Azure Websites is one of the Compute services available in windows Azure platform. Using this service we can host and run web applications and static web sites too. This service is also referred to as PaaS. An existing web application can be moved to ‘Azure Websites’ seamlessly without changing a single line of code.
This is a low-cost, scalable, highly secure, and highly available service.
The advantage of this service is that the developer/IT professional is not responsible for administrative tasks such as managing the underlying operating system and web server.
Windows Azure Web Sites offers two options - Shared and Standard. In the Shared option, web application runs in a virtual machine with other web applications, and in the Standard option web application runs in a VM of its own.
Applications developed using Node.js, Asp.net, PHP with Sql Server and Mysql can be hosted on azure web sites.
Built-in support for several popular applications such as WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal is available.
Unlike in Virtual Machines, the load balancing is done by the ‘Websites service’ on its own.
When we create websites on azure, a minimum of two VMs are created. If required, we can add more instances of VMs. Web sites provide IIS as the platform to run web applications. As a user we do not have any control on VMs below the IIS (Internet Information server) layer.
When creating a new website, a database for storing the data can be created. Web applications hosted on web sites can use azure services such as Service Bus, SQL Database, and Blob Storage.
Important words:
WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal are content management systems available from different vendors.
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