Running a .NET app on Azure

Question

I have lots of experience running my app on Amazon EC2. It requires a low-end server, and I currently pay approx $90/month for the server (yes, I know I don't really need the scalability, but I still use EC2). I was wondering about the benefits of moving this app, which is purely .NET, to Microsoft Azure. Are there any experiences with:

• Cost per month, for a low traffic site.

• Challenges in moving a .NET app that works on EC2 IIS to the MS cloud.

• Challenges due to lack of flexibility. For example, I can load my IIS7 server with a certificate and have a script for nightly backups of the database. How would this translate to Azure, where I believe there is less freedom to admin?

If you are an EC2 person with poor experiences of Azure then I would love to hear from you too...

Answer 1

The main model for Azure is deploying instances of Web Roles and Worker Roles. A Web Role is basically a .NET web application. EC2 takes a VM centric approach. I personally like the Web Role model better because you don't have to worry about any of the usual IT stuff you do with VMs.

One issue here is that you can have multiple virtual directories like in IIS on a VM. You have to do tricks with routing if you want multiple web apps from 1 Web Role.

It is pretty straightforward to get a .NET web app whether it is an MVC app or Webforms app converted to Azure.

One of the samples here: http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/windowsazuresamples shows how to port a simple web app.

The cost per month is almost identical to EC2 for equivalent services. Microsoft obviously studied their competition. If you have a MSDN subscription you can get 18 months worth of 1 web role computer and a 3X1GB SQL Azure for free.

Certificates are easy to load into Azure. You can only load one cert per role.

SQL Azure physical storage is replicated across multiple servers so you don't have to backup to prevent data loss (see IT reference above). However, there are all the other reasons to backup. There are methods to backup to Azure Blob Storage which is nice because it stays in the data center. Also, once again, Blob Storage data is triplicated and geo-replicated.