Azure App Services
Azure App Service is a fully managed platform for building, deploying, and scaling web apps and mobile back ends. It supports a variety of languages and frameworks, and offers robust capabilities for DevOps, security, and management.
Key Concepts
What are Azure App Services?
Azure App Service is a Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) offering from Microsoft Azure that enables you to build and host web applications, REST APIs, and mobile back-ends in the programming language of your choice. You can deploy to a variety of environments, including Windows and Linux, and take advantage of automated deployment from GitHub, Azure DevOps, or other Git repositories.
Benefits of using App Services
- Fully Managed: Azure handles patching, OS updates, and infrastructure maintenance.
- Scalability: Easily scale your applications up or out automatically or manually based on demand.
- DevOps Integration: Seamless integration with CI/CD pipelines for efficient development workflows.
- Custom Domains & SSL: Support for custom domains and SSL certificates for secure and branded web presence.
- Global Distribution: Deploy your applications across multiple Azure regions for high availability and low latency.
- Security: Built-in security features, including network isolation and authentication options.
Getting Started
Create your first Web App
Follow these steps to quickly deploy a web application to Azure App Service:
- Navigate to the Azure portal.
- Click "Create a resource".
- Search for "Web App" and select it.
- Fill in the required details such as Subscription, Resource Group, App Name, Runtime Stack, and Region.
- Click "Review + create" and then "Create".
See the detailed guide for creating an app.
Core Features
Deployment Options
Azure App Service supports various deployment methods, including:
- Local Git: Push code directly from your local Git repository.
- GitHub Actions: Automate deployments from GitHub.
- Azure DevOps: Integrate with Azure Pipelines for continuous integration and delivery.
- Bitbucket: Deploy directly from Bitbucket repositories.
- Container Registry: Deploy Docker containers from Azure Container Registry or Docker Hub.
Learn more about deployment options.
Scaling
App Service allows you to scale your application to handle increased traffic:
- Scale Up: Increase the resources (CPU, memory) of your App Service plan.
- Scale Out: Increase the number of instances running your application.
- Auto-Scale: Configure rules to automatically scale instances based on metrics like CPU usage or queue length.
Explore scaling strategies.
Monitoring and Diagnostics
Monitor the health and performance of your applications using:
- Application Insights: Gain deep insights into application performance and dependencies.
- Azure Monitor: Collect and analyze telemetry data from your App Service.
- Diagnostic Logs: Configure logging for web server logs, application logs, and more.
Find out more about monitoring and diagnostics.
Custom Domains and SSL
Ensure your application is accessible via a custom domain name and secured with an SSL certificate.
- Map custom domain names (e.g.,
www.example.com) to your App Service. - Upload and bind SSL/TLS certificates for HTTPS.
- Azure can also provide free managed certificates.
Learn how to configure custom domains and SSL certificates.
Tutorials and Quickstarts
- Quickstart: Create a .NET web app in Azure App Service
- Quickstart: Create a Node.js web app in Azure App Service
- Tutorial: Add a custom domain and SSL certificate to an Azure App Service
- Tutorial: Scale an Azure App Service
Related Services
Azure App Services often works in conjunction with other Azure services:
- Azure Functions: For event-driven serverless computing.
- Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS): For managing containerized applications.
- Azure SQL Database / Azure Cosmos DB: For database solutions.
- Azure Storage: For storing blobs, files, and queues.
Tip: For production workloads, consider using App Service Environments (ASE) for enhanced isolation and dedicated network environments.