Tag: Azure PaaS

SSL binding in Azure App Service

~ Nikhil Kulkarni ~ Leave a comment

Hi Champs,

In part one we discussed how we can add custom domain in Sitecore App Service. Today we will go through how we can secure this custom domain with SSL bindings, so without doing any further delay below are the points to add SSL bindings.

Secure a custom domain

Do the following steps:

In the Azure portal, from the left menu, select App Services > <app-name>.

From the left navigation of your app, start the TLS/SSL Binding dialog by:

  • Selecting Custom domains > Add binding
  • Selecting TLS/SSL settings > Add TLS/SSL binding

Add binding to domain

In Custom Domain, select the custom domain you want to add a binding for.

If your app already has a certificate for the selected custom domain, go to Create binding directly. Otherwise, keep going.

Add a certificate for custom domain

If your app has no certificate for the selected custom domain, then you have two options:

 Note

You can also Create a free certificate (Preview) or Import a Key Vault certificate, but you must do it separately and then return to the TLS/SSL Binding dialog.

Create binding

Use the following table to help you configure the SSL binding in the TLS/SSL Binding dialog, then click Add Binding.

Setting Description
Custom domain The domain name to add the SSL binding for.
Private Certificate Thumbprint The certificate to bind.
TLS/SSL Type
  • SNI SSL – Multiple SNI SSL bindings may be added. This option allows multiple SSL certificates to secure multiple domains on the same IP address. Most modern browsers (including Internet Explorer, Chrome, Firefox, and Opera) support SNI (for more information, see Server Name Indication).
  • IP SSL – Only one IP SSL binding may be added. This option allows only one SSL certificate to secure a dedicated public IP address. After you configure the binding, follow the steps in Remap A record for IP SSL.
    IP SSL is supported only in Production or Isolated tiers.

Once the operation is complete, the custom domain’s SSL state is changed to Secure.

SSL binding successful

 Note

A Secure state in the Custom domains means that it is secured with a certificate, but App Service doesn’t check if the certificate is self-signed or expired, for example, which can also cause browsers to show an error or warning.

Remap A record for IP SSL

If you don’t use IP SSL in your app, skip to Test HTTPS for your custom domain.

By default, your app uses a shared public IP address. When you bind a certificate with IP SSL, App Service creates a new, dedicated IP address for your app.

If you mapped an A record to your app, update your domain registry with this new, dedicated IP address.

Your app’s Custom domain page is updated with the new, dedicated IP address. Copy this IP address, then remap the A record to this new IP address.

Test HTTPS

In various browsers, browse to https://<your.custom.domain> to verify that it serves up your app.

Portal navigation to Azure app

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How to enable Profiler in Azure App Service

Azure
~ Nikhil Kulkarni ~ Leave a comment

Hi Champs,

Today I am going to explain how we can enable profiler in Azure App Service. Below are the details to enable Profiler.

Enable Profiler for your app

To enable Profiler for an app, follow the instructions below. If you’re running a different type of Azure service, here are instructions for enabling Profiler on other supported platforms:

Application Insights Profiler is pre-installed as part of the App Services runtime. The steps below will show you how to enable it for your App Service. Follow these steps even if you’ve included the App Insights SDK in your application at build time.

  1. Enable “Always On” setting for your app service. You can update the setting in the Configuration page of your App Service under General Settings.
  2. Go to the App Services pane in the Azure portal.
  3. Navigate to Settings > Application Insights pane.Enable App Insights on App Services portal
  4. Either follow the instructions on the pane to create a new resource or select an existing App Insights resource to monitor your app. Also make sure the Profiler is On. If your Application Insights resource is in a different subscription from your App Service, you can’t use this page to configure Application Insights. You can still do it manually though by creating the necessary app settings manually. The next section contains instructions for manually enabling Profiler.Add App Insights site extension
  5. Profiler is now enabled using an App Services App Setting.App Setting for Profiler

Happy Learning!!!

