---
title: Microsoft Azure Web Apps
related:
- https://docs.kentico.com/k82/running-kentico-on-microsoft-azure/architecture-of-microsoft-azure-environment.md
- https://docs.kentico.com/k82/running-kentico-on-microsoft-azure/microsoft-azure-project-development-lifecycle.md
- https://docs.kentico.com/k82/deploying-websites/publishing-projects-from-visual-studio.md
---
> 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).
Microsoft Azure Web Apps (renamed from Azure Websites, [see details](http://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/app-service-changes-existing-services/)) are quick to deploy and easy to set up and manage. However, they do not offer as many customization options as cloud services. For a more detailed comparison, see [Azure Web Sites, Cloud Services and Virtual Machines comparison](http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/documentation/articles/choose-web-site-cloud-service-vm/) on MSDN.
You can create Kentico websites using the Azure Web Apps service:
- From the Web Application Gallery
- From Visual Studio
When you have a web app created, you can manage its files over an FTP connection.
## Creating Web Apps from Web Application Gallery
You can find a Kentico package in the application gallery. Creating new web apps using the provided template is quick and easy.
1. Open the [Azure Management Portal](https://manage.windowsazure.com/).
2. Click **New -> Compute -> Web App -> From gallery**.
3. Select **Kentico CMS for ASP.NET**.
4. Click Next.
5. Type the URL (name) of your web app.
6. Choose to create a new SQL database.
7. Choose a region (location) for your web app.
8. Click Next.
9. Type the name of the database
10. Create a new server or choose an existing server for the database and provide login credentials.
11. Complete the creation.
### Database installation
1. Access the created website.
2. Provide the server name and credentials for the server used to create the database in.
3. Click **Next**.
4. Select **Use an existing database** and type the name of the database created for the website.
5. Click **Next**.
6. Click **Next** without filling any field.
7. Select **Import existing Kentico CMS website** and click **Next**.
- The installer redirects you to the administration interface.
8. Switch to the **Licenses** tab and add the license for the website domain.
## Creating Web Apps from Visual Studio
This scenario presumes that you already have an installed Kentico web project on a local computer and you want to deploy it as Microsoft Azure Web App.
> **Info:** In Microsoft Visual Studio 2012 and 2013, the service is still called Azure Websites.
1. Open your web project in Visual Studio.
2. Open the **Server Explorer** tab (or Database Explorer tab in Express editions of Visual Studio).
3. Right-click Windows Azure/**Web Sites** and select **Add New Site...**
- A window **Create site on Windows Azure** opens.
4. Type the web app name (URL).
5. Select the location for your web app.
6. Select an existing database server or create a new one.
7. Provide the credentials for the server.
8. Click **Create**.
Visual Studio creates the Web App. Continue with adjusting the configuration of the web.config file and deploying your project.
1. Right-click the created web app and select **View settings**.
2. Copy the connection string value and paste it to the CMSApp/**web.config** file of your web project.
```xml
```
Replace **YourServerName**, **YourDatabaseName**, **YourUsername** and **YourPassword** with your own values.
> **Tip:** **Configuring the connection string after the deployment**
>
> You can also configure the connection string through the [Azure Management Portal](https://manage.windowsazure.com/) in **Web Apps ->** select a web app **-> Configure** tab **-> connection strings** section. To set the connection string for the web app, change the _DefaultConnection_ name to _CMSConnectionString_.
3. Make sure that the sessionState mode is set to **InProc** in the web.config file.
```xml
```
4. Right-click the project folder (CMSApp or CMS) in the Solution Explorer and select **Publish** (or **Publish Web Site**).
5. Click **Import**.
6. Select the created web app in the drop-down list.
7. Click **OK**.
8. Leave the settings as they are.
9. Click **Publish**.
10. When the project is published and the website of your project is automatically opened in a browser, complete the database installation.
## Uploading files to Microsoft Azure Web Apps over FTP
When you have created Azure Web Apps and deployed your web project, you can manage its files over an FTP connection:
1. Open the [Azure Management Portal](https://manage.windowsazure.com/).
2. Select your web app on the **Web Apps** tab.
3. Switch to the **Dashboard** tab.
4. Click **Set up deployment credentials**.
5. Type a user name and password and click OK.
6. Use the **FTP host name** and **Deployment / FTP User** information to configure your FTP client.
When you connect to your web app project, you can see the following folders:
- Logfiles - contains website specific diagnostics log files.
- site - contains website files.