I would like to run Virtual Machines as Worker Role inside an Azure App Service Environment. I think I've tried and read everything. Is this scenario supported at all?
The short answer is no. Azure VM's, worker roles (cloud services), and App Services are three different hosting offerings.
Virtual Machines are an Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) solution. Think of it as your own server in the cloud. It is the most most flexible option. However, you are responsible for managing and patching it.
Cloud Services are a Platform as as Service (PaaS). Your concerns are limited to building and deploying your application. Microsoft manages updating the underlying VM.
App Services are a higher level of PaaS. Specifically, you can think of Web Apps (formerly Web Sites) as a hosted IIS. You have the least amount of control compared to the other platform offerings, but it is the easiest way to get started.
I would suggest trying to run your application first in an App Service, then moving to a cloud service if you need more control, and finally to a VM when even more flexibility is required.
More information:
http://robertgreiner.com/2014/03/windows-azure-iaas-paas-saas-overview
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/hanuk/archive/2013/12/03/which-windows-azure-cloud-architecture-paas-or-iaas.aspx
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I already have a domain name purchase from Google Domains.
I would like to host this site on Microsoft Azure, How should I plan to purchase all the required resources on Azure, if I want to host a Wordpress site, but would also need control over the size, if in future I plan to host some microsite with NodeJS or any other technologies like Java or .Net Core.
What would be my cost per month considering the above requirements?
Below is the list that I envisioned that I may need, can anyone suggest something this I missed.
A VM with Ubuntu (That would take care of Wordpress, Database(MySQL), NodeJS, Java and others)
Map my domain with Azure and map it with the VM
The solution you're thinking of is also known as IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) and it is something you'd usually consider when migrating from an on-prem solution where you already have the VMs images for your needs.
In your particular case I'd recommend looking into PaaS (Platform as a Service) - specifically Azure App Service.
Everything you enumerated can be hosted in an Azure App Service as it supports all major technologies for deploying web apps today (.Net, Node.js, Java, etc).
In addition to your own code, Azure offers a number of build-in templates for 3rd party vendors that allow you to deploy pre-packaged solutions such as Wordpress without having to worry about the installation yourself. See this Wordpress on Azure article for more details.
Pricing information for Azure Web Apps can be found on the docs page. In your case I suspect you could do with a B1 or S1 instance.
Lastly, for your domain name, you can easily map and configure any custom domain to an Azure Web App by simply updating the DNS records in your Domain Management system and reference that in the Azure Portal. See docs for details.
Adding to Alex's response. To provide you a good understanding on hosting website on Azure. Firstly, I wish to highlight that Azure offers several ways to host websites: Azure App Service WebApps (PAAS solution), Virtual Machines (IAAS), Service Fabric, and Cloud Services.
Azure App Service (PAAS solution) is the best choice for most web apps. Deployment and management are integrated into the platform, sites can scale quickly to handle high traffic loads, and the built-in load balancing and traffic manager provide high availability.
WebApp is a fully managed compute platform that is optimized for hosting websites and web applications.
If you wish to host your website/app on an Azure VM (IAAS solution), you would typically install, design and configure the app in a similar way as you would onprem. If you have an existing application that would require substantial modifications to run in App Service you could choose Virtual Machines in order to simplify migrating to the cloud.
Take a look at the supported and unsupported configuration on App Service Migrate - Migration checklist when moving to Azure App Service : https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/migration-checklist-when-moving-to-azure-app-service/
When setting up an App Service I can chose between App Service and App Service Linux.
The difference is that App Service runs on Windows Server and App Service Linux runs on Linux, but is there any practical difference?
Does it matter which one I pick?
There are some limitations for App Service on Linux. If you just want to have a web app service used only for development and testing purposes, you can select the free or shared tier of App Service on windows for a few cost. Or select the proper tier for your web app service depending on these features do you want.
Some features, such as virtual network integration, Azure Active
Directory/third-party authentication, or Kudu site extensions, are not
available yet. Once these features are available, we will update our
documentation and blog about the changes.
App Service on Linux is only supported with Basic, Standard, and
Premium app service plans and does not have a Free or Shared tier. You
cannot create Web App for Containers in an App Service plan already
hosting non-Linux Web Apps. There is a current limitation in regards
to not mixing Windows and Linux apps in the same resource group as
well.
I am trying to understand the advantages of using Service Fabric over a cloud service worker role.
Currently, I am using a cloud service for hosting (web role and worker role).
Will there be any advantage if I change the cloud service to an App Service Web app for hosting the web role and a Service Fabric stateless service for hosting the worker role? If so, what are the advantages?
Service Fabric itself is an application platform layer that runs on Windows or Linux, whereas Cloud Services is a system for deploying Azure-managed VMs with workloads attached. The Service Fabric application model has a number of advantages:
Fast deployment times. Creating VM instances can be time consuming. In Service Fabric, VMs are only deployed once to form a cluster that hosts the Service Fabric application platform. From that point on, application packages can be deployed to the cluster very quickly.
High-density hosting. In Cloud Services, a Worker Role VM hosts one workload. In Service Fabric, applications are separate from the VMs that run them, meaning you can deploy a large number of applications to a small number of VMs, which can lower overall cost for larger deployments.
