Deploying Commerce Server on Azure Cloud Service
There are limitations to be aware of if you want to automate the installation and configuration of Commerce Server as part of your startup tasks:
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The Cloud Service must be Windows 2012 R2 or greater. For the Azure Cloud Service configuration, set your osFamily to 4. This can be set in your ServiceConfiguration.*.cscfg file.
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Microsoft Distributed Transaction Coordinator (MSDTC) is not supported in Azure. The Orders/Marketing pipeline framework supports the use of MSDTC, but it is only used to update the inventory stock counts during a checkout. If you are using the default Commerce Server inventory store as part of your solution, or you have an existing pipeline component that is dependent on MSDTC, you need to explore new strategies for handling a fallback. By default, MSDTC support is still enabled in Commerce Server, but it must be disabled when working in Azure. You can do this by adding
enableTransactions="false"to the Orders element in your CommerceServer config section. For example, for SCpbCS deployment inside \Website\App_Config|CommerceServerCore.config:<orders honorStatus="true" newOrderStatus="NewOrder" enableTransactions="false"> ... </orders>
When running Commerce Server Configuration Wizard in an Azure Cloud Service, remove the Commerce Server Staging (MS.CS.CsStaging) and Profile Schema Manager (Feature.MS.CS.Misc) from the list of features configured by the Commerce Server Configuration Wizard. Neither of these features should be required on a Cloud Service, and will reduce the amount of additional configuration that you need to perform. The sample script does not enable these features. If you need these features, modify the script to suit your needs.