Sign Up

Windows Azure hosting requires Windows Live-ID sign on using your email address and subscription, which can be purchased from Microsoft at https://www.windowsazure.com. When you have the subscription, go to https://windows.azure.com or https://www.windowsazure.com and log in using your Live-ID and password.

Install a Cloud Server Certificate

1. From the home page of https://manage.windowsazure.com, click Settings in the left menu. The Settings screen appears.
2. Click the Management Certificates at the top of the Settings screen.
3. Click Upload at the bottom of the Setting screen. The Upload screen appears.
   

   

4. Choose a subscription from the drop-down list.
5. Click Browse Your Computer and choose EktronCloud.cer from the following path:
   • 64-bit system:

     ~\Program Files (x86)\Ektron\EktronCloud\mgtcert

   • 32-bit system:

     ~\Program Files\Ektron\EktronCloud\mgtcert

6. Click OK (check mark).

Create a Hosting Service

NOTE: This is an optional step. If you do not create the hosted service, Ektron creates it for you.

1. From the home page of https://manage.windowsazure.com, click New Hosted Service. The Create a New Hosted Service dialog box appears.
   

   

2. Enter the name of your service.
3. Enter the URL prefix for your service. If your host name is mydomain then your URL will be mydomain.cloudapp.net, which is used to set up the CNAME rec and location.
4. Choose a region.
5. Click Do not deploy.
6. Click OK.

Create a Storage Account

You need a storage account to store site resources in the cloud storage service, and to store and synchronize assetan external file, such as a Microsoft Word document or image, stored in Ektron. It can be managed like native Ektron content.s, private assets, uploaded files, uploaded images and asset library. To create a storage account:

1. From the home page of https://manage.windowsazure.com, click New Storage Account. The Create a New Storage Account dialog box appears.
   

   

2. Enter your URL.
3. Choose a region.
4. Click OK.

Create a CDN Endpoint

Content Delivery Network (CDN) serves files faster from distributed servers. For better performance, Ektron recommends that you define the endpoint for your storage accounts. To create a CDN endpoint:

1. From the home page of https://manage.windowsazure.com, click Hosted Services, Storage Accounts & CDN.
2. Click on CDN in the left navigation panel.
3. Click New Endpoint. The Create a New CDN Endpoint dialog appears.
   

   

4. Choose the hosted service from the drop-down menu.
5. Optionally check Enable CDN, HTTPS, and Query String.
6. Click OK.

Create an SQL Premium Server Virtual Machine from the Azure Portal

Make sure your endpoint is configured for incoming traffic in both Azure portal and the virtual machine by setting the default port to 1433 (or any custom port number).

Download and Install EktronCloudSetup.exe

Install EktronCloudSetup.exe.

After you download and install EktronCloudSetup.exe, the Cloud Manager is added to the Workarea Settings.

Create the Initial Deployment on Windows Azure

IMPORTANT: You must first install EktronCloudSetup.exe. See Download and Install EktronCloudSetup.exe. You must also upload the certificate to the portal and configure it to the cloud service before following this procedure.

1. In the Workarea, choose Settings > Configuration > Cloud Manager.
2. Choose Create Hosted Service. A wizard appears (Step 1 of 4: Hosted Service and Storage). Fields with a red asterisk (*) are required.
   

   

   1. Subscription ID—You can get this from https://manage.windowsazure.com.
      1. Click on Hosted Services, Storage Accounts & CDN.
      2. Click the Storage Account folder.
      3. Copy and paste the Subscription ID from the Properties panel.
   2. Hosted Service Name—Specify the name of the server.
   3. Hosted Service Location—Select the location that is nearest to your hosted service.
   4. Deployment Environment—Choose either Production (Friendly URL) or Staging (GUID-based URL).
   5. Web Virtual Machine Size—Choose Small, Medium (default), Large, or Extra Large for your Web virtual machine. This is your website, and you can have as many instances as you want. Each option is described at Amazon EC2 Instance Types.
   6. Web Instances—Choose the number of servers on which the load will be balanced.
      • 1—no load balancing.
      • more than 1—load balance equally among the number of servers you choose.
   7. Worker Virtual Machine Size—Choose Small (default), Medium, Large, or Extra Large for your windows service virtual machine. You can have only 1 instance of this virtual machine.
3. Click Next. Step 2 of 4: the Hosted Service Storage and Security dialog box appears. Fields with a red asterisk (*) are required.
   

