I was wondering whether or not Windows Azure is a viable option, now that they offer 10 free websites, for hosting a simple website with a database and domain name etc.. or is more traditional web hosting still the better option?
The database won't be that big, so the $5 for the 100MB database option will be plenty. I guess a few dollar's would be needed for traffic too?
Custom domain names can only be used in Shared or Reserved modes which are not free.
The free websites would be under [yourSubdomain].azurewebsites.net
So, it depends whether having your own domain matters to you and, if so, whether you are willing to pay for the website.
Notwithstanding this, Azure websites is a perfectly good cloud solution offering quick deployment of numerous CMS systems including WordPress, Joomla, etc.
I think it is a viable option. However, to get your own domain name you must change the website from free to shared or reserved mode. Heres description and link how to do this!
"When you create a web site, Windows Azure provides a friendly
subdomain on the azurewebsites.net domain so your users can access
your web site using a URL like http://.azurewebsites.net.
However, if you configure your web sites for shared or reserved mode,
you can map your web site to your own domain name."
http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/develop/net/common-tasks/custom-dns-web-site/
Related
I am new to Windows Azure, and from what I have read online it appears that any website hosted in Windows Azure needs to be a .azurewebsites.net website. So, if I had a website www.mysite.com hosted elsewhere, then it seems I cannot host this same site in Windows Azure, since I would have to use mysite.azurewebsites.net as the website url.
Question: Is above fact true? I could not find any documentation or any online article on this.
You can certainly host your own domain using Azure, as detailed in this support article (which links to a walk-through).
You can bind your domain to a website or cloud service, just I believe this is only something available in a paid tier. (Follow-up: Using a domain is only available in Shared, Basic or Standard mode.)
No, this is not true. You can have other domains, but in the background it will always has a .azurewebsites.net. See my blog as an example: http://www.buzzfrog.se. (This is only an example of the hosting.)
Here is an article how to do it: https://azure.microsoft.com/documentation/articles/web-sites-custom-domain-name/
/dag
We are looking to host a website (some css,js, one html file but not aspx, one generic handler).
We deployed in as:
1) Azure Web Site
2) Azure Cloud Service
Both solutions work. There is a question though: which way of hosting it is better and why? Second thing: as there might be a lot of traffic - which solution would be cheaper?
Thanks in advance,
Krzysztofuncjusz
You may want to review this article that explains the primary differences. Web Sites are best for running web applications that are relatively isolated (that do not require elevated security, remote desktop, network isolation...). Cloud services are more advanced because they give you more control over web sites while still remaining flexible. And VMs are for full control over applications that need to be installed and configured (like running SQL Server for example).
I think that main difference in abilities to modify VM and possibility to configure scalability. Web sites is something like classic hosting, without ability to login by rdp. Cloud Services allows you to configure VM and if necessary setup scalability and availability.
I've looked at all related posts in MSDN and stack overflow but still having difficulty finding a solution.
I am looking to map a domain and all sub-domains to my windows azure website. It is a reserved website instance. I am using Amazon Route 53 DNS manager and have mapped a wildcard CNAME to my azure sub domain, and created a redirect on the naked domain to the www. subdomain.
When I navigate to the naked root, the redirect kicks in and I'm brought to www..com, where I receive a 404 error from azure.
I know the wildcard CNAME is working. I've verified using MXToolbox. If I go to "Manage Domains" in the Azure web UI admin system, I can manually add "www..com" or any other subdomain (e.g. "helloworld..com"). Azure verifies it fine and after saving, I can pull up the website fine by navigating to that subdomain and my azure website loads.
Is there any way to add wild card subdomains without having to verify each one manually through the azure ui interface? My application is a SaaS that relies on custom user sub-domains to serve up their branded website and gain access to their account so I need any and all subdomains to map to my application.
Currently, wildcard domains are not supported as far as I know. At least on Windows Azure Web Sites. They are on the roadmap, but currently you'll have to rely on adding every domain manually.
See wildcard comment on "Configuring a custom domain name for a Windows Azure web site".
Another feature not yet available on Azure Web Sites is SSL using a vanity (your own) domain name. If you want full control of your site(s) you can use Azure Cloud Services instead of Web Sites. With Cloud Services you can provision certificates, domain names, and run multiple sites on the same instances using host header routing.
Anything you can do with IIS Management you can do with a cloud service.
You're a little closer to the metal compared to Azure Web Sites (but not as close as with a VM) and you get load balancing, scaling, caching, and other goodness. Visual Studio 2010/2012 has excellent deployment tooling. You will need to study up on Azure deployment projects from VS, bit it's not bad.
In the current technical preview, Azure lets you create 10 ASP.NET websites. They are given domains such as http://yourappname.azurewebsites.net. Is there currently any way to point a domain name to this website? Or are there any plans to support this in the future?
Update 18-sep-2012: Windows Azure Web Sites tiers:
Free: Allows you to test the Web Site Features
Shared: Cheap hosting (with 5 GB/month free) that supports both CNAMEs, A-Records and naked domains.
