This is a look into the Sitecore 8.2.1 Azure Marketplace offering, which promises to deploy Sitecore with a click of a button – Sitecore PaaS so to speak.
So, could installing Sitecore really be that simple?
Short answer: Yes.
Long answer: Still a yes, but it’s a question of what do you want to use it for.
Alright, lets rewind a little.
Azure Marketplace sitecore 8.2.1 offering
What does it do:
- Installs Sitecore with a Delivery Server and Authoring Server
- Installs Azure SQL
- Installs Azure Search
- App Insights
- And wires all those together
Pretty sweet.
What it currently doesn’t do is xDB, as there’s no suitable PaaS based MongoDB offering currently available. MongoDB is coming soon, it’s already available in the separate ARM templates from Sitecore: https://github.com/Sitecore/Sitecore-Azure-Quickstart-Templates.
Sitecore PaaS Instance running
Cost of Running
All prices below are very rough estimations, and not accurate in any way.
- 2 * Tier S1 App Service (CM and CD): $45/month
- 3 * Tier S1 SQL Database: $30/month
- Tier C0 Reddis cache: $30/month
- Azure Search, $250/month
There are some other minor costs, but roughly the monthly run cost for the installation is about $500. Interestingly the Azure search is half of that, and you can’t change the tier of Azure search to a lower tier once it’s deployed. There are cheaper tiers (as the size of current tier is fairly large), but no confirmation if it would work with a lower tier; and it would require you to manually change config files.
Summary
The installation is simple, you add in a few passwords, click “next” a few times and wait for 30 minutes. And it all works, publishing and all. It’s great for setting up a quick demo environment (if you don’t need xDB).
But at this point that’s what it is for, showing of capability.
The ARM templates Sitecore has published outside of the Azure Marketplace offer a lot more. And most likely, most Sitecore Production instances will require some level customization, so that is the route they will take.
Still, to be able to deploy a Sitecore instance with a click of a button is pretty cool and will make setting test environments a lot easier.
Will be testing next deployment from the ARM templates to see what the xDB looks like.
Useful links:
- Deploying code onto Sitecore PaaS: https://trayek.wordpress.com/2016/12/06/deploying-code-to-sitecore-on-paas/
- Installing Azure PaaS from Azure Marketplace: http://www.izabelawlodarska.com/2017/01/28/sitecore-8-2-1-on-azure-paas-web-apps-part-1-installation-using-azure-marketplace/
