How to install nopCommerce on Azure

Atkray wrote:

If you want to customize your site, it is necessary to edit css files, cshtml files and so on. Before then you need to download the files from Azure to your local machine by FTP software. It is very easy to use FTP on Azure but there is little information about it. So it may take much time for you to find the way.

At first, you need to login in manage.windowsazure.com. If you click "Websites" icon in the left menu, you will find the registered websites.

1. Select your target website. Then you will find more detailed information about the site.

2. Copy the ftp hostname in the right panel and paste it in your text editor. Don't copy with "ftp://".  It is not necessary.

3. Copy the ftp user name in the right panel and paste it in your text editor. The user name is combined with the target site name such as "myname\targetsitename."

4. Click "Reset deployment credentials" link in the right panel.

5. Input your own any password but it need to be strong.

6. Confirm your password again.


Run your FTP software and input the server info in it

1. Copy the ftp hostname which was pasted in the text editor and paste it.

2. Copy the ftp user name which was pasted in the text editor and paste it.

3. Input your password which was input in the Azure above.

Then access the ftp server on Azure by your ftp software.

You can view the explanatory video by the following page.

http://www.digipub.biz/40Nop20Mvc/boards/topic/110/how-to-use-your-ftp-software-on-azure (Multi Lingual)

Great post.
Btw, are there any  nop demo successfully launched in azure?

Also, how exactly the pricing is when comparing to winhost, or other recommended hosting in this website?

Appreciate to all your time spent.

I have one question as well.
I am now planning to launch a nop commerce in asia, and seem that those recommended hosting are having quite bad ping from asia. Will azure be better choice? or Are there any good hosting recommended?

Thank you for your response.  I actually was able to download the site with Web Matrix so I should be able to edit the css in there and then just redeploy.  I Have a superficial understanding of FTP so that seemed easier for me.  I am currently working on getting Email configured first So I've set up an account at SendGrid and am waiting for the account to get provisioned.  I am doing this in the little free time I have so progress is slow but this is the furthest I've gotten with any product, and I've tried about 7.

W_HK wrote:


The following is an actual nopCommerce  on Azure.

http://www.digipubrank.net/



W_HK wrote:

Important !

The database of Azure is expensive. And the database of nopCommerce includes binary data of product images (not image file paths). So it may become huge size and cost you much money. nopCommerce makes many sizes of necessary image files during being accessed. So it takes much time to view unaccessed pages.  

Although I think that this binary data itself can also be deleted after making necessary image files (the database has also its flag), it is not easy to grade up the database.

Therefore, if you need to manage much binary data such as image data in Azure , it may be better to use the SQL Server Compact. In this case, it will not cost you SQL Server fee. You can use the database by Azure through compiling the original source program (not from Azure Gallery).

For more details of pricing of Azure, visit the following page.

http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/pricing/calculator/

For images, you could use a file system instead of DB from my memory instead.

organic wrote:

My understanding is as follows.

In the administration page of nopCommerce, if product image files are uploaded, those data are once saved in a binary format on the "Picture" table of the nopCommerce database.
And the "PictureService" program uses this table and generates various sizes of image data and files such as thumbnail, medium size and large size (300 pixel) image files. Picture table has "IsNew" item for checking whether necessary image files have already been made or not. The table has also "SeoFilename" item for generating SEO friendly filenames.

These functions depend on the binary data ("PictureBinary" item of the table) but are very convenient.

great job on the installations. You mentioned that you were configuring email.
I can't get email working on azure. Any tips. I see a few articles for SendGrid, but it involves a code change.

My site on azure is www.lovekidsbooks.com

Thanks,
Declan

Hi All. Have you configured a SSL on Windows Azure and Nopcommerce? what SSL certified company you used?

Really great guide for newbies like me.
You explained earlier the way to download the nopcommerce source code from azure using ftp server. How can I open the downloaded files with Visual Studio? In the wwwroot there is no .sln or anything like this available. I also tried WebMatrix, but the Visual Studio Button is disabled (I am using VS 2012 Pro).
Thanks for your help!

I would love to hear about a step to step guide of installing an SSL cert.

I've seen a couple of good articles but nothing on nopcommerce on azure.