Azure PaaS (Platform as a Service) allows you to spin up a Sitecore instance as a Web App (basically a virtualised IIS) without the need to build a full VM. This is cheaper to run and removes the need to maintain updates etc for a Windows VM.

Here is the first part of a guide on how to get started; later parts will cover Azure SQL, Mongo DB, SOLR, and how to deploy from your dev environment.

Please note that this guide is using Sitecore 8.1 Update 3 but should work fine for version 7.5 and above.

This guide will cover how to manually deploy Sitecore without the Sitecore Azure module.

1) Log into MS Azure and click on App Services.

2) Click the Add button and select “Web App”; click Create.

3) Enter the name of the App, Subscription, Resource Group (create a new one if you don’t have one already), and select a Location. Note the location as it is recommended that you use the same one for all resources you create in Azure; Click Create.

4) Wait for the Web App to deploy; once it has click on All Resources and select the new Web App.

5) Click on Settings and then Application Settings. Set the following values:

.Net = v4.6
PHP = off
Java = off
Python = off
Platform = 64bit
Managed Pipeline = Integrated
Always On = On


6) Note the FTP username and hostname; open your FTP client and connect to the Web App site.

7) Download a copy of the Zip Archive Sitecore website from https://dev.sitecore.net/Downloads/Sitecore_Experience_Platform/

8) Upload the contents of the “Website” folder in the archive to /site/wwwroot/ in the Web App.

9) Create an App_Data folder under /site/wwwroot/ in the Web App.

10) Upload the contents of the “Data” folder in the archive to /site/wwwroot/App_Data/ in the Web App. Upload your Sitecore license file here also.

11) Add this Sitecore Patch (.config) file to the App_Config folder: