Azure keeps deleting my content and reconfigures entire system back to default settings

Question

I had the 90 day free trial wich only lasted for ten days now I'm paying I have a web site on a hosted service  that only I am using I installed Live Smooth stereaming on IIS so I could try it out it seemed to work fine the website uses images like every web site dose I keep the images in a folder with the path in a database pretty basic set up every couple of days all but one Image is deleted when I connect to the Virturl Network and check the recycle bin it's empty

when I open IIS manager it's reset back to the default settings I thought I was doing something to cause this because I have been trying Azure out and playing around with deploying a web site on the hosted service

Now because of New Years I haven't touched anything I haven't logged into my account or even brought up my web page for 2 days it was working 2 days ago with all of the images there this morning I went on my web site and all the images showed a blank so I logged on to the virtural network all but one Image has been deleted and IIS is set back to to the default and it's back to the starting line because of the naming convention I use for Images I have to delete the data base entries and upload new images and reinstall Live Smooth streaming reconfigure everything is this normal

 Azuer at this point for me seems to be more like a rent a toy not a commericial tool it's not staking up against a dedicated server at a hosting company very well is it me or is this how azure works

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Answer 1

Hi,

I am not sure what you are doing, but I am guessing you login with Remote Desktop and configure using IIS Manager.

If that is true, I think you need to read-up on the platform-as-a-service  (PaaS) offerings, and how this differs from Infrastructure As a Service (IaaS).

What you describe is how an IaaS platform behaves, but PaaS behaves different.

The typical way to install "something" in the PaaS platform is (generally) to deploy a package from Visual Studio containg your web-application and optionally startup-scripts that modifies IIS (or other Windows settings)

I would recomend that you watch these videos:

http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/BUILD/BUILD2011/SAC-852F

http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/BUILD/BUILD2011/SAC-853T

 

Actually, all videos from BUILD regarding Azure is interresting:

http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/BUILD/BUILD2011?sort=sequential&direction=desc&term=&t=windows%2Bazure

 

If you REALLY want to configure IIS manually before deploying your app, you can do that using a VM role which you configure locally and then upload to Windows Azure, but I wouldn't really recomend it.

 

Regards, and good luck.

// Ronny

Answer 2

When you change the state of an instance you should do so in a manner that allows it to be redone automatically in case the instance is reimaged or moved. In other words, the change should be automated not manual.

You should consider using startup tasks for such changes. This post by Steve Marx shows how to use Web Platform Installer, for example, in a startup task.

Answer 3

Thanks for getting back to me I might not have been clear in my post I never changed the state of anything I never touched it for two days and even if I did change something why would it delte only certian files when I watched this video

http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/windowsazure/learn/Developing-Windows-Azure-Applications-with-Visual-Studio

he had the same issue with the Image folder on the video they thought someone had hacked into the demo I'm having it every couple days

the configuration I'm useing is the default configuaration for deploying a website I didn't change anything

the only thing I changed throughout the whole process is I installed LiveSmoothStreaming in IIS with the Web Platform Installer

 

 

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learning development

Answer 4

Hi,

Can you provide more information? For example, where are the images? Do you have a web role project? Do you put the images in the web role project, and set the Build Action to Content? And how do you install IIS Smooth Streaming? Do you use remote desktop to login to the cloud machine and install it (which will be lost whenever the instance is recycled), or do you use a startup task to install it (we have to take this approach)?

You can refer to http://blog.smarx.com/posts/smooth-streaming-with-windows-azure-blobs-and-cdn for a sample on how to use smooth streaming in Windows Azure.

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Answer 5

Hi,

When i started development in Azure for the first time i faced the same kind of issues and then i learnt that everything in my application should be automated so that if there are any custom configuration required for IIS or some other settings in Windows Server environment it should happen automatically with the help of startup scripts. 

As you mentioned you haven't touched anything because of New Years, Microsoft released azure guest OS update on 28th of December and if you didn't mention any specific version of OS in your Azure role configuration then your instances might get updated with the latest release which may caused resetting everything at the server to the original state. 

Regards,

Ammar

Answer 6

Ammar thanks for getting back to me I have Configure os set to Automatic on the Deployment right now the Geust operating system is WA-GUEST-OS-1.16_201109-03 htat would make sence if it re-wipes the operating systemshould I change it from Automatic to this OS

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Answer 7

Hi,

Yes if you don't want your Azure instances OS to get updated automatically then you should provide a guest OS version in your Role config file. Although if you define specific guest OS version in you config file then you should be aware of the recent updates and releases because sometime it contains fixes to some potential issues which can be critical to your working environment. For information related to Windows Azure guest OS you can follow the link:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsazure/ee924680.aspx

Regards,

Ammar

Answer 8

Just in case the previous answers weren't clear:

-- Even if you don't use your app, it can be recycled (such as to apply Windows updates)
-- Every time it recycles, your app is reinstalled on a new Virtual Machine, so you lose any customizations you made to the machine (such as installing Live Smooth Streaming via Remote Desktop), along with any files you may have uploaded since the app started
-- The solution for IIS is either to use a cmd script to automate the configuration when the app is reinstalled or do the configuration in code
-- Use blob storage or SQL Azure for any files you want to upload and retain (use the local disk as a cache only). That may require some code to sync with uploaded files (though you can construct URLs to allow clients to directly access files once they are in blob storage).

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Answer 9

I fixed the problem I canceled my subscription

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