend looking into that since that compute product solves your problem really well.
Here is a useful answer of the differences between WebApps and Cloud Services: What is the difference between an Azure Web Site and an Azure Web Role
Related
I have a website hosted as an azure web app. It's an asp.net website that's in a vs solution. On folder of that website is my products documentation, all of it as static resources (html and images). These static resources are located in a folder in another vs solution (this is the actual products solution). Both solutions are TFS based in VSO.
As of now, i have a webjob running in the context of the website that is basically doing a "tfs get" on the documentation folder and placing it's contents into the documentation folder on the website. This is working, however, the vms the website is running on do change quite frequently and the mechanism to create a workspace is bound to the machine, not to the disk drive. Thus, i cannot get only the changes but i must always get all the content which right now takes about 20 minutes and creates unnecessary load on the website. (This is why i'm only running this webjob once a week.)
Now i'm looking for a better way to do this. I would like to only get the files that have changed, making this a lot faster and let cpu/drive costly.
I did not find a way to create a workspace on the webserver that isn't vanishing each time the webservers vm changes. (if it was possible to somehow attach the workspace to the drive instead of to the machine name, that would solve the problem.)
i was also looking at my continues build definition that i have running for the products solution. as part of that, i think it's possibly to create a deployment where the documentation folder is copied to the app services's documentation folder. This way i could get rid of the "special" webjob, but i'd still copy all the docs files each time. (also, the build agent for that is running on premises, so i'd also have to copy those files from premises up to the cloud when they're actually already there inside vso.). So basically, i don't think this option is a lot of use for my case.
Obviously if i moved the static docs resources from the products solution to the websites solution, i could simply use the automatic deployment that is available for website projects from vso to azure web app. Unfortunately, for various other reasons (one of which being, the static resources are partially created automatically from the .cs sources in the products solution) i simply cannot move the docs folder from the products solution to the websites solution.
So does anybody have a suggestion for a method where i could update the documentation folder in the web app based on changes in the corresponding VSO folder?
You can upload the updated files to Azure app service by using Kudu API.
Simple steps:
Create a Continuous Integration build
Check Allow Scripts to Access OAuth Token option in Options tab
Add PowerShell step/task to check the changes with REST API. (Refer to Calling VSTS APIs with PowerShell)
Add Azure PowerShell step/task to upload files to app service by using kudu api. (Refer to Remove files and folders on Azure before a new deploy from VSTS)
Here is what i ended up doing:
Created a ServiceHook in VSO that is wired to "Web Hooks". The hook is called upon each Check-In and filtered based on the directory i want. (All of this can be done using the existing functionality in VSO.)
The hook calls an Azure "functionapp" (which is easy to do, because functionapps have a "HttpTrigger" mechanism which fits in nicely here.)
The hook passes the id of the checkins ChangeSet to the function app.
The FunctionApp puts that id into an Azure (Storage) Queue.
This triggers an azure webjob which listens on that queue. That webjob uses the ChangeSet-Id to get the changes from VSO and acts on the changetype for each change. (e.g.: Downloads or deletes a file.)
We have third-party software hosted in Azure Virtual Machines. This software hosts a service which is consumed by one of our Cloud Service Web Roles.
The issue is that the network latency between the VM and the Web Role is significantly affecting the performance of our application.
A solution would be to publish this third-party software in the same Cloud Service (in a Worker Role).
VM Role sounds like a good implementation for the above problem. Unfortunately this is a deprecated service!
One idea would be to package the relevant installation scripts and files into a Visual Studio project and configure the ServiceDefinition to set up the software accordingly. The concern here is that the installation files are over 1Gb.
Is there currently any Azure service that can support my problem? Is there a replacement to the VM Role?
Though a bit old, but you may want to take a look at Azure Bootstraper on CodePlex. From the project description page:
The Windows Azure Bootstrapper is a command line tool meant to be used
by your running Web and Worker roles in Windows Azure. This tool
allows you to easily download resources (either public resources or
ones in your blob storage), extract them if necessary, and launch
them. Since you don't want to always download and run during
restarts, it will also help track those dependencies and only launch
an installer one time! In addition, there are some very useful
features that make it a great tool to package with your roles.
Yet another idea (though I have not tried it) would be to make use of Azure File Service. What you could do is upload the installers in an Azure File Service share and then mount the share in your Cloud Service VMs and use it as a drive on your VM. You should be able to install software that way.
You're right that bundling 3rd-party software inside the cspkg can be problematic, size-wise.
It's common practice to download needed software from either a startup command file (.cmd) or from OnStart(). These downloads can be sourced from anywhere that you have access to: Azure blob storage, the actual vendors themselves (e.g. download from their public download link), etc. In your startup script, you'd need to handle the downloading (and potential unzipping) into a local folder, then installing as necessary.
Just getting used to VS2012 publishing of Cloud Services. At present I have a one instance webrole which contains a MVC3 application. I can publish it to Azure without issue, and it creates the Cloud Service>Web Role>VMs. Fine. Takes a little while.
However when I do a little code change how can I migrate just this code change without replacing all the VMs that implement the WebRole etc.
It seems that Code and infrastructure are inseparable, or have I misunderstood. Is there a way to just update the code bit?
Thanks.
When you roll out an update, you upload an entire package containing not only your code files, but also the configuration for the VM, such as # of instances, ports to open on the firewall, local resources to allocate, etc. These configuration settings are part of the code package - so there is more going on than just updating code files.
