Difference between an Azure website and an Azure cloud service

Question

I am going to port several separate ASP.NET 4.0 Web Forms applications to Azure. Some of them are applications that use SQL Server 2008. I see "conflicting" tutorials for this:

Deploying an ASP.NET Web Application on a Windows Azure Website and SQL Database

vs

Deploying an ASP.NET Web Application for Windows Azure Cloud Service and SQL Database

Stack Overflow However, there have been a few changes in Azure in recent months, and I'm not sure how relevant the information is.

I want the easiest migration process possible because of the number of sites that I need to migrate. Is there a situation where I have to use the cloud service route?

Answer 1

In addition to providing a related answer: you need to go through the cloud service route if there are applications that need to be installed (for example, MSI, COM object, etc.). There is simply no way to do this using websites. In Web sites, you cannot modify a VM instance at all. With cloud services, you have many options for installing software, changing IIS behavior, almost everything you need to do (provided that the installations can be automated).

Answer 2

One point that can be very valuable if you are considering porting ASP.NET 4.0 Web Forms applications - Microsoft Azure websites do not yet support SSL for user domains. This can be a blocker for your migration to the website service.

Please note that Windows Azure is a very dynamic environment with a lot of new features that appear in each new version. To keep up with the latest developments, I would suggest the following ScottGu Blog to learn about new features and their release dates .

EDIT

The Windows Azure site now supports SSL for custom domains. SSL certificates and SSL bindings can be configured on the Configure tab.

You can also learn more about configuring SSL for the Azure website at Configuring an SSL certificate for the Windows Azure website .