Managed Azure Hosting

Summary: This page describes how we host and operate websites, online stores and business applications on Microsoft Azure. It is for companies that want one team accountable for the hosting and the code.

Most hosting companies run the server and stop there. When your application fails, they confirm the server is up and hand you back to your developer. We are the developer and the host. The people who answer are the people who can read your code.

We run dozens of client sites and applications on Azure App Service with Azure SQL databases: nopCommerce and AbleCommerce stores, Umbraco sites, and custom .NET applications that staff use every working day.

What Is Included Every Month

• The platform. Your application runs on Microsoft Azure, on infrastructure we size to what your traffic needs.
• Database backups. We can restore your database to any point in the last 14 days. Weekly backups are kept for four weeks and monthly backups for four months.
• File backups. Uploaded files and images held on a file share are backed up daily.
• Your application code. It is redeployed from source control, so a rebuild does not depend on a server copy.
• Monitoring that reads the page. A site can answer “OK” while showing visitors an error. Our checks confirm the page contains what it should, raise an alert when it does not, and restart the application automatically.
• Load alerts. We are alerted by email and text when processor, memory or database load stays high.
• A monthly malware scan. Every site is scanned each month for malware and card skimmers and compared against a known-good copy.
• Platform patching. Azure patches the operating system and runtime. We handle updates to your application.
• A firewall at the edge, where it fits. A web application firewall that blocks known attack patterns before they reach your site is available.

What Is Billed Separately

• Changes to your site’s code or content.
• Work caused by a sustained increase in traffic, or by an attack on your site.
• Security audits and penetration testing, which are a separate engagement with their own scope.

How Support Works

We respond during Pacific business hours. Outside those hours alerts still reach us, and response is slower. A staging copy is set up when a change needs testing before it goes live.

Moving to Azure

If you are on aging shared hosting, a server nobody maintains, or a host that is closing a product, we plan the move in four steps:

1. Inventory. What runs where, what it connects to, and what has to keep working: email, scheduled jobs, payment gateways, integrations.
2. Build and copy. We build the new environment and copy the application and data into it while the old site keeps running.
3. Test. You check the copy before anyone else sees it.
4. Switch. We change the address records at a quiet time, watch the first orders or logins, and keep the old environment until you are satisfied.

Who We Host on Azure

• Southland Medical, a nopCommerce store with built-in punchout, hosted since 2019. Read the case study.
• Prime Electric, a custom project-management application with electrician time entry.
• Auburn Dairy, three Umbraco sites for the company and its Yami and Zoi brands.
• EMCOR, crew-ordering portals with Microsoft 365 single sign-on.

Platform pages: nopCommerce hosting, AbleCommerce hosting, Umbraco hosting and application hosting.

Talk to Us About Hosting on Azure

We have hosted and maintained client applications for more than two decades. Tell us your platform, its version, where it is hosted now and what is going wrong. We reply within one business day. Or call (206) 325-5383.