   

   IMPORTANT: Make sure that you first install the certificate (.cer) into the Management Certificate and then add the .pfx file to the cloud service. See Also: Install a Cloud Server Certificate.

   1. Storage Account—Specify the name of the storage account that you created in Create a Storage Account.
   2. CDN—Specify the URL with the Content Delivery Network (CDNcontent delivery network; multiple computers that store copies of data on the nodes of a network.). You can get this from https://manage.windowsazure.com.
      1. Click Hosted Services, Storage Accounts and CDN.
      2. Click the CDN folder.
      3. Click the server name with a CDN endpoint type.
      4. Copy and paste the Default HTTP Endpoint from the Properties panel. Be sure to start the URL with http:// and place a trailing slash (/) on the end.
   3. License Key—Optionally, specify the license key.
   4. Security Protocol Setting—Choose HTTP or HTTPSHypertext Transfer Protocol Secure; a combination of HTTP and SSL/TLS protocols providing encrypted communication..
   5. Security Certificate Thumbprint—If you select HTTPS, you must also specify the hexadecimal string that contains the SHASecure Hash Algorithm-1 hash of the certificate.
   6. Caching—By default, Ektron uses the inmemory caching. However, Ektron uses the AppFabric provider to set up the session state to use inproc.
      1. Go to the portal.
      2. Click Service Bus, Access Control & Caching.
      3. Go to Services > Caching.
      4. Click an active namespace.
      5. Click View Client Configuration.
      6. Copy the XML and paste it in the Caching box.
         

         

4. Click Next. Step 3 of 4: Azure SQL Database Connection dialog box appears. Fields with a red asterisk (*) are required.

   WARNING! As of August 2014, the Azure SQL database is no longer supported. Choose Do not create SQL Database in the Database Option drop-down field.

   

   

   • Database Option—Create SQL [Premium] Database is the default database option. If your database is already set up, choose Do not create SQL Database.
   • Database Size—Select the size of your database.
   • SQL Database Server—You can get the premium server name from the https://manage.windowsazure.com portal: click Database and look under the Subscriptions folder for the server name.
   • Database Name—Specify the name of the database.
   • Administrator Login Name—Create the database administrator account name.
   • Password—Specify the password for the account.
5. Choose to create a new package or upload an existing package to deploy to the cloud. The newly created deployment package is stored at:

   ~\sync\azuredeploy\{subscription-id}\{servicename}\package\{servicename}.cspkg

   • If you choose to create a new package, you get the following dialog box..
     

     

   • If you choose to upload your files, click the Browse buttons to select the files.
     

     

   An advanced user can copy the Web.Cloud.config file from Ektron Windows service (~\Program Files (x86)\Ektron\CMS400vxx\AzureConfig).

6. Click Save. A profile is created on the View All Hosted Services screen.
7. The Create Azure Hosted Service screen appears. Click Deploy Site. Ektron creates or uploads a new min database, provisions a storage container, creates the deployment package, and deploys them to a hosted cloud service. A confirmation message appears.
   

   

Synchronize the Database and Templates

In this step, you use eSync to copy a site from a local server to the cloud. For more information on this screen, see Setting up eSync Profiles.

1. Choose Workarea > Settings > Configuration > Cloud Manager. The view panel displays the instances of databases.
2. Run the default profile that was created by the deployment.

   IMPORTANT: Without running this profile your data and resource is not transferred to cloud. You can create additional profiles to perform a similar operation.

3. Click Add Profile () to create a profile for the template. The Add Azure Synchronization Profile screen appears. You can create additional profiles for the database.
   

   

   • Profile Name—Give a unique name to this synchronization profile. You can have several profiles to synchronize different elements at different times and frequencies.
   • Local Site Name—Specify the site that you want to synchronize.
   • Cloud Database Name—Specify the database that you want to synchronize.
   • Items to Synchronize—You can synchronize everything, or select the portions you want to synchronize on schedule, managing the synchronization activity.
   • Include/Exclude Files—Not supported.
   • Synchronization Direction—Choose which way you want to synchronize the sites.

     NOTE: Templates can only be uploaded.

