WEB APPLICATION CREATION IN AZURE

Web application creation in Azure refers to building, deploying, and managing web applications using Azure's cloud infrastructure and services. Azure provides a variety of tools and platforms to help create and host web applications, both simple and complex, while managing scalability, security, and availability. Here's a breakdown of key concepts and steps involved:

1. Azure App Service

• Azure App Service is the primary platform for creating and hosting web applications, RESTful APIs, and mobile backends. It supports multiple programming languages and frameworks, including .NET, Node.js, PHP, Python, and Java.
• App Service provides built-in infrastructure management, so developers don't need to worry about the underlying hardware or operating system.

2. Setting Up a Web App

• You can create a web app in the Azure portal, using Azure CLI, or through tools like Visual Studio.
• You specify configurations, such as runtime stack (e.g., Node.js, .NET), region, and scaling requirements.
• Azure App Service allows you to configure deployment options, such as deploying directly from code repositories like GitHub, Azure Repos, or local files.

3. Customizing Resources and Scaling

• App Service Plans let you control the resources (CPU, memory, etc.) allocated to your app, based on the pricing tier. You can scale up (higher resources) or scale out (more instances) as needed.
• Autoscaling can be set up to automatically adjust the app's resources based on demand.

4. Deployment and CI/CD

• Azure supports continuous integration and continuous deployment (CI/CD) using GitHub Actions, Azure DevOps, or other CI/CD tools.
• This means you can automate deployments, enabling changes to your web app to go live immediately after code updates.

5. Additional Features

• Authentication and Authorization: Azure App Service allows for setting up user authentication with providers like Azure AD, Facebook, Google, and more.
• Monitoring and Diagnostics: Azure provides tools like Application Insights and Log Analytics for monitoring performance and diagnosing issues.
• Domain and SSL: You can configure custom domains and SSL/TLS certificates for secure connections.

6. Using Additional Azure Services

• You can connect your web app to other Azure services, like Azure SQL Database, Cosmos DB, or Azure Blob Storage, for databases and storage.
• Use Azure Functions for serverless operations if you need to perform event-driven tasks alongside your web application.

Azure's tools make it straightforward to build, deploy, and manage web applications with a focus on scalability, security, and performance.

3 Core Components to Host Web Application

• A Resource Group.

• An Empty Web Application.

• An Plan- App plan is where an App Service is hosted, more like a computer resource. It is also defines as a set of computer resource for a web app to run.

Getting Started with Azure Web Apps

To start creating a web app on Azure:

1. Go to the Azure Portal

2.Select + Create Web App

1. Choose Create a resource > Web App.
2. Fill in details (app name, runtime stack, and region), and create a new or select an existing App Service Plan.
3. Deploy your code and configure any additional features as needed.

Select Review + Create

2. Creation of a web code through Chatgpt
A code is needed concerning the kind of web to be created. That is, in a organisation, the programmers are eligible to create a code for any any application to run. But in this regard, web creation through the use of Azure service without the use of a programmer, ChatGPT is use for the code creation.

Log on to ChatGPT and type the code on any application wished to generate. For instance,
*sample HTML javascript application for women and girls fashion all in one file.
*

3. Go back to Azure portal to replicate the code.

• In the portal, in the search bar, search for advance tool. Click on it, and click the Go button.

• The Go button clicked on will bring you to the new environment below.

• Click on the Debug Console and select CMD Icon

• Coming into the new environment, click on the button *Site *

• Click on the the wwwroot button to copy into the code generated from ChatGPT.

• Copy and Save the code.

• Go back to the Azure portal to your resource, then click on the Default Domain to check the code copied.

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DEPLOYMENT SLOTS

Deployment Slots in Azure App Service are a powerful feature that allows you to manage and deploy multiple versions of your application within the same App Service. These slots enable testing, staging, and smooth rollouts of updates without downtime, providing a streamlined way to handle production deployments.

Key Features of Deployment Slots:

1. Multiple Slots:

   • Each App Service Plan can support multiple deployment slots (e.g., staging, testing, production).
   • The primary slot is typically production, while others can be used for testing and staging.

2. Slot Swapping:

   • You can swap the content and configuration of one slot with another.
   • This feature is commonly used to move a tested version of the app from staging to production seamlessly.

3. Configuration Management:

   • Each slot has its own independent configuration settings (e.g., connection strings, environment variables).
   • You can configure some settings to "stick to a slot" so they don't change during swaps (e.g., production-specific database credentials).

4. Traffic Control:

   • It’s possible to direct a percentage of live traffic to non-production slots to test new features under real user conditions.

