How Do I Choose Azure App Service?

Before Choosing any services it is very important to make a comparison among the services provided by different service providers. This is what I do, Before I chose any Azure App Service Plan I compare the Azure App Services and Cloud Services.

Microsoft Azure provides multiple ways to deploy your applications to the Azure cloud. Azure App Services and Cloud Services are the two most popular, and easiest, ways to deploy our applications. They both support web applications and background service-type applications. In this article, I will provide an Azure App Service plan comparison with Cloud Services, along with a quick overview of each.

1. App Services

Microsoft Azure App Service Plan defines a platform as a service (PaaS) offering. Azure runs App Services on a fully managed set of virtual machines in either a dedicated or shared mode, based on your Azure App Service Plan. There are 4 types of App Services:

i. Web App – used for hosting websites and web applications (previously Azure Websites)

ii. API App – used for hosting the RESTful APIs

iii. Logic App – used for business process automation, system integration and sharing data across clouds

iv. Mobile App – used for hosting mobile app backends (previously delivered by Azure Mobile services)

Pros

i. Very easy to deploy much faster than Cloud Services

ii. Deployment slots are free

iii. Built-in A/B testing features

iv. Can combine multiple applications together to save money

v. Extendable with Site Extensions

Cons

i. No server access

ii. Cannot use all monitoring tools because you can’t install an agent

iii. Limited Windows performance counters

iv.Limited VM sizes and specs to pick from

2. App Services WebJobs

Azure WebJobs provide an easy way to run background processes. These can be configured to run on a schedule, on-demand, or continuously. For example, Stackify’s Azure monitoring agent runs continuously in the background for every Azure App Service Plan instance that you have. There is no additional cost associated with running WebJobs. You may have to scale your Azure App Service Plan up or out a little to handle the extra resources utilized by the WebJobs.

Pros

i. Easy to deploy

ii. No cost beyond App Service Plan costs

iii. Easy way to set up scheduled tasks

Cons

i. Apps must work in a limited permission sandboxed environment

3. Cloud Services: Web & Worker Roles

Cloud services were the very first Microsoft Azure Platform as a service (PaaS) offering. They provide the ability to deploy web apps (web roles) and background services (worker roles) onto Azure virtual machines. Azure handles all of the initialization of the servers, deployment to them, Windows Updates, etc.

Web Roles are used to hosting web applications. Worker Roles are used to hosting background services, similar to Windows Services.

Pros

i. Can pick from several VM sizes

ii. Full server administrator access

iii. Can install a wide array of software on the server itself

iv. Full access to Windows performance counters and ETW

Cons

i. Very slow to deploy to

ii. Staging slots cost money to use

iii. Can’t easily combine multiple apps together

iv. Can’t change the VM instance size without redeploying

Conclusion

Both App Services and Cloud Services provide a lot of good features and are a simple way to deploy your applications to the Microsoft Azure cloud. They are much easier than setting up your virtual machines! The primary differentiating factor is Cloud Services offers access to the underlying Azure VMs, and App Services do not. To know How to change app service plan in azure contact us.

In my opinion, I prefer Azure App Service Plan for these specific reasons:

-- Combine multiple applications together to save money

-- Free deployment slots

-- Faster deployments