This series of blog posts is going to describe a way how Sitecore 7.2 rev. 140526 (it most likely works with other versions as well but I haven’t tested it) can be deployed using Visual Studio and the Windows Azure integration. The big advantage that you will get from this is that the deployment can be automated using PowerShell scripts should you choose to setup continuous deployment using a build server such as TFS (yes I am biased, I like TFS). So the aim is not having to use the Sitecore Azure module for your cloud deployments.
Why am I not very fond of the Sitecore Azure module?
- The module is a black box, it’s not clear what it does under the hoods
- The module doesn’t allow automation
- It’s tedious to trouble shoot if something goes wrong
- To my understanding, the module doesn’t allow to include extra roles (e.g. worker roles) as part of the deployment
I am sure I could come up with more but I think you get the point. 🙂
This first blog post is concentrating on deploying the Sitecore databases to Windows Azure. If you have used the Sitecore Azure module you may have noticed that this is the starting point. Given that the content of this blog is only required once I decided that it won’t be worthwhile to automate the steps described.
Continue reading “Sitecore Azure deployment using Visual Studio Cloud Service project – Part 1”