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Deployment Slots In App Service In Azure

In this article, we will discuss deployment slots in Azure App Service.

What Are Deployment Slots?

When you create a web application, it gets deployed onto the staging environment before it moves to the production environment. The purpose of the staging environment is to test the changes before it moves to the production environment.

Azure App Service provides deployment slots to create different hosting environments for the web application.

How To Manage Deployment Slots?

In the app service, go to the Deployment slots submenu. In the Deployment slot screen, you can see the default deployment slot i.e., production slot.

You can click on the + Add Slot button for adding the new slot.

Picture showing the Add slot button for adding the new deployment slot in app service

Once you click on the + Add Slot button, a docked window appears on the right-hand side.

Picture showing the add slot screen in app service

Enter the Name and click on the Add button to add the new slot.

Urls Of Both The Slots

Each deployment slot has their unique URL. For production, you can go to the Overview submenu of the app service.

Picture showing the URL of the production deployment slots in app service

For staging URL, you can click on the staging deployment slot in the deployment slot screen. Another page will appear as shown in figure below.

Picture showing the URL of the staging deployment slots in app service

Deploy A New Application On The Staging Slot

For this, we will perform 2 steps: -

Create a new asp.net core 3.1 application
Download the publish profile by clicking on the Get publish profile button (see the last image)

To start the publish, right-click on the project and click on the Publish.. option.

Picture showing an option to publish the web application in the visual studio

A publish project window will appear. Click on the + New button to create the new publish profile.

A window will appear to select the Target. For this example, we will select the option Import Profile and click on the Next button.

Another window will appear to select the publish setting file. Select the file that you have downloaded by clicking on the Get publish profile button.

Click on the Finish button.

Picture showing the textbox with the path of existing publish setting file in visual studio

The window will be closed and your project is ready for the publishing. To start the publish, click on the Publish button.

You can observe the output window to check the status of the deployment. Once the deployment is completed, you can see the confirmation message.

Picture showing the output window that displays the message of successful publishing

You can check the deployed code on the staging URL.

Picture showing the staging app service URL

Swap The Deployment Slots (From Staging To Production)

To swap the deployment slots, click on the Swap button in the deployment slots screen.

Picture showing the swap button for swapping the staging and production deployment slot

A docked screen appears on the right-hand side.

Picture showing the swap deployment slot window

Select the Source and Destination slots and click on the Swap button. Once the swap process is completed, you will get the successful message.

Picture showing the swap confirmation message

You can check the deployed code on the production slot now.

Picture showing the production URL with the staging changes

Posted By -	Karan Gupta

Posted On -	Wednesday, May 12, 2021

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