5. Zero Downtime Deployment:

   • Deployment to a non-production slot ensures the primary (production) slot remains unaffected during updates.

6. Rollback Capability:

   • If an issue is detected after swapping slots, you can quickly swap them back to roll back to the previous version.

Typical Workflow:

1. Deploy the new version of your app to a staging slot.
2. Test the new version in the staging environment.
3. Swap the staging slot with the production slot for seamless deployment.
4. Monitor the app and roll back if needed by swapping the slots again.

Benefits:

• Testing in a Production-Like Environment: Deployment slots allow you to validate changes in an isolated environment that mirrors production.
• Improved Reliability: Changes can be reverted quickly, minimizing downtime or impact on users.
• Flexibility: Teams can deploy and test multiple versions of the app simultaneously.

Limitations:

• The number of slots available depends on the App Service Plan tier (e.g., Basic has no slots, Standard supports up to 5, and Premium supports more).
• Slots share the same resources (CPU, memory) as the production slot, so performance impacts may occur if resource-intensive activities are running in multiple slots.

Getting Started with Deployment Slots in Azure Web Service.

• Log into the the Azure portal, search for Deployment Slot

• Click on add slot

• Click on the name, app to use and Add

• Removal of 10% out the 100% of traffic to test the new App developed. That is, a certain % is needed to test any new app developed before it's finally launched

• Swap: after the new app has been tested by certain percentage of the audience, the reactions given to it will enable adjustment or launching out of the app. If these certain people used, applauded this new app, their percentage will be added back to the production.

• The 10% taken out to test the new feature App has been added back to the production.

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MONITORING

Monitoring in Azure Web Apps involves tracking the performance, health, and availability of your web applications hosted on the Azure platform. It provides insights into how your application is functioning and helps detect and diagnose issues to ensure smooth operation. Azure offers several tools and features for monitoring web apps:

1. Azure Monitor

• Overview: Azure Monitor is the primary monitoring solution in Azure. It collects, analyzes, and visualizes telemetry data.
• Capabilities:
  • Performance monitoring
  • Log analysis
  • Alerts and notifications
• Data Sources:
  • Metrics: Real-time data such as CPU usage, memory consumption, and response times.
  • Logs: Historical data including application events and diagnostic logs.

2. Application Insights

• Purpose: A part of Azure Monitor, designed specifically for application performance monitoring (APM).
• Key Features:
  • Tracks requests, dependencies, exceptions, and custom events.
  • Provides detailed performance metrics like response time and failure rates.
  • Offers live metrics stream to monitor real-time performance.
  • Supports distributed tracing for microservices.
• Integration:
  • Can be integrated with various frameworks (e.g., .NET, Java, Node.js, Python).
  • Provides an SDK for custom telemetry.

3. Diagnostics and Logs

• Application Logs: Capture application-level logs for debugging issues.
• Diagnostic Logs: Include detailed system and network-related information.
• Streaming Logs: View logs in real time using Azure CLI or Azure portal.
• Log Analytics: Query logs for insights using KQL (Kusto Query Language).

4. Health Checks

• Azure App Services support health probes to monitor the application's readiness and availability.
• You can configure custom endpoints that Azure pings periodically to check application health.

5. Alerts

• Configure alerts for specific metrics or log conditions.
• Supports notifications via email, SMS, or integration with services like PagerDuty and Slack.
• Example: Set up an alert for high CPU usage or HTTP 5xx error rates.

6. Performance and Availability Monitoring

• Availability Tests: Simulates user interactions from different geographic regions to test application responsiveness.
• Metrics Dashboard: Visualize key performance metrics and trends in the Azure portal.

7. Integration with Third-party Tools

• Azure supports integration with tools like Grafana, Splunk, and Elastic for advanced monitoring and visualization.

Why Monitoring Matters:

• Proactive Issue Detection: Identify problems before users report them.
• Performance Optimization: Understand bottlenecks and optimize resource usage.
• Business Insights: Monitor user behavior and track key metrics that affect your application’s success.
• Compliance and Auditing: Ensure your application meets performance and uptime SLAs.

By leveraging these monitoring capabilities, you can ensure your Azure Web App is reliable, performant, and user-friendly.

The process

• In the Azure portal, search and click on Monitoring

• Click on the kind of alert the app should give. For instance, Http Server error

• After the creation of the kind of rule to give which will be found on the Details bar, click on Review + Create.

APPLICATION INSIGHTS

• In the same Azure portal, search for Application Insight, it is automatically Enable and Apply.

• Click Yes to Apply the Monitoring Settings.