If you wish to run Kentico CMS in Windows Azure, ensure that the requirements listed in this topic are fulfilled.

 

Development tools

 

The following software must be installed on the machines where you plan to develop and deploy your Windows Azure application:

 

•Microsoft Visual Studio 2010/2012 (including Microsoft Visual Studio 2010/2012 Express Edition)

•Microsoft .NET Framework 4.0

•Windows Azure SDK 1.7 or 1.8

•Windows Azure Tools for Microsoft Visual Studio

•Windows Azure AppFabric SDK

•Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS) 7.0 or newer - required if you wish to run the application locally on the Windows Azure Compute Emulator.

 

The Windows Azure SDKs and Tools for Visual Studio may be downloaded from http://www.microsoft.com/windowsazure/sdk/.

 

Windows Azure requirements

 

The exact hosting requirements depend on the resource consumption and traffic load of your site and its components. For live production deployments of Kentico CMS websites, it is highly recommended to use at least the Small Compute Instance Size.

 

In addition, you will need to prepare the following services for your Windows Azure subscription:

 

•Azure Storage account

•AppFabric Caching service (128 MB or more) - required if you wish to run the application on multiple instances.

•SQL Azure server and database - required if you wish to host your application's database on Windows Azure. The smallest available database (1GB) is more than sufficient for the default Kentico CMS installation.

 

Licensing

 

If you wish to run Kentico CMS in multiple Windows Azure instances, you will need a licence which allows the corresponding number of web farm servers, regardless of the number of actual physical servers involved. For more information, refer to our website.

 

Limitations

 

There are some issues and limitations related to the Windows Azure environment, that affect the functionality of Kentico CMS websites:

 

If the application's database is hosted on SQL Azure, it is important to keep in mind that certain statements and expressions are restricted when writing queries (e.g., in custom code, web part properties or for reporting objects). For a comprehensive list of all SQL Azure features and requirements, please see the Guidelines and Limitations (SQL Azure Database) articles on MSDN.

 

A shortcoming of any application running on Windows Azure is the need to redeploy (or at least update your deployment) before any changes made to the project structure or code are reflected. This may make it more difficult and time consuming to perform website maintenance, customization and some development tasks.

 

In addition, the following features of Kentico CMS are currently limited:

 

•Full site import - importing sites is possible, but files stored in the web project, such as custom user controls, ASPX page templates or design files, will not be included in the import process. To work around this limitation, you can copy such files into the target Azure project and include them in the solution before you deploy the application to Windows Azure.

•CSS Theme tabs - management of files contained in stylesheet Theme folders directly through the Kentico CMS administration interface is not available when running on Windows Azure.