

Ask HN: Anyone using Azure VM's in Production - davismwfl

I have a client that wants to place their core site and related services into Azure, would likely be 1-2 VM's to start with plus SQL as a service. Complexity of the app is moderate, VM is needed for some custom components and services that run background tasks.<p>First, can you share any examples of apps that are using Azure in Production (VM especially)?  I did some searches but only saw Microsoft solutions running production in Azure.<p>Second, I would appreciate any advice, guidance or suggestions based on your experience in Azure or knowledge of it.<p>BTW - I do have plenty of experience in AWS for production apps, and have tested apps in Azure.  I can't see how/why it would be a bad thing for this client, but I also want to be able to feel confident that I am not missing something with Azure specifically.  I recommended using AWS to them but being Microsoft centric they would prefer Azure.
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wluu
We have deployed to Azure, but I personally haven't been involved with it. And
we aren't using VMs at this stage, but are considering it to complement
features that aren't available in Azure. For example, Reporting Services was
not available on Azure (it is now), so we hosted that on another provider
which connected to a SQL Azure instance.

From what I hear, performance has been pretty good, as has uptime. Though,
with targeting non-VM you do run against some limitations. Such as, as you
mention, the non-ability to run background tasks.

You can in fact run background services on Azure (non-VM), and we have done so
for a few of our deployed web apps. You'll need to look into Worker Roles: *
[http://blogs.msdn.com/b/morebits/archive/2011/01/01/building...](http://blogs.msdn.com/b/morebits/archive/2011/01/01/building-
windows-azure-service-part5-worker-role-background-tasks-handler.aspx) *
<http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/ee336122.aspx>

~~~
davismwfl
Awesome, thanks for the feedback, I will check out the Worker Roles too, not
sure how I missed them.

