In 2014, IIS6 and Windows Server 2003 will no longer be supported which necessitates the migration of websites currently hosted on this technology to newer technologies. This book describes the migration process from an ASP.NET 2.0 application hosted on a stand-alone IIS 6 server to an ASP.NET MVC 4 application hosted on Windows Azure. It should be popular among developers and organizations who want to real an example of how to perform this migration, plus some additional benefits provided by new ASP.NET, ASP.NET MVC and Windows Azure features.
Section I - Migration - Chapter 1 discusses differences between the existing technologies (IIS 6, ASP.NET 2.0, ADO.NET, etc.) and the ones being migrated to (ASP.NET MVC 4, NHibernate, Windows Azure). It discusses design and development concepts such as using TFS for source control and deployment and TDD for testing and validation. Chapter 2 includes steps performed to migrate the website to the new technologies.
The reader is walked through many of the most important and/or complicated code snippets found in the existing ASP.NET website. Section II - Enhancing - Chapter 3 discusses different aspects of performance and scalability like pipeline optimization, process model configuration, caching, minification and bundling. The reader will get instructions for tools and methods to collect and analyze performance data. In Chapter 4 the steps to implement minification, bundling are provided and discussed in detail. Section III - Deployment - Chapter 5 discusses deployment options and website architecture prior to the existence of the Windows Azure. Then the reader is taken into a brief overview of the Windows Azure Cloud Service and the benefits it has over legacy configurations. An overview of the Windows Azure deployment features is provided, followed by publishing and deployment options.
Chapter 6 provides steps for getting access to Windows Azure, creating the components necessary to host and successfully run the test website and the steps required to actually deploy the solution. Section IV - Monitoring / Troubleshooting provides actions required to successfully administer and support the web site, hosted on Windows Azure. A number of built in and 3rd party tools are discussed and implemented.