Case Study: Gulf Coast .NET User Group achieves scalable, globally accessible Windows Azure hosting with Kentico CMS

Gulf Coast .NET User Group - Customer Case Study

The Gulf Coast .NET User Group is a nonprofit site serving the Florida Panhandle development community; Bit‑Wizards was engaged to move the site and its database to Windows Azure and SQL Azure to gain global hosting, scalability, and managed database infrastructure. Major challenges included converting the Kentico site from a standard web solution to a web application, adapting files and configuration to Azure’s structure, and enabling SmartSearch and Web Analytics which require local file storage, plus migrating the database to SQL Azure.

Bit‑Wizards upgraded the site to Kentico 5.5 R2, converted it to a web application, added an Azure service role with local storage for analytics/search, and migrated the database using the SQL Azure Migration Wizard. After local testing, the application was deployed to Windows Azure and DNS updated; the work took about four hours. The result was a robust, globally accessible Kentico site with improved scalability, reduced overhead, and full Azure-hosted database functionality.

Gulf Coast .NET User Group