   • Conflict Resolution Policy—When there is a conflict between the local and cloud sites, choose which site resolves the conflict.
   • Schedule—Choose the frequency of the automatic synchronization.
4. Specify a name, uncheck Database/Resources and CMS Core, and the items you want to synchronize.
5. Click Save Synchronization Profile. The profile is saved and the View Azure Hosted Services screen appears.
6. In the Action section of the profile you just saved, click Sync () to synchronize the database and templates.
   

Manage the Cloud Instances

In the View Azure Hosted Services screen (Workarea > Settings > Configuration > Cloud Manager), you can modify cloud instances in the following ways:

• Start the instance—If the icon is green, the instance is stopped; click to start it.
• Stop the instance—If the icon is red, the instance is running; click to stop it.
• Configure Load Balancing—Modify the number of instances. One (1) instance means no load balancing; more than 1 instance balances the load equally among instances.
• Swap Instance—If you have a production and staging server, click to swap the instance (to staging and production).
• Schedule Cloud Event—Display cloud event schedules.
• Get Status (Hosted Service)—Display the status of all profiles.
• Delete Hosted Service—Removes the instance from the list.
• Add Profile—Add a new profile.
• Sync—Synchronize the database and templates.
• Get Status (Profile)—Display the status of the selected profile.
• Delete Profile—Removes a selected profile.

Schedule Cloud Events

1. Go to Settings > Cloud Manager. The Cloud Manager screen appears.
   

   

2. Click Schedule Cloud Events (). The View Schedule Cloud Events screen appears.
   

   

3. Click Schedule Cloud Event. The Schedule Cloud Event screen appears for you to fill in the fields.
   

   

   • Description—Describe what the event does.
   • Event Type—
     • Edit Instances—Change the number of instances.
     • Deploy Site—Deploy the site.
     • Delete Deployment—Opens a selector to choose sites that you want to delete.
   • Number of Web Instances—The number that you specify will overwrite the number of instances that were set up with the initial deployment.
   • Scheduled Date and Time—Specify when the event will occur.
   • Email Notifications—Send an email to the address list. Use commas to separate the addresses.
4. Click Save.

Set up Ektron Storage

Ektron uses the unity section of your cloud web.config file to set up a storage destination.

1. Add the following to the configSections section:

   <section name="unity.storage" 
     type="Ektron.Unity.Configuration.UnityConfigurationSection,
      Ektron.Unity.Configuration, Version=2.0.414.0, Culture=neutral,
      PublicKeyToken=1e97f90fc2b998db"/>

2. Define unity.storage as follows:

   <unity.storage>
     <assembly name="Ektron.Storage"/> 
     <assembly name="Ektron.Cloud"/> 
     <namespace name="Ektron.Cloud.Azure.Storage"/> 
     <namespace name="Ektron.Storage"/> 
     <container name="storageContainer"> 
       <register type="IFileService" mapTo="CloudFileService"/> 
       <register type="IDirectoryService" mapTo="CloudDirectoryService"/>
     </container>
   </unity.storage>                                   
   

Set Up Ektron Caching

NOTE: Caching configuration is required only if you run more than 1 instance (load balancing). You can get the section values from the portal.

In your cloud web.config file (add location), do the following:

1. Add the following to the configSections section:

   
   <section name="dataCacheClients"
     type="Microsoft.ApplicationServer.Caching.DataCacheClientsSection, 
     Microsoft.ApplicationServer.Caching.Core" allowLocation="true" 
     allowDefinition="Everywhere"/>

2. Define dataCacheClients as follows:

   <dataCacheClients> 
     <dataCacheClient name="default"> 
       <host>
        <host name="[yournamespace].cache.windows.net" cacheport="22233" />
       </hosts> 
       <securityProperties mode="Message"> 
         <messageSecurity authorizationInfo="[yoursecretkeyinfo]"/> 
       </securityProperties> 
     </dataCacheClient> 
     <dataCacheClient name="SslEndpoint">
       <host>
         <host name="ektron.cache.windows.net" cacheport="22243"/> 
       </hosts> 
       <securityProperties mode="Message" sslEnbaled="true">
         <messageSecurity authorizationInfo="[yoursecretkeyinfo]"/> 
       </securityProperties> 
     </dataCacheClient>
   </dataCacheClients>
   

3. Set up the sessions to use Appfabric server:

   <sessionState mode="Custom" 
     customProvider="AppFabricCacheSessionStoreProvider"> 
     <providers> 
       <add name="AppFabricCacheSessionStoreProvider"
         type="Microsoft.Web.DistributedCache
           .DistributedCacheSessionStateStoreProvider,
         Microsoft.Web.DistributedCache" 
         cacheName="default" 
         useBlobMode="true" 
         dataCacheClientName="default" /> 
     </providers>
   </sessionState>

Set the SQL Premium Database Connection String

In your cloud web.config file, modify the Ektron.DbConnection section to have an SQL premium database connection string. You can get this value from the portal.

