Introduction

In this blog post, we will go through step by step how to actualize DotNetNuke on Windows Azure Website from Gallery. For those who are not familiar with DotNetNuke, we start by introducing what it is.

DotNetNuke is a web content management system based on Microsoft .NET. The Community Edition is open source, and source code and related information can be found on Codeplex. The product is used to build professional looking and easy-to-use commercial websites, social intranets, community portals, or partner extranets.

In addition to robust content management, the free, open source DotNetNuke Community Edition includes the following built-in features:

A rich-text editor
File management
Cloud-ready with Microsoft Azure compatibility
Mobile API and basic mobile device detection
Core written in C#
Single installation, multiple portals
Social API (in DNN 6.2 and above)
Modern client-side Web tools like CSS 3, HTML 5 and JQuery
Bulk email
Robust security
Administration features like: security roles, protected content and site log

Windows Azure website from gallery makes available a wide range of popular web applications developed by Microsoft, third party companies, and open source software initiatives. Web applications created from the gallery do not require installation of any software other than the browser used to connect to the Windows Azure Management Portal.

So after a brief about DotNetnuke and Azure Websites, we are ready to go through step-by-step journey to set-up DotNetNuke on Azure.

NOTE: For following steps, you need a Windows Azure account that has the Windows Azure Web Sites feature enabled. If you don’t have one, you can create trial for free at the following link: Create a Windows Azure account and enable preview features.

Select Database Setup type Custom
Select Database Type as SQL Server/SQL Server Express Database
Enter Server Name and Database Name (You can check your server name at Windows Azure Management Portal)
Select Security type User Defined.
Enter Database Username (this is also can be found at Windows Azure Management Portal)
Enter Database Password (that we saved in step 7).
Finally click on continue.

Deploying DotNetNuke on Windows Azure