Azure

Microsoft Azure is composed of a collection of integrated cloud services. It enables easy storage of databases and deployment of web applications to the Internet, without having to deal with the hassle of infrastructure maintenance. When it comes time to offer your application to a larger number of users, your services can be scaled easily to fit your needs. Azure offers pay-as-you go services to scale up or down to match demand.

Let’s deploy a sample Northwind Web Site Factory project to Azure using Visual Studio 2015.

Start the app generator, click on the project name, and press “Develop” to open the project in Visual Studio.

In the Solution Explorer (F4), right-click on the “WebSite” node and press “Publish Web App”.

In the list of publish targets, select “Microsoft Azure App Service”.

If you have not logged into your Microsoft account, enter your credentials in the login window that appears and proceed to log in.

In the App Service window, press “New..” to create a new resource group for your application.

Assign a Web App Name to this deployment. Next to App Service Plan, press “New…”.

Select an app service plan suitable for your deployment. Every tier provides different compute capabilities and features at different price points.

Please note that a dedicated (non-shared) app service plan must be selected in order for reports to be generated. The smallest available size that enables the use of reporting is “Basic – 1” (B1).

Press “OK” to save the app service plan. Then, click “Create” to create the required Azure resources.

When the process is complete, the Publish screen will open with pre-filled values. Leave the values as default and press “Next” to configure settings.

Check the box next to “Remove additional files at destination”. This will ensure that the deployment directory will match the local directory.

Press “Publish” to deploy your application to the cloud. When publish is complete, the application will open in your default web browser.

Including Report Viewer DLLs

If Reporting is enabled in the web application, a server error will be displayed. ReportViewer DLLs must be included in the published app.

Open File Explorer by pressing Win+E, and navigate to

C:\Windows\assembly\GAC_MSIL\Microsoft.ReportViewer.WebForms

Open the folder for the version of Report Viewer required by your application. Applications using “.NET 4.6” require version 12.

Right-click on the DLL file and press “Copy”.

In Visual Studio’s Solution Explorer, right-click on “WebSite” project node and press “Add | New Folder”.

Assign the name “bin” to the folder. Right-click on the new folder and press “Paste”.

The DLL will copy into the “bin” folder.

Copy two more DLLs, found at these locations:

1. C:\Windows\assembly\GAC_MSIL\Microsoft.ReportViewer.Common
2. C:\Windows\assembly\GAC_MSIL\Microsoft.ReportViewer.ProcessingObjectModel

Next, re-publish the app by right-clicking on the “WebSite” node and pressing “Publish Web App”.

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Then, press “Publish” to initiate the process. Once complete, the app will open in your web browser and open the home page of your application running in the cloud.

As of Release 8.5.10.0, Mobile Factory and Azure Factory project types have been retired.

Both Web Site and Web App Factory projects offer the ability to use Touch UI as well as deploy to Azure. In addition, Azure Factory was built around the “Cloud Service” Azure resource type, which has been marked as “Classic” at the time of this writing.

It will not be possible to create new projects of these types. The app generator will continue to provide support for existing projects created with these project types. However, it is strongly recommended to migrate away from these project types in order to gain access to new features in future releases.

Migrating a Mobile Factory Project to Web Site Factory

Mobile Factory projects were originally based on Web Site Factory, with “Desktop” user interface disabled. Therefore, it is quite easy to migrate a project to Web Site Factory.

Open the app generator. In your list of projects, click on the project name, and press Open.

This will open the project folder in File Explorer. Click on the “Up” arrow on the navigation bar to move to the parent directory.

Right-click on the project and press “Cut”, or check the box next to the project folder and press “Cut” button on the ribbon.

Click on the “Up” arrow to navigate to the parent directory “Projects”. If a “Web Site Factory” folder does not exist, create the folder now.

Right-click on the “Web Site Factory” folder, and press Paste, or click once on the folder and press the “Paste” button on the ribbon.

Switch back to the list of projects in the app generator. Press “F5” to refresh the page. Notice that the project is now of type “Web Site Factory”.

Proceed to generate the application.

Converting Azure Factory to Web Site Factory

Azure Factory projects are more complicated than Mobile Factory projects. In order to convert these types of projects, multiple files and folders will need to be moved. Follow the table below in order to properly convert your project to Web Site Factory:

In addition, any other custom files such as classes and stylesheets will need to be moved to the corresponding location in the destination folder. It may be necessary to link these files to the solution after generation.

Once all files have been moved, switch back to the app generator and press F5 to refresh the list of projects. Click on the project name and press “Refresh”. Proceed to generate the application.