Web Application and WCF service deployment on Windows Azure

Question

I have an existing Application that has the following parts
1- Customer Web Application
2- Customer Web Service
3- Admin WPF Application
4- Admin Web Service

My task is to convert the Application and Services to Azure Platform and deploy them. I have the following questions and i will be be thankful if anybody helps me

1- The Web Application is using Memberhsip Providers. What to do with the ASPNETDB.MDF?
2- The Web Application is using Session. Can i directly move the application to Azure or do i need to do something first ?
3- The Web Services donot have a *.asmx file and are using Service Host. How to deploy them on Azure ?
4- Since i have 2 Webservices, and i will have to deploy them seperately. Can i deploy 2 Webservies and 1 Web Application in a single Azure hosting ?
5- Can i deploy the WPF Application ?

Note: The database for all of these application is the same and will be deployed on Sql Azure.

Regards,

Answer 1

To answer question 1 and 2 I suggest you take a look at the Azure Providers, these allow you to use a MembershipProvider and Session in Windows Azure using Table and/or Blob Storage. Besides that there are other implementations that leverage SQL Azure (MembershipProvider) and AppFabric Caching (Session).

Then for question number 3 it shouldn't be an issue to deploy web services using a Service Host. In fact, when you deploy a Web Role to Windows Azure, this simply runs in IIS on a Windows Server 2008 (R2) instance, and this works fine with a Service Host (I assume you mean ServiceHostFactory).

Your 4th question is about deploying multiple web services. This depends on your needs and on your budget. One option is to deploy the web application and the 2 web services separately, each on one Web Role. To get the SLA this means you would need 6 instances, but you'll be able to scale each component independently. On the other hand, you could also combine all your applications in a single web role (your initial cost will be lower). This can be done by using multiple virtual applications applications in a single web role (and if you want you can combine this with host headers): http://blog.structuretoobig.com/post/2012/01/17/One-Azure-Web-Role-Multiple-Websites.aspx

For your last question about deploying a WPF application, well it depends. There are a few things you need to take into account. If your WPF application connects to your SQL Azure database it would be best if you access it from a fixed IP, since you'll need to modify the SQL Azure firewall to allow external connections and this is based on IP (or an IP range).

It's also important to note that the WPF application is a client side application and it can't run in Windows Azure (you could through remote desktop, but that's not a real solution imo). Anyways, you could still 'trick' the user into thinking it runs in the cloud or at least make it accessible through your Web Role:

• You could deploy it as a ClickOnce application in your Web Role
• You could convert it to an XBAP application and host it in your Web Role, this way the user will never leave the browser and it will look like as if the application is hosted online.