The Service Fabric platform can run anywhere that has Windows Server or Linux machines, whether it's Azure or on-premises. The platform provides an abstraction layer over the underlying infrastructure so your application can run on different environments.
Distributed application management. Service Fabric is a platform that not only hosts distributed applications, but also helps manage their lifecycle independently of the hosting VM or machine lifecycle.
For more details, refer "Learn about the differences between Cloud Services and Service Fabric before migrating applications".
This article helps you understand the options and make the right choice for your web application.
As #PRADEEP CHEEKATLA said,Service Fabric itself is an application platform layer that runs on Windows or Linux, whereas Cloud Services is a system for deploying Azure-managed VMs with workloads attached.
In Cloud Services, a Worker Role VM hosts one workload. In Service Fabric, applications are separate from the VMs that run them, meaning you can deploy a large number of applications to a small number of VMs, which can lower overall cost for larger deployments.
And the key difference between Service Fabric and Cloud Services is that in Cloud Services you connect to a VM, whereas in Service Fabric you connect to a service.
This is an important distinction for a couple reasons:
1.Services in Service Fabric are not bound to the VMs that host them; services may move around in the cluster, and in fact, are expected to move around for various reasons: Resource balancing, failover, application and infrastructure upgrades, and placement or load constraints. This means a service instance's address can change at any time.
2.A VM in Service Fabric can host multiple services, each with unique endpoints.
Here is a comparing Cloud Services with Service Fabric：
Also, you could refer to this article to converting Web and Worker Roles to Service Fabric stateless services.
This question already has answers here:
What is the difference between an Azure Web Site and an Azure Web Role
(10 answers)
Closed 5 years ago.
I am using MVC application in VS2015.Now we are planning to migrate our MVC5 Web application to Azure app service. I am getting confused with cloud service with Azure app service.
Just wanted to check can we migrate MVC5 application to Azure app service ?
I have installed Azure SDK
Do i need to install VS 2017 to have Azure App service or with Azure SDK will work.
Does the cloud service project and Azure App service both are different?
Please help me in understanding more
There are many differences between Azure Web Apps and Cloud Services.
App Service Web Apps is a fully managed compute platform that is optimized for hosting websites and web applications. This platform-as-a-service (PaaS) offering of Microsoft Azure lets you focus on your business logic while Azure takes care of the infrastructure to run and scale your apps.
On the other hand, Cloud Services is an example of Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS). Like App Service, this technology is designed to support applications that are scalable, reliable, and cheap to operate. Just like an App Service is hosted on VMs, so too are Cloud Services, however, you have more control over the VMs. You can install your own software on Cloud Service VMs and you can remote into them.
More control also means less ease of use. Unless you need the additional control options, it's typically quicker and easier to get a web application up and running in Web Apps in App Service compared to Cloud Services.
In Azure App Service, deployment and management are integrated into the platform, sites can scale quickly to handle high traffic loads, and the built-in load balancing and traffic manager provide high availability. You can move existing sites to Azure App Service easily with an online migration tool, use an open-source app from the Web Application Gallery, or create a new site using the framework and tools of your choice.
Also, there are many ways in which one can perform direct code deployment to Azure App Service. You can use FTP/Kudu (Git/Mercurial or OneDrive/Dropbox)/Web Deploy etc.
Hope this clears your confusion.
I have a azure cloud service (a server) where i host a Redis database. I also have a web site hosted in azure web sites. I want the web site to be able to talk to the Redis DB on port 6379. I know I can configure a public endpoint for that port on my server but that would open it for whole Internet. I want it opened only for azure web sites (or even better, only for my web site). How can i do this?
Windows Azure Web Sites is in an isolation bubble separate from your Cloud Services and there's no way to bridge that gap. Ideally you'd do this by connecting the web site machine to other Azure services via a Virtual Network, but this FAQ confirms you can't do that right now:
Can I use Windows Azure websites with Virtual Network?
No. We do not support websites with virtual networks.
Opening Redis up over the internet shouldn't even be considered as it doesn't have the kind of security you'd want out of the box to be opening up its port publicly as it is meant to be co-located with your application, so you really wouldn't want to do that. Never mind the added network overhead which will eat into the performance you expect to get by leveraging something like Redis anyway.
I believe your best bet given your current configuration is to add a Web Role that's part of the same Azure Cloud Service and run your web based application out of that so that it can communicate with worker role. It only requires a little bit of configuration to get this going (i.e. adding an InternalEndpoint to the Redis Worker Role). While I realize Web Roles don't offer as frictionless a development model as Web Sites, you have to choose the right tool for the job.
Another option, if you want to setup your Redis on a VM instead of tying it to the Cloud Service directly, is that you can setup a Virtual Network, put the Redis VM on the virtual network and then configure the Cloud Service so that it's part of the same affinity group and add the NetworkConfiguration/VirtualNetworkSite configuration section to the Cloud Service's .cscfg.
Which approach makes more sense all depends on how you leverage your Redis instance, but the main benefit of the latter approach is that the Redis instance is not recreated each time you deploy your Cloud Service and, so, any data that's in it will stay available between deployments. Another benefit is if you want to build and leverage a Redis cluster across multiple Cloud Services this enables you to do that.