Reserved: Same as shared, but you get a dedicated VM
Read all about it in Scott Guthrie's post: Announcing: Great Improvements to Windows Azure Web Sites
Original Answer:
At the moment this is only possible for reserved instances (using a CNAME), this means it's not possible for the free sites you can create (which are shared):
You can only used custom domains in reserved mode. You can’t set a
CNAME like you can in Web Roles because multiple sites share the same
IP address. Switch to reserved mode and set your CNAME in the
configuration and it should work.
http://blog.ntotten.com/2012/06/07/10-things-about-windows-azure-web-sites/
Microsoft confirmed that they will add support shared sites in the future:
https://twitter.com/scottgu/status/210972290719031298
Fast forward two years, it is still not possible to have CNAME directed to Azure free website. The reasons are commercial and not technical. MS says that it is not possible because multiple sites share a same IP. But don't know why I have this dedicated server at GoDaddy that has one IP but hosts 7 different domains :-) So it can't be a technical reason. Of course, if they start allowing it, nobody would want to subscribe to paid versions.
For what it's worth, it's now (finally) available for about $10/month, in shared and Reserved modes). I've tested it and it's working perfectly, after the little DNS dance for the naked domain. This was the missing piece to Azure for some small sites I run.
The Gu has all the info: http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2012/09/17/announcing-great-improvements-to-windows-azure-web-sites.aspx
You will soon be able to use Custom Domain without having to upgrade your plan to RESERVED. We are introducing a new Shared mode. The new Shared mode will have some cost, but it is a lot less than reserved mode, and it will support Custom Domain. Please check back at the http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/ soon for more info.
As mentioned by Sandrino, this is possible only for reserved instances.
Not sure about Scott Guthrie answer. Check this thread.
It is stated that at this time there is no plans to support custom domains for shared instances.
It also contains a request to comment on Scott's answer.
Update:
It might be available for a fee (same thread)
We have been running WSS 3.0 for our intranet. We are going to be moving our internet site to WSS 3.0. The vast majority of people will access the new internet site anonymously. My question is in regards to the few people who will need to authenticate so that they can access intranet material from the internet.
We are going to host the intranet and internet sites on the same server. WSS 3.0 has already been installed, updated, and configured for our intranet. What would be the best way to set up the internet site collection so that it can be accessed anonymously but also so that when a user authenticates they can access intranet content as well? Currently the only way to access the intranet is to be on the companies domain with credentials that have access to it. What we would like to do, if possible, is use the login form that is built into WSS to make access to intranet content available opposed to setting up a sub domain.
You may use SharePoint alternte mapping feature as described in this article.
Configuring Multiple Authentication Mechanisms with Alternate Access Mappings in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0
I'm assuming that your Internet site collection and intranet site collection are not the same site collection with what I'm about to write. I am assuming, however, that they are housed in the same web application. If that's the case (and I understand enough of the specifics), here's how you'd carry out what you're trying to do:
Establish a Web application to house your site collections. You've already taken care of this (since you have your site collections available to you internally). In setting up a Web application, it (by default) is exposed at a URL (or server:port) through the Default zone mapping. For our purposes here, we'll assume that this is the URL through which you want to access the site internally (on your Intranet).
In order to expose your site collections via the Internet, you're going to want to extend the Web Application housing them. This is done through Central Admininstration > Application Management > Create or Extend Web Application. In extending the Web Application, you're creating another IIS site with (ideally) a publicly-accessible URL that can be exposed to the Internet. You'll be asked to pick a zone as part of the process; given your needs, I'd go with "Internet."
At this point, the Internet zone (you just extended) is still setup to use Windows authentication and Active Directory as it's membership provider. Though you probably want to keep AD as a membership provider (based on what you've stated), you'll probably want to look at enabling Forms-Based Authentication (FBA) on your Internet zone. Microsoft has a video on that here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/windowsserver/sharepoint/dd355701.aspx. Note: you won't want to use the SQL membership provider if you intend to continue using Active Directory accounts. Instead, you'll have to wire-in the Active Directory Membership Provider for FBA. Some info on that can be found here: http://blogs.msdn.com/solutions/archive/2007/08/27/forms-based-authentication-fba-in-wss-3-0-moss-2007.aspx.
At this point, your Default zone site should use NTLM and an intranet-available URL. Your Internet zone site should use FBA and have an Internet-available URL. You'll need to enable anonymous access on your public site collection for the Internet zone. This is done through a combination of Central Administration changes and changes from within the site collection itself (http://www.mindsharpblogs.com/ben/archive/2007/02/11/1557.aspx). Important point: when going into the site collection to enable anonymous access, be sure to go through the Internet URL; don't go through the default zone (i.e., the intranet zone).
With all of these things in-place and your site collections (or more specifically, the IIS site servicing the Internet zone Web application) wired-up to the outside world, you should be good to go.
I made a number of assumptions as I wrote this, so you may (obviously) need to adjust. Setting up anonymous access isn't overly hard, but there are a lot of steps to it. If you hit hiccups along the way, don't be afraid to search for answers. Many folks have done it successfully ... but more often than not, there are challenges along the way.
Good luck!
You can also create a web application for your intranet use, so user's who are in the domain get access through an internal URL authenticated, and then extend that web application for the extranet application for anonymous users....