2.2.7 Describe Application Hosting Options

Description of different Azure hosting options.

Azure App Service

App service allows you to build and host web apps, background jobs, mobile back-ends and RESTful APIs. It offers high availability and automatic scaling. This supports Windows and Linux, and enables automatic deployments from GitHub, Azure DevOps or any Git repo. This is a HTTP-based service for hosting web apps, REST APIs and mobile back ends. It supports multiple languages including .NET, .NET Core, Java, Ruby, PHP, Node.js or Python.

Types of App Services

• Web Apps

• API Apps

• WebJobs

• Mobile Apps

App service handles most of the infrastructure decisions:

• Deployment and management are integrated

• Endpoints can be secured

• Sites can be scaled quickly to handle traffic loads

• Built-in load balancing and traffic manager provide high availability

Web Apps

Supports hosting web apps with ASP.NET, ASP.NET Core, Java, Ruby, Node.js, PHP or Python. Windows or Linux can be used as the OS.

API Apps

Provides full Swagger support and the ability to publish your API. Apps can be consumed from any HTTP- or HTTPS-based client.

WebJobs

Can be used to run a program (.exe, Java, PHP, Python or Node.js) or script (.cmd, .bat, PowerShell or BASH) in the same context as a web app, API app or mobile app. Can be scheduled or run on a trigger.

Mobile Apps

• Store mobile app data in a cloud-based SQL database

• Authenticate customers against common social providers

• Send push notifications

• Execute custom back end logic in C# or Node.js