Azure

SQL Server supports exporting data-tier applications (BACPAC). It means that database is packaged to one file with schema and data. It’s not same as SQL Server backups but to backup smaller databases it works pretty well. Those who don’t want to mess with local backup storage can use cloud services like Azure Blob Storage to keep database backups. Here’s the example how I automated backup of one not so big database using free tools SqlPackage and AzCopy.

Although .NET 5 is officially in RC and not yet officially supported on Azure cloud we can still deploy ASP.NET Core web applications built for .NET 5 to Azure App Services. I made my first ASP.NET Core 5.0 deployment to Azure App Service last week. There has been no problems on Azure side and my application is running very stable. Here’s how I did it.

My fellow MVP Jiří Činčura wrote a nice blog post about hosting ASP.NET Core applications on Azure B-series small virtual machines: Running ASP.NET Core app on Azure B1ls VM (penny pinching). It’s the cheapest option on Azure for small applications. In this blog post I give you some additional advice about smallest B1-series virtual machines so you can build up a little safety net for your applications to make sure they don’t run out from resources.

I decided to isolate Azure storage account behind this blog due to growing number of attacks against this little nice reading corner. I have anyway Azure CDN service enabled and it is perfect tool to get all static content of this blog as close to my dear readers as possible. Azure storage can be expensive and this is why I don’t want unbuffered traffic to land there, specially if it is generated by bunch of bots that doesn’t commit to glory of this blog anyhow. Here’s how to restrict public access to Azure storage account but keeping blob storage open…

On the search for running development environments on cloud I stumbled upon service calles Visual Studio Codespaces. It’s nice service that moves development and debugging workloads to cloud and it makes it possible to use lightweight machines like tablets and hybrids for development. Here’s my overview of how to build ASP.NET Core web applications on codespaces and Visual Studio Code.

During Build 2020 Microsoft announced preview of Azure Static Web App service - app hosting offering for static web applications built on JavaScript. Automatic deployments to production and staging environments are implemented as GitHub integrations. Although currently in public preview this service is easy to set up and getting started. It will probably be one of developers favorite service in near future.

During lockdown I tried out how Azure Front Door works. It is another member of Azure load balancers and traffic routers world but it is global and designed for web applications. My only interest was to see how it works and if it is just for commercial sites or does it also fit for private WordPress blogs like I have. It was interesting journey full of of surprises and here’s the overview of what I did and how things worked out.

Visual Studio database projects have been one of my important tools since Visual Studio 2010. Database projects were not easy to use with build servers ten years ago. Today things are different. It’s super easy to use database projects to update staging and live databases from Azure build and release pipelines. This blog post shows how to do it.

Using Azure fluent API-s it is easy to create storage accounts and blob containers. After experimenting with fluent API of Azure storage I found it to be good match for multitenant web applications where tenant files are held on Azure blob storage. I was surprised how clean and short code I got using fluent API. Here’s my overview of fluent API for Azure storage with some code samples I wrote.

I discovered lately one killer feature of SQL Server – keeping data and log files on Azure blob storage. There are scenarios where we may want to go with blob storage instead of buying and building up our own stable and reliable storage. This blog post introduces how MSSQL data and log files work on Azure blob storage.