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Create an Orchard CMS web site from the gallery in Windows Azure

The gallery makes available a wide range of popular web applications developed by Microsoft, third party companies, and open source software initiatives. Web applications created from the gallery do not require installation of any software other than the browser used to connect to the Windows Azure Management Portal.

In this tutorial, you'll learn:

  • How to create a new site from the gallery

  • How to launch and manage your site from the Management Portal

You'll build an Orchard CMS site that uses a default template. Orchard is a free, open-source, .NET-based CMS application that allows you to create customized, content-driven web sites. Orchard CMS includes an extensibility framework through which you can download additional modules and themes to customize your site. The following illustration shows the Orchard CMS site that you will create.

Orchard blog

Note

To complete this tutorial, you need a Windows Azure account that has the Windows Azure Web Sites feature enabled. You can create a free trial account and enable preview features in just a couple of minutes. For details, see Create a Windows Azure account and enable preview features.


Create web site from galleryCreate an Orchard web site from the gallery

  1. Login to the Windows Azure Management Portal.

  2. Click the New icon on the bottom left of the dashboard.

    Create New

  3. Click the Web Site icon, and click From Gallery.

    Create From Gallery

  4. Locate and click the Orchard CMS icon in list, and then click Next.

    Orchard from list

  5. On the Configure Your App page, enter or select values for all fields:

    • Enter a URL name of your choice.
    • Select the region closest to your users. (This will ensure best performance.)

    configure your app

  6. Then click the Complete check box.

After you click Complete Windows Azure will initiate build and deploy operations. While the web site is being built and deployed the status of these operations is displayed at the bottom of the Web Sites page. After all operations are performed, A final status message when the site has been successfully deployed.

Launch and manage siteLaunch and manage your Orchard site

  1. Click the name of your new site on the Web Sites page to open the dashboard for the site.

    launch dashboard

  2. On the dashboard, under quick glance, scroll down and click the link under Site URL to open the site's welcome page.

  3. Enter appropriate configuration information required by Orchard, and then click Finish Setup to complete the configuration and open the web site’s home page.

    login to Orchard

    You'll have a new Orchard site that looks similar to the screenshot below.

    your Orchard site

  4. Follow the details in the Orchard Documentation to learn more about Orchard and configure your new site.

Next stepsNext step

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