Azure worker reset module for Sitecore PaaS

Azure
~ Nikhil Kulkarni ~ Leave a comment

Hi Champs,

Today I am going to introduce my new Module for Sitecore Azure PaaS. This module is called Azure Worker Exchanger details for this are as below.

What is Azure Worker Exchanger?

Azure Worker Exchanger Module is a facility created in association with Microsoft Azure Worker API to kill and replace any of the corrupt or non-performing workers created in Azure PaaS. This module should be used only when any worker process is showing a spike in performance and behaving abnormally or got corrupted, to analyze these below are the symptoms.

  1. Website loading slowly.
  2. Some of the users are not able to visit the website.
  3. Azure is throwing many alerts for performance issues.
  4. Azure matrics showing spikes for performance.

How to use this Module?

  1. Download the Module here.
  2. Install on CM role with Sitecore Package Installer.
  3. Once done you can navigate to the below URL to find the Form.
    https://yourdomain/InstanceExchanger.aspx
  4. Once the form is open you need to supply few details about your Azure Web app. (These are very simple and exactly as mentioned in below photo)
  5. Once you filled the form submit it.
  6. You will get a response message back.
  7. After that wait for 5-10 minutes for Azure to settle everything.
  8. Once everything is settled you need to go to the Azure Web app and open a kudu to see a new worker created with new underlying resources.

Happy Learning !! Keep Learning !!

New/Existing Domain as Custom Domain in Sitecore Managed Cloud

~ Nikhil Kulkarni ~ Leave a comment

Hi Champs,

As a part of Sitecore Managed Cloud series this one is last article about adding New or Existing domain to SMC app services.

So let’s start directly on article which tells us, how you can migrate the New/existing domain to your SMC Azure App Service as Custom domain.

Enable the CNAME record mapping in Azure

In the left navigation of the app page in the Azure portal, select Custom domains.

Custom domain menu

In the Custom domains page of the app, add the fully qualified custom DNS name (www.contoso.com) to the list.

Select the + icon next to Add custom domain.

Add host name

Type the fully qualified domain name that you added a CNAME record for, such as www.contoso.com.

Select Validate.

The Add custom domain page is shown.

Make sure that Hostname record type is set to CNAME (www.example.com or any subdomain).

Select Add custom domain.

Add DNS name to the app

It might take some time for the new custom domain to be reflected in the app’s Custom domains page. Try refreshing the browser to update the data.

CNAME record added

Note:

After you added custom domain don’t forget to add this domain entry in to sites configurations in SiteDefinition.config or Sitecore.config files.

Happy Learning!!!!

Disaster Recovery in Sitecore Managed Cloud

~ Nikhil Kulkarni ~ Leave a comment

Hi Champs,

Today I will explain DR or considering High Availability options in Sitecore Managed Cloud. So without doing any delay, we are going to touch straight to the point and start with a process for recovering your data in the event of an outage, incorporating:

  1. Backup technology
  2. Your secondary environment
  3. The steps of the recovery process
  4. Cost
  5. The recovery point objective (RPO)
  6. The recovery time objective (RTO)

Sitecore Managed Cloud offers three different disaster recovery options that differ slightly in cost and specifications, depending on your requirements. The recovery options available are:

  1. HADR Basic
  2. HADR Hot-warm
  3. HADR Hot-hot

Before we go into an explanation of the above three option, I want to explain basic terminologies in the Sitecore high availability disaster recovery (HADR):

  1. High availability (HA) – A system that aims to ensure an agreed level of operational performance. Usually, the uptime is higher than for the normal period, where the system can failover by itself.
  2. Disaster recovery (DR) – An area of business continuity planning that aims to protect an organization from the effects of significant negative events. Disaster recovery allows an organization to maintain or quickly resume mission-critical functions following a disaster that requires manual intervention.

Now I will explain all three options mentioned above, on a high level one by one as below.

