1. Cloud Services vs. Web Apps
Boston Code Camp - November 2016
Jason Haley

2. Hosting multi-tier web applications
The three ways to host your applications on the Microsoft Azure Platform
Hosting multi-tier web applications
Infrastructure as a Service
IaaS
Platform as a Service
PaaS
Making the point that Virtual Machines is IaaS while both CloudServices, Websites and Service Fabric are PaaS.
Compare to personal transportation:
IaaS – own and operate your own car
PaaS – rent a car

3. Cloud Services Worker or Web Roles Various machine sizes
Support for multiple languages
Designed to scale horizontally
A lot of control to configure
Support for Java, Node.js, PHP, Python, .NET, and Ruby

4. Demo: Cloud Service Creation

5. App Services – Web Apps Designed for hosting web sites with web jobs
Various machine sizes (even a free tier)
Support for multiple languages
Designed to scale vertically/horizontally
Near-instant deployment
Supports .NET, Java, PHP, Node.js, and Python

6. Demo: Web App Creation

7. Common Features

8. General Host web tier of multi-tier architecture
Integrated endpoint monitoring
Host middle tier of a multi-tier architecture
SSL/TLS support
Various machine sizes

9. Development Multiple languages Continuous delivery with VSTS
Visual Studio tooling
Access to services like Service Bus, Storage, SQL Database, Redis, Key Vault, etc.
Remote debugging
Web Apps can add ruby support with Site Extension

10. Deployment Multiple deployment environments Automatic OS updates
Traffic Manager
Scale instances without redeploy
Network isolation*
Can be 32 or 64 bit
Configuration settings in cloud
* If you need more than ability for Web site to connect to VNet via VPN, then need to go to App Service Environment for Web Apps to get network isolation.

11. Two Tier App

12. Two Tier web site or app Examples:
Deployed as a single web site
No database or external services
Could use local database or data files
UI Layer
http/https
Business Layer
Examples:
Marketing site Blogging site with local data files

13. Two Tier with Cloud Services
Pros
Cons
Easy to add to web project in Visual Studio
Can RDP to machine
Can run startup scripts as elevated user
Small changes require redeploy
Deployment is slow
Need two instances for SLA
Other Pros:
Other Cons:
- Staging slot name is guid

14. Two Tier with Web Apps Pros Cons Small changes don’t require redeploy
Only need one instance for SLA
Can have more than two deployment slots
Cannot RDP to machine
Cannot run startup scripts as elevated user
Other Pros:
Easy A/B testing between slots
Can scale up/down machine size without redeploying
Many templates to choose from for blogs, etc.
Free plan available
Other Cons:

15. N Tier App

16. N Tier web app with background processing
Web site
Worker
Web site(s) and worker(s) processes
External database or external services
Worker could be a service tier
Web site and worker may communicate using a queue
UI Layer
http/https
Business Layer
Examples:
ASP.Net MVC web application with database Web application with worker services that offload time intensive processing (like OCR, sending, video processing, etc.) Web application with service layer (‘worker’ could be another site with just apis) used to separate UI -> Business -> Data

17. N Tier with Cloud Services
Pros
Cons
Easy to deploy multiple roles in single package
Worker roles are independent from web role resources
Can have internal and other tcp/udp endpoints
Worker role means paying for another machine 24/7
Need two instances for SLA
More roles mean bigger package which means slower deployment
Other Pros
Can have reserved static ip address
Other Cons

18. N Tier with Web Apps Pros Cons
WebJob SDK make worker type logic quick to write
Always On keeps site warm
Only need one instance for SLA
WebJobs use same resources as site
Publishing multiple sites in single deployment is not easy out of the box
Only port 80 and 443 open
Other Pros
Other Cons
- Unless using ASE ip addresses are from a pool of 4 addresses when making calls over the internet (ex. other 3rd party service apis)

19. N Tier App + DMZ
DMZ (demilitarized zone) refers to a perimeter network which is a logical subnetwork that contains and exposes an organizations external facing services to a larger and untrusted network (usually the internet).

20. N Tier web app with background processing plus DMZ
Web site
Services
No direct path from internet to services or db
Perimeter network, subnets for tiers
Inbound and outbound traffic rules
App components are deployed in subnets
Could add security appliance like firewall or Web Application Firewall
UI Layer
Business Layer
https
Data Layer
DMZ (demilitarized zone) refers to a perimeter network which is a logical subnetwork that contains and exposes an organizations external facing services to a larger and untrusted network (usually the internet).
Examples:
Same examples as other tier scenarios but this one has full control over access to application components and how data flows.
Web application that needs a Web Application Firewall (WAF) in front of it.

21. N Tier + DMZ with Cloud Services
Pros
Cons
May need less resources in comparison to Web Apps
Define which subnets the roles belong to in cscfg file
Cloud Services have to be added to the network
High density resource usage is harder to achieve

22. App Service Terms
App Service Plan (ASP) – Free, Shared, Basic, Standard, Premium levels.
App Service Environment (ASE) – Premium service plan option of a fully isolated and dedicated environment. Designed for high RPS (Requests per Second) and high security scenarios.

23. N Tier + DMZ with Web Apps
Pros
Cons
Once setup is mostly like web apps (faster deploy)
An ASE is always deployed in a VNet
Easier to get higher density resource usage
Have to use an App Service Environment (ASE) for each tier
NSG rules are between ASE’s not specific apps
Scaling is a slow process

24. Summary

25. General Advice Start with web apps unless you can’t
If you can’t afford ASE but need N Tier + DMZ, go with cloud services

26. Use Cloud Services When You …
need machine level access
need startup tasks
need ETW access
need to receive traffic from ports other than 80/443

27. Use Web Apps When You …
have an http(s) app and/or background processing
need fast deployment of assets
need the ability to scale vertically without redeploying
find the additional tools provided by the portal are worth it
Additional tools with Web Aps that Cloud Services doesn’t have:
WebJobs and WebJobs SDK
Multiple Deployment Slots and ability to do A/B testing
Extra deployment options (like local git, etc.)
Ftp
Authentication/Authorization
Kudu (can even drag and drop files on server)

29. Questions?
Contact Me
Blog:
North Boston Azure User Group
Meets Here on last Tuesday of the month