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azuretestingwebazure-web-app-servicestaging

Staging Azure Websites

I'm new to Azure and I'm working on a project that uses the new Websites model as opposed to Cloud Services. I want to set up a continuous delivery process like this one: http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/develop/net/common-tasks/publishing-with-tfs/

However, I don't want my site to be publicly addressable after each continuous deployment. Instead, I want my continuous deployments to be accessible only by my team for testing purposes. How can this best be achieved?

Thoughts so far:

  • Wrap the whole site in forms authentication - but I don't like the fact that this means I will be deploying a different version of my site to production than that which I deploy to testing.
  • IP address restrictions - but I don't know if this can be done with Azure Websites and whether this is a good solution?
Solution

  • The Azure Websites Authentication / Authorization feature was designed to support this exact scenario. Basically, you create a site slot, add AAD authentication to it using a few clicks, and from then on your staging slot will always require a valid login, even after you do a swap operation.

    Blog Post: http://azure.microsoft.com/blog/2014/11/13/azure-websites-authentication-authorization/

    Demo Video: http://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/videos/azure-websites-easy-authentication-and-authorization-with-chris-gillum/