sync files between azure scale set vms

Question

i am a newbie and am planning to host iis server for my client in azure with auto-scale functionality.

we will test modules and update once in a week in iis server, my question is how to sync the files between vms while on auto-scaling and if we can use auto-scale only for identicals vms, then please suggest me the solution for this scenario. we will start min 2 max 10 vms in auto-scale.

Regards,

Kumar B

Answer 1

You can deploy your application to a virtual machine scale set using desired state configuration. See: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machine-scale-sets/virtual-machine-scale-sets-deploy-app

Not what you asked, but you should consider why you are hosting your app in IIS on VMs. If you are using Azure, then Azure App Service may be a better fit. See: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/app-service/

Answer 2

I first would ask why a VM, things do get more complicated using VMs. Scale Set would help support this however you still will have issues when you want to deploy new code. You said IIS so I am presuming Windows. Desired State Configuration is a great choice you can make a PowerShell script that will "configure" your VM for you, and potentially pull in any code updates. This is also where things like chef/puppet/salt can come into play to ensure the server is configured.

You could look at creating a custom image that every time you deploy new code gets baked into the image. Then you are basically doing a rolling update where you spin up a new server and then destroy one until they all have been updated. Technically this could be done, either way, just if they are baked into the image you would have a quicker start time.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machine-scale-sets/virtual-machine-scale-sets-deploy-app https://adamtheautomator.com/azure-vm-scale-sets-powershell/

Automatic - VMs may be rebooted in a random order even taking all VMs temporarily down at the same time. Rolling - The scale set deploys updates to instances in batches with an optional pause time between batches. Manual - Nothing happens to existing VMs when an update is initiated.

What files are you trying to sync if they are not code files, Azure Files would be a great fit as that supports SMB or you could just use cloud storage.