deploy my REST Api service project to Azure

Question

We are having a application developed in MVC 4.

Here are our scenarios:

1) we are following plugin architecture, so we are having other projects which can plugin into the main web application.Right now we are using installshield to deploy our dlls from other projects into the main web application. How can we do when publishing the main web application as Azure App service. Is there any feature in Azure so that we can remove the install Sheild and use some properties in Azure to move the dlls from other projects to the main web application folder.

2)We have logging feature enabled so the logs are maintained in local File store under AppData folder and upload the same log file to Db and delete the local log file? How can we achieve the same if moved to Azure App service?

3)Our MVC application calls the another Service application using rest Api calls.Currently we are mentioning the service details in config file under MVC application. if we are moving to Azure how about the configuration properties mentioned in my MVC Application to call the Service project.

To start with, I would like to deploy my REST Api service project to Azure.My project is a class library and please help how can move my service project to Azure App service and get the server name.

Answer 1

1) Plugin Architecture

We had a similar requirement but we were not using InstallShield for copying plugin DLLs to our web app, instead what we did was created the following folder structure:

• -- MVC Application

• ---- bin

• ---- App_Plugins
• ------- Plugin1
• ------------ Release DLLs
• ------- Plugin2

• ------------ Release DLLs

• -- Plugins (actual source code)

• ---- Plugin1

• ---- Plugin2

and set the output directory of our Plugin 1 and Plugin 2 to point to the ..\App_Plugins\Plugin1\

and we simply published this app directly to Azure Website and that worked like a charm.

Then we found out about CI/CD process on VSTS and that changed everything, it gave us a more elegant way of managing all of this. Can provide more details if you need that.

2 Logging Feature

If all your logging code & logic for moving all this to DB is within the application, then you should not have to worry about anything and it should work without any challenges as long as you setup your DB connections correctly.

3 REST API settings in config file

The web.config file of your MVC application is published along with the rest of your application. so, as long as your settings are mentioned in the web.config and they work locally, it should all work fine in Azure as well.

Answer 2

Start here - https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/app-service-web/web-sites-deploy

Ensure you already have a Azure account, and of course visual studio has the Azure SDK installed (it may be required).