Remove local resource from web role without deleting deployment

Question

I am trying to publish my solution to an existing Azure Cloud Service web role, but I am getting the following error:

Windows Azure could not find the resource DataFilesStore in the service package. To upgrade the deployment, you must add the resource. Otherwise, perform a new deployment.

I removed the DataFilesStore local resource because it is not needed anymore.

I cannot perform a new deployment (or delete the current deployment) because then I will lose the assigned IP address of the service. This is a production environment so this is not an option.

Answer 1

It is documented that you can't remove a local resource when doing an in-place upgrade. However, you can do so using a VIP swap. Upload your new deployment to the staging slot, do whatever smoke testing you need to do - and then initiate a VIP swap. This does not cause downtime for your application and you will not lose your VIP - since it is only the internal load balancer -> VMs link that is swapped.