Create Sitecore Web Experience Platform 8.2 On Azure Platform As A Service

Introduction

Sitecore Customer Experience Management software contains state-of-the-art CMS and marketing functionality that gives you complete control over the great customer experience that you can offer to your customers. It allows you to unify all your activities across multiple channels, from campaigns to visitor activity to performance measurement.

Reference https://doc.sitecore.net/sitecore_experience_platform

Sitecore is one of the leading Content Management Systems based on Microsoft Technologies. Below is the Gartner magic Quadrant for Content Management Systems.



Ref http://www.cmswire.com/digital-experience/gartner-names-web-content-management-leaders/

All the Sitecore developers have been waiting a very long time to have their websites built on Sitecore XP (Experience Management Platform) to host on Complete Azure’s Platform as a Service offering (though it is possible to host it on Azure Cloud Services even earlier).

With the recent Sitecore Experience Platform 8.2 Update-1, it is now possible to create an App Service web app for hosting a Sitecore instance and take advantage of all the services and benefits that one would get using the App Service web apps as well as PAAS related service offerings.

Prerequisites

• Experience in understanding at least high level Sitecore Architecture and its related components.
• Sitecore License File.
• Azure Subscription

Let’s get started with creating a new App Service web app.

Log into your Azure account and search for Sitecore Web Experience Platform 8.2 in the search box, as shown below.



Click on the link available in the search results, on the "Everything" blade. As shown below, you will be taken to the following "Introduction"  blade.



As shown in the above screen capture, click on "Create" to navigate to the following blade.



Sitecore is an Enterprise CMS for which we need to create the following while creating the Sitecore Experience Platform.

• Azure SQL Databases – SiteCore uses multiple databases by default. We will discuss about these in upcoming articles.
• Sitecore Admin Login – This is critical for managing the backend for performing all the administrative tasks.

Click on the SQL Database link, as shown in the above screen, for configuring the admin credentials for the Azure SQL Database that it creates.



Click OK after providing valid credentials for the Azure SQL Database.

The next step is to create administrative account credentials for your Sitecore Instance back-end, used for managing all the administrative tasks.

Click on Sitecore settings link to navigate to the following step.



This is the step where you provide your administrative password as well as your Sitecore License file.Click on OK button after providing the details.

Now, click on "Legal Terms" link to navigate to the following blade.



As shown in the above blade, please review the following.

• App Service Plan (Standard S1) – 2 Instances by default.
• SQL Database (Standard S1) – 3 Instances.
• Azure Search (Standard S1)
• Redis Cache (Basic C0)

Sitecore Instance uses all the above features by default. Please review the information carefully along with the price details and click on "Purchase".

Once you provide all the required details, the blade will look like this.



Click OK to create the Sitecore Web Experience Platform 8.2. That’s it.

It took almost 40+ minutes to successfully create a new Sitecore Instance on complete Azure Platform as a Service offering.

Given below are the services that got created and all are configured as per the Sitecore requirements and configurations.

• 2 App Service Web App
• 2 App Service Plans
• 3 SQL Server (Logical Server)
• 3 Azure SQL Databases
• 1 1Azure Search as a Service
• Redis Cache
• 1 Storage Account
• 1 Application Insights

In our upcoming articles, we will go through all the above services and see how they are being used.

Summary

We have learned the following.

• Basic details about Sitecore Web Experience Platform 8.2.
• Prerequisites of installing the Sitecore XP on Azure Platform as a Service offering.
• Services that get created on the fly when you create a web app for Sitecore Web Experience Platform 8.2.

Hope you enjoyed reading the article. Your feedback is highly appreciated. You can read the original article here.