HADR Basic:

With HADR basic, the Sitecore Managed Cloud disaster recovery service sets a process into action in the event of an outage. The steps of this process include:

  1. Scheduling a reoccurring backup, that occurs every 3 hours, of the following assets into the secondary database of the recovery point objective (RPO):
    • The databases.
    • Web applications.
    • The connection strings, (for the credentials).
    • The sizes/tiers of the resources.
  2. Arranging an outage page for customers to see while your site is down.
  3. Setting the traffic manager to switch between the primary Content Delivery (CD) server and the outage page.
  4. Setting up email alerts to notify the Managed Cloud Operations team if the availability tests fail.

HADR Hot-warm:

If you are using the HADR hot-warm option, in the event of an outage the Sitecore Managed Cloud disaster recovery service sets the following process into action:

  1. Deploy a new Sitecore environment in the secondary data center and shut down your web applications.
  2. Use active geo-replication to sync the data between the primary and secondary Azure SQL.
  3. Sync the sizes/tiers of all your Azure resources.
  4. Sync the file contents of all of your web applications.
  5. Set up an outage page to ensure your customers are aware that your site is temporarily down.
  6. Set up a traffic manager to switch between the primary Content Delivery (CD) server and the outage page.
  7. Set up email alerts to notify the Managed Cloud Operations team whenever an availability test fails.

HADR Hot-hot:

In the event of an outage, with the HADR hot-hot option, you must set into motion a recovery a process that is similar to the following:

  1. Enable recovery during a disaster by setting up the necessary environment before the disaster happens.
  2. Initiate the backup and replication process so that the Sitecore deployment and data are available for a healthy recovery.
  3. Deploy a passive Sitecore solution into the secondary region.
  4. Set up and enable the traffic manager to be the public gateway.

Prerequisites:

To set up your disaster recovery process:

  1. Ensure you are running your Sitecore solution (9.1 or later), on Azure.
  2. Install PowerShell with an Azure SDK, version 6.0.0 or later.
  3. Run your setup script and use the relevant modules.
  4. Use PowerShell (AzureRM), to log in to Azure and select the relevant subscription.
  5. Have your Sitecore license file ready.
  6. Have any scripts that you want to develop for your HADR hot-hot scenario ready.
  7. Use the Sitecore Azure Toolkit.

Note:

  1. Sitecore supports the following topologies: XM and XP, and the following deployment sizes: Extra Small, Small, Medium, Large, Extra Large.
  2. You can also use Simple Azure PaaS DR management to create DR of your SMC instances.

Reference:

https://doc.sitecore.com/developers/91/sitecore-experience-manager/en/high-availability-disaster-recovery–hadr-.html

Happy Learning !!!!

Deploying to Sitecore Managed Cloud

~ Nikhil Kulkarni ~ Leave a comment

Hi Champs,

As part of of Sitecore Managed Cloud blog series this my last blog for how to deploy to Sitecore Managed Cloud.

Without any further delay I will start with option which we have to deploy to SMC.

  1. Sitecore Azure Toolkit (SAT).
  2. Use Azure DevOps with TDS and Razl.

Sitecore Azure Toolkit (SAT):

To deploy your Sitecore solution onto Microsoft Azure®. The Sitecore Azure Toolkit simplifies the task of preparing and deploying a Sitecore solution with:

  • PowerShell commandlets to package a Sitecore instance into role-specific packages.
  • Default integration with Microsoft Azure services: Microsoft Azure SQL®, Microsoft Azure Redis Cache, Microsoft Application Insights®, Microsoft Azure Cognitive Search®.
  • Prebuilt ARM templates for frequently used topologies: XM, XP, XPSingle.
  • Configuration tweaks to run Sitecore on the Azure App Service.
  • Security features: HTTPS, low-privileged SQL access, secure Sitecore password.

Click here for more documentation for  getting started with Sitecore Azure Toolkit.

Use Azure DevOps with TDS and Razl:

There is another way which can be used is Configuring CI-CD pipelines in Azure DevOps by Using TDS web deploy packages. And for migrating the database use a Razl for first time. Let me explain this to you steps by step.

