Automate Your Workflow: Setting Up Continuous Deployment for Static Websites with Azure DevOps

Deploying static websites can be a manual and time-consuming process. This article guides you through creating a continuous deployment pipeline in Azure DevOps to automate deployments from a GitHub repository to an Azure Storage account. With each code push, your website will automatically update, ensuring a streamlined and efficient deployment workflow.

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1. Building the Foundation: Azure Storage for Your Website

• Log in to the Azure portal and navigate to the "Create a resource" option.
• Search for "Storage account" and click "Create."
• Choose a descriptive name for your storage account (e.g., "staticwebsite-storage").
• Select a resource group (or create a new one) for organizing your Azure resources.
• Choose a location closest to your target audience for optimal performance.
• Under "Account tier," select "Standard" (general-purpose) for static website hosting.
• Under "Replication," choose "Locally redundant storage" (LRS) for cost-effectiveness for static content.
• Leave other options with default settings and click "Review + create" to validate and provision the storage account.

2. Creating the Pipeline: Azure DevOps Steps to Automation

• Navigate to the Azure DevOps portal and access your project (or create a new one).
• Click on "Pipelines" and then "Create pipeline."
• Choose "Starter pipeline" and select "Azure Repos Git" as the repository source.

Connecting to GitHub:

• Authorize Azure DevOps to access your GitHub account.
• Select the desired GitHub repository containing your static website code.
• Click "Next" to proceed with configuring the pipeline tasks.

3. Configuring the Pipeline Stages: Automating Deployment

• Within the pipeline editor, you'll see pre-defined stages: "Get sources" and "Build."
• We'll modify these stages and add an additional stage for deployment.

Modifying the Build Stage (Optional):

This stage is primarily for building applications requiring compilation. If your static website consists of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript files, you can leave this stage empty. However, if you're using build tools like Gulp or Webpack, you can modify the build commands within the "Tasks" section to automate the build process before deployment.

Adding the Deployment Stage:

• Click the "+" icon next to the "Build" stage and choose "Deploy to Azure Blob storage."

Deployment Configuration:

• Provide a connection name (e.g., "StaticWebsiteStorageConnection").
• Click "New" to create a service connection and choose "Azure Storage account."
• Authorize Azure DevOps to access your storage account using the appropriate credentials.
• Under "Azure subscription," choose the subscription containing your storage account.
• Under "Storage account name," select the storage account you created earlier (e.g., "staticwebsite-storage").
• Under "Container," enter the name of the container within your storage account that will hold your website files (e.g., "$web"). You can create this container beforehand within the Azure portal.

Deployment Trigger:

• Under "Continuous deployment trigger," choose "Enable continuous deployment" to automatically trigger deployments upon code pushes to your GitHub repository.

4. Continuous Deployment in Action: Pushing Code and Seeing Results

• Commit your static website code to your GitHub repository.
• Azure DevOps will automatically detect the push and trigger the pipeline execution.
• The pipeline will (optionally) perform any build steps configured.
• The pipeline will deploy the website content to the specified container within your Azure Storage account.

Accessing Your Website:

• Navigate to your storage account in the Azure portal.
• Under "Blobs," locate the container you specified in the pipeline (e.g., "$web").
• Within the container, you'll see your static website files.
• Azure Storage provides a public endpoint URL for accessing blob containers. Locate this URL within the container settings and use it to access your deployed website.

By configuring a continuous deployment pipeline in Azure DevOps, you've automated the process of deploying your static website from GitHub to Azure Storage. Each code push triggers a pipeline run, ensuring your website remains up-to-date with the latest changes, streamlining your development and deployment workflow.

Additional Considerations:

• You can configure environment variables within the pipeline to manage website settings or URLs based on different environments (e.g., development, staging, production).
• Explore integrating Azure CDN (Content Delivery Network) with your storage account for faster website loading times for geographically distributed users.

This approach automates static website deployments, saving you time and effort while ensuring your website reflects the latest code updates.