DNN Azure Accelerator 2013 Q3 Released

Hi, today I have released a new version of the DNN Azure Accelerator, the tool to deploy DNN Platform instances on Windows Azure by using cloud services (PaaS model).
You can download the latest version from CodePlex:

• https://dnnazureaccelerator.codeplex.com/

New features

The new features included in this release need deeper details:

• Packages and solution upgraded to Azure SDK 2.1: all the packages has been rebuilt by using the latest Azure SDK version available, that comes with more features and support for the latest cloud services features. Check the Azure SDK 2.1 release notes for more information. Note that the previous Accelerator packages were built using the SDK 1.8;
• Changed the use of a mapped network drive for a symbolic link: to avoid remapping issues executing “net.exe use” and “net.exe delete” commands, the new method for mapping the network location has been introduced by using a symbolic link to the network share. As a consequence, you will no longer see the X: mapped network drive. To access the drive contents:
  • From the webrole that mounted the drive, you can access the drive contents by browsing F: drive (or B: if it’s the first mount)
  • From any webrole, included the one that mounted the drive, you can access the drive contents by browsing “C:\Resources\Directory\<RoleDeploymentId>.DNNAzure.SitesRoot\root”. Note that the alias “C:\Resources\Directory\sites\root” is also available, and it’s the one being used by IIS
• Support for Web Platform Installer custom feeds: now you can specify a custom feed Url for Web Platform Installer, so you can automate the installation of custom addons using this way. To build your own custom feeds, check this blog post.

Another important thing that changed on this release, is that Azure Connect is no longer supported in favor of Virtual Network, so the Connect step in the Wizard has been removed. The new step to setup Virtual Network through the wizard has not been included in this release, but you can get it working by including your virtual network settings directly on the .cscfg files before starting to create the cloud service. For more information about how this can be achieved, check the Windows Azure Virtual Network Configuration Schema documenation.

Release notes

New Features

• Packages and solution upgraded to Azure SDK 2.1
• Changed the use of a mapped network drive for a symbolic link to avoid remapping issues (you will not see the mapped X: drive anymore)
• Support for Web Platform Installer custom feeds
• Rebranding changes

Fixes

• Fix for the CA2 certificate thumbprint that was being ignored
• Fix for WebDeploy and FTP services while working on HA mode
• Fixes around the drive unmount/mount logic when a failure is detected
• Fix to include the databaseOwner and objectQualifier settings while creating the portal aliases for the Offline site
• Fix to shorten the symbolic link path length (see http://geeks.ms/blogs/davidjrh/archive/2013/06/18/path-too-long-when-using-local-storage-in-an-azure-cloud-service.aspx for more info)
• Implemented the RoleEnvironment.StatusCheck to programatically change the instance status from Busy to Ready after successfully setting up the IIS
• Fix on the Compete for the lease process, causing a "Value cannot be null" exception after a deployment upgrade
• Fix to modify the default connection limit to a higher value to avoid inrole caching connection timeouts
• Fix to avoid 404 errors while calling the automatic installation process
• Fix to add support for East US and West US in the accelerator Wizard

Deprecated

• Azure Connect has been deprecated in favor of Virtual Networks. All Azure Connect support has been removed

Un saludo y happy coding!