  1. Once you get SMC environments to use, you need to raise a ticket to Sitecore support for providing a services contract details for Azure DevOps which you are using.
  2. Once you get those details you need to configure that in your Azure DevOps account.
  3. Once Above is done you can use TDS to build and create web deploy packages pipeline.
  4. Once build pipeline is created then you can go further and create a release pipeline for the same.
  5. Now once entire setup is done you can have two option for getting your content (Sitecore data) migrated. The simple way is to sync everything to TDS and deploy, and the best way(recommended) is that use Razl to Sync all data for first time and then in subsequent release sync only required Sitecore data to TDS.

Summary: I found two ways to deploy the solution on SMC, but there are many different ways to do this. Please let me know in comment the other ways you guys used for deploying Sitecore on SMC.

Note: For using Razl please click here for link where great way described by Jon Jones.

Happy Learning!!!!

Capacity Management in Sitecore Managed Cloud

~ Nikhil Kulkarni ~ Leave a comment

Hi Champs,

As out Sitecore Managed Cloud, series is going on. So I decided to get you guys a new informative blog for Capacity Management in Sitecore Managed Cloud and, without any due we will start this.

Following are some point which you as Customer or Partner needs to take care of in case of Capacity Management or Sizing in SMC.

  • Budget.
  • The size of your Content database
  • The size of your xDB database
  • Cache sizing
  • Your Search Engine implementation plan
  • Your disaster recovery plan
  • Your RPO and RTO in the event of an outage
  • Any Previous sizing references.

Role of Customer/Partner:

As a Customer or Partner, you can also share more and more analytics reports of your exiting application or forecast analysis of users and their behavior and application requirements with respect to infrastructure in Azure. As all this information will give the technical team a way to design a constructive way to implement your needs. 

You also need to specify special needs like if you want to integrate some services for log management(Sumo Logic), APMT(New Relic). because these can take extra storage, app services or databases.

Role of Sitecore Team:

Once you as Customer or Partner provides some prerequisite information from above at the time of availing this service, Sitecore Cloud Ops team will choose the tier accordingly and then give you vanilla instances of SMC. Once that is done then according to your Capacity plan which will be based on the rest of the remaining above point will be executed jointly as per roles and responsibilities decided.

Note: You always have to scale your capacities as all this is Azure PaaS based.

Happy Learning!!!!

Role and Responsibilities in Sitecore Managed Cloud

~ Nikhil Kulkarni ~ Leave a comment

Hi Champs,

As per last blog of this series of Sitecore Manged Cloud concept we will start next topic which is Roles and Responsibilities in working with Sitecore Managed Cloud. Below are the roles involved in implementation of Sitecore Managed Cloud.

  1. Sitecore
  2. Sitecore Partner
  3. Sitecore Customer

Now we will straight away move to responsibilities of each role in different streams.

Sitecore(Sales and Cloud Ops team):

once Sitecore sales team on-board you with below process there most of the work is done and and the only Cloud Ops team is the major contact point for you as Customer or Partner.

End-to-end

After setting up everything for you(Customer or Partner) access is given and then you(Customer or Partner) need to deploy your solution to the Sitecore Managed Cloud environment. There are few other responsibilities like below.

  1. Infrastructure Monitoring.
  2. Application Security.
  3. Proactive Infra incident notifications.
  4. Web app firewall configurations.
  5. Web app scale up process.
  6. Database backup service.
  7. Initial SSL configurations.
  8. Actions on infra suggestion.
  9. Security incident management.
  10. Activation and termination of cloud service .
  11. Billing.
  12. Process monitoring.

Sitecore Partner/Customer:

Sitecore Partner/Customer has many responsibilities like below.

  1. Deploy Solution on Sitecore Managed Cloud.
  2. Network: NSG and Firewall setup.
  3. Third party service connectivity.
  4. SSL configurations.
  5. Sitecore platform hotfix management.
  6. Custom domain setup.
  7. Sitecore version upgrade.
  8. Performance optimization

There are so many other responisiblities are there in this process for Customers/Partner and Sitecore, I have listed only the major ones. you can learn more at Sitecore Managed Cloud doc.

Hope above will help you, I will be continuing posting article for this series.

Happy learning.

