WordPress on Azure App Service - Top features you must know about

[Guest abhishekreddy]

As the name suggests, WordPress on Azure App Service is built on top of Azure App Service and takes advantage of all the advanced features in Azure App Service to build, deploy, and manage your WordPress applications. But that is not all; WordPress on Azure App Service makes use of other Azure Products like MySQL Flexible server, Azure CDN, Azure BLOB storage, Azure VNET, and Azure Front Door to give you the best WordPress experience. In addition to using these Azure Products, the WordPress on Azure App Service team at Microsoft makes sure that you get the latest versions of all underlying technology.

 

 

 

In this article, we will go through the top features of WordPress on Azure App Service and know why you should choose this offering for your next WordPress project!

 

 

 

1. Azure App Service
   

 

Azure App Service is a fully managed platform for building web applications, REST APIs, and mobile backends. It supports multiple languages including PHP on a Linux environment. You could also run bash scripts as background services. How to run Bash scripts in WordPress on Azure App Service - Microsoft Community Hub

 

 

Azure App Service brings you the power of Azure – security, load balancing, autoscaling, and automated management. DevOps capabilities of Azure App Service make WordPress development easy to manage – Containerization of your WordPress application, continuous deployment from Azure DevOps, GitHub, Docker Hub, and other sources, package management, and staging environments. Custom domains and SSL certificates remove the need to configure domains manually.

 

 

Azure App Service can be deployed in multiple regions across the globe and can be scaled up and out manually and automatically. The App Service SLA promises high availability. App Service is ISO, SOC, and PCI compliant - making your website secure and complaint with security standards. Monitoring and diagnostics features enable users to quickly respond to changing requirements.

 

 

To learn more about Azure App Service visit Overview - Azure App Service | Microsoft Learn

 

 

 

1. Azure Database for MySQL – flexible Server
   

 

Azure Database for MySQL flexible server is a fully managed production-ready database service designed for greater control and flexibility over database management functions and configuration settings. The flexible server architecture enables users to opt for high availability within a single availability zone and across multiple availability zones. Flexible servers provide better cost optimization with the ability to start/stop. It also supports reserved instances for predictable compute capacity requirements. The service is available across many regions.

 

Dynamic scalability enables the database to transparently respond to rapidly changing requirements. Enterprise grade security, compliance, and privacy. Simplified development experience. Monitoring.

 

 

To learn more about Azure Database for MySQL flexible server visit Overview - Azure Database for MySQL | Microsoft Learn

 

 

 

1. Azure Virtual Network
   

 

Azure Virtual Network (VNET) is the fundamental block of your private network in Azure. VNET enables Azure resources to securely communicate with each other, the internet, and on premise networks. It is similar to a traditional network with benefits of Azure infrastructure such as scale, availability, and isolation.

 

 

To learn more about Azure VNET visit Azure Virtual Network | Microsoft Learn

 

 

 

1. Azure Front Door
   

 

Azure Front Door (AFD) is Microsoft’s modern cloud Content delivery network (CDN) that provides fast, reliable, and secure access between your users and your application’s static and dynamic web content across the globe. AFD delivers your content using Microsoft’s global edge network with hundreds of global and local points of presence distributed around the world. AFD intelligently secures your applications against known and new threats with built in DDoS protection, Web Application firewall (WAF), and Azure DNS.

 

 

You can enable AFD for your WordPress application without any manual configuration. Just check the ‘Enable AFD’ option in the Advanced tab of WordPress on Azure App Service deployment window.

 

 

To learn more about Azure Front Door, visit Azure Front Door | Microsoft Learn

 

 

 

1. Azure Content Delivery Network (CDN)
   

 

You can opt for Azure CDN instead of Azure Front Door. Azure CDN is a distributed network of servers that can efficiently deliver web content to users. It stores cached content on edge servers at points of presence locations that are closer to the end user.

 

It enables better performance, better handling of instantaneous high loads, reducing traffic to the origin server.

 

 

To learn more about Azure CDN, visit Azure Content Delivery Network (CDN) | Microsoft Learn

 

 

 

1. Azure Blob Storage
   

 

Azure Blob storage is an object storage solution for the cloud. It is optimized for storing large amounts of unstructured data. Blob Storage can serve images or documents directly to a browser, stream video and audio, allow distributed access to files, thereby improving performance. It can also be used to backup and restore data, disaster recovery, and archiving.

 

 

To learn more about Azure Blob storage, visit Introduction to Blob (object) Storage - Azure Storage | Microsoft Learn

 

 

 

Additional features

 

Apart from using these Azure products, the WordPress on Azure App Service team at Microsoft has been undertaking these tasks to make sure you have the best WordPress hosting experience.

 

 

 

1. Updated Tech Stack
   

 

The updates for Linux, PHP, and Nginx are installed automatically. New WordPress versions will be available for new deployments within two weeks of release. For existing deployments, you will have to upgrade your WordPress version yourself.

 

 

 

The offering also comes with an out of the box implementation of Redis cache in the Web Server which improves performance and reduces load on the database.

 

 

 

1. Hosting plans
   

 

We provide you with three hosting plans for you to pick according to your requirements.

 

Hosting Plan	WebApp Server	Database Server
Basic	B1 (1 vCores, 1.75 GB RAM, 10 GB Storage)	Burstable, B1ms (1 vCores, 2 GiB RAM, 32 GiB storage, 400 IOPS)
Standard	P1V2 (1 vCores, 3.5 GB RAM, 250 GB Storage)	General Purpose, D2ds_v4 (2 vCores, 8 GiB RAM, 128 GiB storage, 700 IOPS)
Premium	P1V3 (2 vCores, 8 GB RAM, 250 GB Storage)	Memory Optimized, Standard_E4ds_v4 (2 vCores, 16 GiB RAM, 256 GiB storage, 1100 IOPS)

 

 

 

1. Default Plugins
   
   1. 
      
   2. W3 Total Cache: We use this plugin for Redis cache and to enable integration with Azure CDN and Blob storage. Learn More
      
   3. Smush: We use this plugin for image compression. Learn More
      
   4. Akismet: This plugin helps in protecting your website from malicious content. Learn More
      

 

 

 

Support and Feedback

 

In case you need any support, you can open a support request at New support request - Microsoft Azure.

 

 

Visit QuickStart: Create a WordPress site - Azure App Service | Microsoft Docs for a step-by-step guide on how to create your WordPress website on Azure.

 

 

For more details about the offering, please visit Announcing the General Availability of WordPress on Azure App Service - Microsoft Tech Community.

 

 

If you have any ideas about how we can make WordPress on Azure App Service better, please post your ideas at Post idea · Community (azure.com)

 

 

or you could email us at wordpressonazure@microsoft.com to start a conversation.

 

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