Set the Blob Redirect Handler

In your cloud web.config file, insert the Blob redirect handler into the module section:

<add name="EkBlobModule"
  type="[assemblyname].BlobRedirect.Module,[assemblyname]"
  precondition="integratorMode"/>

Create a Cloud Package

1. Open the cloud solution from Ektron Developer's SDK.
2. Set up the storage account details in the service configuration file. Use Visual Studio 2010 (or edit the XML-based configuration file) to have the following details:

   Name: BlobOrCdnUrl
   Type: String
   Value: http://abcdefgh.vo.msecnd.net/

   Name: DataConnectionString
   Type: Connection String
   Value: DefaultEndPointProtocol=https;AccountName=mysite;AccountKey=+Uv/eXOUoYkT1...

   

   

3. Compile the project with Visual Studio 2010, or use the msbuild command as follows:

   msbuild yourcloudproject.ccproj /p:Configuration=Release /t:Build;Publish

4. Log into the portal and upload yourprojectname.cspkg and ServiceConfiguration.Cloud.cscfg into your newly created hosted service.

   NOTE: After you create the deployment, the set up on the cloud takes some time before the files are ready to be accessed.

Setting up the Cloud Service and DxH

1. Create an affinity group using any Azure data center location.
2. Create a Virtual network and a subnet of A, B, or C class IPs.
3. Create a virtual machine (VMvirtual machine; simulation of a machine (abstract or real) that is usually different from the target machine (where it is being simulated on). Virtual machines may be based on specifications of a hypothetical computer or emulate the computer architecture and functions of a real world computer. -- Source: wikipedia) using the gallery option while creating the VM. See Creating a New Azure Virtual Machine.
4. If you have not already done so, you need to install .NET 4.0 and Port sharing service before you install DxH. Note this step can be performed independently later in the process.
5. Install DxH in the VM.
6. You also need to open the firewall rule and add DxH port (default port is 808) to allow an incoming connection.
7. Create the Cloud service using the affinity group as the location.
8. Create a storage account using the affinity group as the location.
9. Create a package manually, or use the deployment wizard to build and deploy the Cloud Service Package.

If you had completed the DxH installation, you should be able to communicate between your DxH and CMS. You may need to open additional ports (for example, 808 for DxH) using the VM endpoints through the portal. If you do not want to open public end points, use the following procedure.

Securing DxH Communication

To communicate to the DxH VM through the Pass Service only, perform the following redeployment steps after deleting the current deployment.

1. Delete your current deployment from the cloud service so that you can make the change to the serviceconfiguration.cscfg file.
2. From your On-Premise system go to:

   ~/Sync/azure/{guid}/{your service name}/package/
     serviceconfiguration.cloud.cscfg

3. Add the following element before the </serviceconfiguration> tag. Make sure to replace all the values to match your cloud service, virtual network and subnet.

   <NetworkConfiguration>
     <VirtualNetworkSitename="YourVirtualNetworkName" />
     <AddressAssignments>
       <InstanceAddressroleName="YourWebRoleName">
         <Subnets>
           <Subnetname="YourVirtualNetworkSubnetName" />
         </Subnets>
       </InstanceAddress>
       <InstanceAddressroleName="YourWorkerRoleName">
         <Subnets>
           <Subnetname="YourVirtualNetworkSubnetName" />
         </Subnets>
       </InstanceAddress>
     </AddressAssignments>
   </NetworkConfiguration>

4. Create a production deployment using the new updated ServiceConfiguration.cloud.cscfg for configuration. Use from Storage option for Package. After you click on the storage option, go to your storage account and then the ektrondeployment container then select the package (.pkg) file.
   

   

Your CMS cloud service can now communicate to DxH service securely.