Getting started with Sitecore Managed Cloud

~ Nikhil Kulkarni ~ 1 Comment

Hi Champs,

Earlier I shared a blog where we discussed working with Sitecore Managed Cloud.

Let’s directly get into the business this could be a series of blogs for Sitecore Managed Cloud, particularly divided into three parts.

  1. Responsibilities.
  2. Capacity Management.
  3. Deploy on Managed Cloud.

We will discuss this introductory part in points as below.

  • Sitecore Managed Cloud comes with two offerings same as Azure as follows.
    1. Standard: Sitecore provides customers with a base-level infrastructure hosting capability and basic product support with industry-standard uptime.
    2. Premium: Sitecore, in partnership with a third-party provider, delivers extensive coverage. This includes advanced infrastructure services for customers with more demanding operational support and security needs.
  • Before implementing Sitecore Managed Cloud you need to work on below bullet points.
    1. Formal understanding of Sitecore Managed Cloud services offered.
    2. Sitecore Managed Cloud services catalog.
    3. Training on Sitecore Managed Cloud.
    4. A healthy understanding of Azure especially Azure PaaS.
    5. Understanding the RACI matrix.
    6. Understanding different behaviors on the Sitecore XP platform on Azure PaaS.
    7. Azure Search.
    8. SolrCloud(SearchStax).
  • Sitecore Managed Cloud comes with 6 different topologies as below.
    1. XP Single
    2. XP Scaled
    3. XM Single
    4. XM Scaled
    5. xDB Single
    6. xDB Scaled
  • Working with topologies.

It is highly recommended that as a customer or Sitecore Partner you should decide infrastructure strategy(topology/tier) in consultation with the Sitecore Managed Cloud team. Because here Sitecore Managed Cloud team helps you to decide the topology and tier of infrastructure by getting details on a few predefined questions, this what they call capacity planning of Sitecore Managed Cloud. Here, in this case, the Sitecore sales team plays a crucial role to help for connecting everyone and get this decision done.

  • What access and Permissions you will get.
    1. Full access a contributor to the Azure Platform.
    2. Full access to all Sitecore instance s and app services.
    3. Full access to deploy custom code.
    4. Support for XP, XM,xDB.
    5. Compatibility for On-Premises environments.
  • Tranings.

The last part of this introductory overview blog is training. There is a training available for both Customers and Partners, you need to follow below for getting started with training.

To enroll in Managed Cloud training,

      1. Go to sitecore.com
      2. For Customers, click Sitecore Training.
      3. On the Sitecore training and support page there are a number of training options available:
        • Instructor-led training – Click on a region near you to enroll in the classroom or virtual instructor-led training sessions.
        • Online training – Sign up for an eCourse.
        • Certifications – After you have completed your training, you can sign up to become a certified Sitecore Developer.

Happy Learning

Globalization Setting Sitecore PaaS and SMC

~ Nikhil Kulkarni ~ Leave a comment

Hi Champs,

Today I am going to give you quick quick learning details about how you can setup default Culture of your Sitecore Application.

First question which will get raised why you want set  this?(specifically in Azure PaaS and Sitecore Managed Cloud)

Answer to this question is now a days we host Sitecore application in Azure PaaS or any Other Cloud offerings where the actual Timezone and Culture is different. In this case the impacts will come to few part off your application where your using default culture settings in application globalization. Which means miss match of time/date formats etc.

Next question will be How we can fix it ?

So the answer is as below.

  1. Go to your Sitecore application.
  2. Open Web.config.
  3. Serch for below term.                                                                                          “<globalization”
  4. You will find a predefined setting with few attributes but you can set few more attributes like below to set default Culture of your application.
<globalization requestEncoding="utf-8" responseEncoding="utf-8" enableClientBasedCulture="false" culture="en-GB" uiCulture="en-GB" />

Note:

  1. This setting is totally different than the Time Zone setting for Sitecore application.
  2. What I mean over here is even if you set Time Zone to the one which you want in Cloud still you will get issues with formats.
  3. So this settings will help all those issues in Sitecore.
  4. This settings is tested of in Azure PaaS and Sitecore Managed Cloud.

Happy Learning