Versions 1 and 2 of the App Service Environment will become deprecated on August 31, 2024, according to an announcement from Azure. We want to remind you of the various technical resources and advantages of upgrading to App Service Environment v3 if you haven’t already, so you can start planning the migration right immediately. Keep in mind that the end of life is contingent on the underlying Cloud Service (traditional) architecture being phased down, so your services might stop working after the deadline.
We’ve released a number of tools and resources to help your development and IT teams upgrade with assurance and take use of the new features. The Learn Live session with Azure FastTrack Architects, which is now accessible on demand and provides viewers with a thorough overview of the processes to accomplish the migration, is strongly recommended in addition to the technical material we discuss later.
A component of the Azure App Service called an App Service Environment offers a completely separated and dedicated environment for operating App Service apps safely at a large scale. The most recent version of App Service Environment is version 3. It offers a simplified network topology, runs on more powerful infrastructure with up to 64 cores and 256 GB of RAM and better scaling speeds for both Windows and Linux. Let’s go through some of the benefits of App Service Environment v3 and the various methods your team may start the upgrade process right away in this article.
App Service Environment v3 gives you better performance for less cost
A number of improvements in the App Service Environment v3 completely change how architects and developers create, distribute, and maintain their applications. I discussed these advantages in depth in a recent blog post; the following are the highlights:
- Improved performance and scaling: App Service Environment v3 runs on the latest Virtual Machine Scale Sets infrastructure, giving it the best performing and fastest scaling times across all versions. Front-end scaling is managed by the platform and scaling operations do not block other operations, unlike previous versions.
- Enhanced security: App Service Environment v3 is designed to eliminate networking dependencies on the customer’s virtual network, a big improvement over previous versions. Management and dependency traffic stays within the Azure backbone, and the only traffic that traverses your virtual network is the application traffic to and from your apps.
- Higher resiliency: In Azure regions enabled with Availability zones, an App Service Environment v3 can be configured to withstand a zonal failure within a region. This capability provides higher availability for deployed applications and automatically deploy instances across multiple zones for mission-critical apps.
- Cost savings: App Service Environment v3 is often cheaper than previous versions due to the removal of the stamp fee and larger instance sizes. You also get to take advantage of commitment-based offerings to reduce cost for resources using reserved instance pricing and Azure savings plans for compute, which are not available in the older versions. My friend Jordan Selig has a great blog post about how you can calculate your estimated savings.
Tools and resources for completing a smooth upgrade
You can find all the information you need regarding the features, advantages, and migration resources associated with App Service Environment v3 on the upgrade landing page for version 3. Customers have used the free, automated migration tool to successfully migrate hundreds of clusters on their own. If your environment is suitable for automating your upgrade using the migration feature, you can run a pre-flight check to find out; otherwise, you can follow the comprehensive instructions for a manual update.
Additionally, Microsoft Learn has gathered guides, instructions, and links to assist you in becoming acquainted with the alternatives for upgrading to App Service Environment v3. The Microsoft developer community is a thriving environment where professionals and peers come together to exchange knowledge, stories, and solutions. By participating in these forums, developers can get advice from those who have already upgraded to App Service Environment v3 and acquire useful insights.
Free whitepaper on use in compliance-oriented industries
Businesses in compliance-focused sectors occasionally require cloud-based services in a segregated, policy-based setting while streamlining application lifecycle management. In-depth analysis by GigaOM revealed that the single-tenant App Service Environment v3 works in conjunction with the public multi-tenant service to deliver the most recent Azure platform-as-a-service (PaaS) offering, which lowers the costs associated with developing and maintaining the services needed by contemporary, digital-first applications. The platform applies these concepts to applications in compliance-focused enterprises, saving regulatory industries a significant amount of time. To understand more, you can download the whitepaper for free.
Need help? Azure is here to support you
Utilize these simple and cost-free resources to stay ahead of the approaching end-of-life date. Please get in touch with your Microsoft account team or a Microsoft partner if you need additional assistance with your migration from FastTrack for Azure for any reason.
Upgrading to version 3 of Azure App Service Environment is not only necessary—previous versions will be decommissioned at the end of August 2024—but also strategically advantageous for you and your company. Don’t forget to watch the on-demand Learn Live session and visit the App Service Environment Learn Collection to take use of the tools and resources Microsoft provides to help with your migration.