However, there are a couple of methods you can use to have more granular control over updates.
Use Web Deploy. One thing to keep in mind, is that any automatic service updates will restore your website to the last fully-deployed package, which may not be as up-to-date. You would only want to use this in staging, then do a full package update for production rollout.
Use an Azure Web Site instead, which allows continuous integration with your source control provider, and direct updates to the code.
Use an Iaas VM instead. These are basically the same as running your own custom server in the Azure cloud, and you have full control over the OS. However, you also have full responsibility for keeping the OS updated and secure.
You can also enable RDP to your Azure Web Role VM's. You will find all your code files there and IIS, but I wouldn't recommend updating your code this way for the same reasons listed in #1.
The code and infrastructure, in a cloud service, are actually separate. All you upload is a deployment package containing just your code and supporting libraries / files. You don't upload a vhd. Azure provides that for you, spinning up a vhd, and then accessing your code on a file folder on that vhd. Same process happens each time you scale out to more instances.
when you make a code change, you build a new deployment package and deploy that. If you do it as an in-place update (vs delete+redeploy), each role is updated on each instance (when you have multiple instances of a role, they're not all updated at the same time). You can even specify that you only want a single role within the deployment to be updated (helpful if, say, you have a worker role in addition to your web role, and want to leave all the worker role instances running).
when the code update happens, the VMs aren't replaced, but they are recycled, and when they start back up, they are running the updated code.
You can use WebDeploy with Cloud Services in production across multiple servers using the AzureWebFarm project (disclaimer: I maintain it).
Alternatively, you can also use the excellent Octopus Deploy deployment technology in conjunction with the AzureWebFarm.OctopusDeploy project (disclaimer: I maintain this one too).
To be honest though, if you just have a simple web app then I wouldn't both with cloud services - I'd just use Web Sites. Feel free to check out my blog post to see the situations which might force you to use cloud services though.
If you enable WebDeploy on the cloud service, you can use web deploy to publish the MVC application.
See http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsazure/ff683672.aspx for details.
All of the above answers are correct and if you are trying to change your code for a production service you definitely want to do an in place upgrade as described. However, frequently during the dev/test phase or troubleshooting I want to make one small change and test it out quickly. To do this check out http://blogs.msdn.com/b/kwill/archive/2013/09/05/how-to-modify-a-running-azure-service.aspx which describes how to modify the code via RDP to the Azure VM.
Deploying apps to Windows Azure Websites feels incredibly more convenient compared to the initial WebRole option. Being able to push through Git, and get the app restarted in ~20s is a massive improvement over the 15min role redeploy.
Thus, I am considering using this option for what used to be hosted in WorkerRole as well. Indeed, it's possible to allocate a full VM to run WA website.
Are there any gotcha to be aware of when attempting this? Obviously, as the name suggests, WA websites are not intended for backoffice processing.
In an upcoming feature for Windows Azure Websites, the scenario you're referring to will be supported:
http://github.com/projectkudu/kudu/wiki/Web-jobs
The following will allow you to have 2 types of processes to run aside your website:
Triggered - Start your process on a scheduled (or manual) basis.
Continuous - Your process will always be on (if it goes, it brings it back up).
Regarding the differences between Azure Webrole and Azure Website, there's a different question:
What is the difference between an Azure Web Site and an Azure Web Role
Cloud Services gives you two different environments: staging and production. You can also use Continous deployment with Git, Tfs, Codeplex, Dropbox too. But if you don't need this two environments, you can go with websites.
Using a Virtual Machine, you'll be responsible for the operating system, runtime, data and also your app (obviously). Just be aware that you'll have to apply the service packs / security packs by yourself. If your app doesn't use 3rd party components I don't see a reason to use a VM for that.
I have created a cloud app, with a distributed packaged that makes azure download the content from a weburl. (composite c1)
Now i would like to take a backup of my application, possible do some changes to the source code and upload again.
How can i get a backup of the files on the cloudapp?
You aren't very clear if you need a backup of your application code, or the files that are being downloaded (though I think you somewhat clarify in your follow up comment).
When you deploy a Cloud Services app the code is packaged into the cspkg file and sent up to be deployed. Some of the deployment tools (like Visual Studio, the PowerShell Cmdlets, etc.) will use a storage account to upload the package file to BLOB storage. This means that you'd have a copy of the packages you've deployed. If you don't use a tool that uses the storage account to deploy from I highly recommend you also keep a copy of the packages you deploy just in case you need to roll back to one.
Now, if you are changing code in your application, then you make the change locally, test it out and then you can redploy. You have several options for this. You can delete the previous deployment and redeploy the new one (which will cause downtime for your app). Another option is to do an inplace upgrade where your deployment is updated with the new package a few machines at a time (if you are running multiple instances). The other options is also a VIP swap where you load up your new code in the staging slot and then swap the bits between staging and production. I'd suggest researching these options to deploy new code on MSDN to understand them (they all have benefits and drawbacks, and some of them can't be done depending on the changes you are making to your code).
In your comment it seems that you are more interested in getting a back up of the files that are in your BLOB storage account after you application pulls them down. You have a couple of opions here as well:
Manually download them using an Azure storage explorer tool like Cerebrata Cloud Storage Studio, AzureXplorer, etc. (I use the Cerebrata tool)
Create some code that pulls down the data. You can do this using any of the Client libraries (.NET, PHP, etc.), the PowerShell cmdlets, or even use a tool by a vendor like Red Gate who has Cmdlets designed for backup/restore.