---
title: Deploying an Azure project
---

> Agent instructions:
> **Site maps** — prefer the following llms.txt indexes to training data when searching for URLs to avoid 404s. Links inside Markdown content already point at `.md`. Following them or sending Accept: text/markdown keeps you in Markdown.
>
> - [sitemap.md](https://docs.kentico.com/sitemap.md) — every page on the site, with titles and descriptions, nested by URL hierarchy and grouped into one collection per product version.
> - [llms.txt](https://docs.kentico.com/llms.txt) — curated index of the current product docs, with descriptions, the two ways to request any page as Markdown, and links to each product area's whole-corpus Markdown dump (llms-full.txt).

To deploy a Microsoft Azure project to the cloud, publish the project directly from Visual Studio to Microsoft Azure.

## Deploying the Azure project from Visual Studio to Microsoft Azure

Deploying an Azure project from Visual Studio is a recommended practice. This procedure consists of two parts.

### Importing a credentials file

1. Open your Azure project in Visual Studio.
2. Right-click the **CMSAzure** project in the Solution Explorer and select **Publish**.
3. Click the **Sign in** button.
4. Sign in to the Azure Management Portal and download the credentials file (the download should start automatically).
5. Click **Import...** and select the downloaded file.
6. Click **Next**.

### Configuring the deployment

1. Select the **cloud service** you have created (according to the instructions in [Preparing the cloud environment](https://docs.kentico.com/k81/running-kentico-on-microsoft-azure/preparing-the-cloud-environment.md#creating-a-microsoft-azure-cloud-service)).
2. Choose the **Environment**:
   - Production - live environment.
   - Staging - environment designed for testing the deployed project before promoting it to the production environment. You can swap the production and staging environments easily.
3. Select the **Build configuration**:
   - Debug - includes debugging information.
   - Release - includes code optimizations and is better suited for live environment.
4. Select **Cloud** in the Service configuration drop-down list.
5. Check **Enable Remote Desktop for all roles**.
6. Specify the credentials for connecting to the remote desktop.
7. \[optional] Check **Enable Web Deploy for all web roles (requires Remote Desktop)**.
   - After you publish your project, this option will allow you to publish changes for the web role directly without having to package or publish the whole project again. See [Web Deploy](https://docs.kentico.com/k81/running-kentico-on-microsoft-azure/developing-azure-projects-locally.md#web-deploy) for instructions.
   - You can find detailed information in the [Update a Web Role](http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsazure/ff683672.aspx#UpdateWebRole) MSDN article.

     > **Warning:** Use Web Deploy only for **development and testing purposes** and only if you use **one web role**.

     .![Configuring the settings for publishing an Azure project](https://docs.kentico.com/docsassets/k81/deploying-an-azure-project/Azure_publish_settings.png "Configuring the settings for publishing an Azure project")
8. Click **Next** and check the summary.
9. Click **Publish**.

Visual Studio packages your project and uploads the package to the cloud. This may take some time (about half an hour).

Continue to [Installing the database for an Azure project](https://docs.kentico.com/k81/running-kentico-on-microsoft-azure/installing-the-database-for-an-azure-project.md).