In Sitecore 8.2 since update 1, Sitecore provided out of the box support for Azure Platform as a Service deployments. Before Sitecore 8.2.1, it was possible to deploy Sitecore using Cloud Services which required custom deployment and had a few drawbacks like no support for some Sitecore modules like WFFM or EXM, burdensome maintenance, long deployments time and requirement of integration with third-party services because of lack of automatic scaling.
Since Sitecore 8.2.1 there are possible two ways of deployments:
- One-click deployment option using Azure Marketplace
- Powershell based deployment using Azure Resource Manager Templates
In this post, I am going to cover the first option which is the easiest and does not require any technical skills. The ARM Templates deployment would be covered in a separate post because it is much more complex.
Installation using Azure Marketplace
What should you expect after the deployment:
Azure Marketplace installation provide a one default configuration with separate Content Management and Content Delivery instances in CMS-only mode (xDb is not supported). As a default search uses Azure Search however it is possible to use Solr if desired, Lucene is not supported.
Default configuration:
- Content Delivery Web App
- Content Management Web App
- Azure Search
- Redis Cache
- 2 x Azure SQL Server:
- Content Management (Master & Core DBs)
- Content Delivery (Web DB)
- Application Insights
Prerequisites:
- Azure subscription
- Sitecore license
- Browser (no coding skills required!)
- No need to have Sitecore 8.2.1 vanilla up and running on your local environment!
Installation:
- To start login to the existing account or create a new one on https://portal.azure.com.
- Click the plus icon in the upper left-hand corner and search Azure Marketplace for “Sitecore”.
- Click on the Sitecore Web Experience Manager 8.2 and select “Create”.
- Follow the wizard and fill required information like application name and subscription details. A resource group is a container which holds resources related to your application like virtual machines, database or website.
- Fill the database credentials – during the installation a new SQL Azure DB will be created.
- Provide Sitecore administrator login details which would allow you to login to Sitecore backend and provide a valid license.xml file.
- Review the Legal Terms and click “Purchase” button at the bottom of the tab.
- Click OK at the bottom of the page to deploy.
Continue reading part 2 of the tutorial: Sitecore 8.2.1 ARM Templates deployment.
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