Deploy your web app to Azure App Service

  • 5 minutes

The azure-webapp-maven-plugin has two goals for Java developers: the first is to make managing and configuring the Azure App Service plugin easier, and the second is to simplify deploying Maven projects to Azure App Service. In the previous exercise, you created a quick "hello world" example Java web app and tested it locally. Adding the Maven Plugin for Azure App Service to your project allows you to deploy your app to Azure App Service.

In this unit, you'll look at the options for your company to host its apps on Azure App Service, then you'll learn how to add and configure the azure-webapp-maven-plugin to your Maven project.

Introduction to Azure App Service

The Azure App Service allows you to host your company's websites, web apps, REST APIs, and other application code on Azure. Your project code is running in the cloud; you don't have to provision or configure any infrastructure. Running your web app in Azure App Service provides you with all the benefits of running on Azure: your app is globally available, it scales automatically, has security and compliance built-in, and you only pay for the resources you use.

Azure App Service supports multiple programming languages, which allows developers to continue writing their applications using the languages with which they're most comfortable. Java is a first-class citizen, along with other languages like .NET Core, Python, Node.js, etc. You can host the web apps you create on Linux, Windows, or inside a Docker container. Before you deploy your web app to Azure, you'll create an App Service plan on Azure that specifies the OS and the pricing tier, which determines the size of the provisioned compute resources that your app needs.

Maven workflows

Maven has three built-in lifecycles for building projects: default, clean, and site, where the default lifecycle includes the following phases:

Phase Description
compile Compiles your code
package Packages your code into a JAR or WAR
install Installs the package into your local repository
deploy Copies the final package into your remote repository

However, when you're using the Maven Plugin for Azure App Service, you won't use the deploy phase that's included with Maven's default lifecycle. Instead, you'll deploy your app to Azure with the mvn azure-webapp:deploy command.

Adding the Maven Plugin for Azure App Service to your project

To add the Maven Plugin for Azure App Service to your web app, you'd add the XML for azure-webapp-maven-plugin to your project's pom.xml file, like the following:

<plugin>
  <groupId>com.microsoft.azure</groupId>
  <artifactId>azure-webapp-maven-plugin</artifactId>
  <version>2.13.0</version>
</plugin>

However, the plugin provides a convenient and interactive way to add configurations to your POM file:

mvn com.microsoft.azure:azure-webapp-maven-plugin:2.13.0:config

The plugin prompts you for the information required to configure the App Service plan. After you've confirmed your choices, the plugin adds the preceding plugin element and requisite settings to your project's pom.xml file that configures your web app to run in Azure App Service.

Note

Please check the Maven Plugin for Azure App Service documention, or the Maven Central Repository, for information on the latest version of the Maven plugin.

Configuration options

The preceding section of this unit demonstrated using the Maven Plugin for Azure App Service interactively to configure your web app. However, you don't need to run the configuration interactively. If you wish, you can add the plugin's XML to your project's pom.xml file manually.

The following annotated excerpt from a pom.xml file demonstrates some of the required settings:

<plugin> 
  <groupId>com.microsoft.azure</groupId>  
  <artifactId>azure-webapp-maven-plugin</artifactId>  
  <version>2.13.0</version>  
  <configuration> 
    <schemaVersion>v2</schemaVersion>  
    <subscriptionId>aaaa0a0a-bb1b-cc2c-dd3d-eeeeee4e4e4e</subscriptionId>  
    <resourceGroup>learn-9c627899-58ae-4ef5-9630-3336ec7bce0c</resourceGroup>  
    <appName>MyWebApp-1610102860270</appName>  
    <pricingTier>S1</pricingTier>  
    <region>westus</region>  
    <runtime> 
      <os>Linux</os>  
      <javaVersion>Java 17</javaVersion>  
      <webContainer>Tomcat 10.0</webContainer> 
    </runtime>  
    <deployment> 
      <resources> 
        <resource> 
          <directory>${project.basedir}/target</directory>  
          <includes> 
            <include>*.war</include> 
          </includes> 
        </resource> 
      </resources> 
    </deployment> 
  </configuration> 
</plugin>

Some of the relevant configuration options are in the following table. For a full list of options, see the Maven Plugin for Azure App Service documentation.

Tag Options
<javaVersion> Linux supports versions 8, 11, and 17
Windows supports versions 8, 11, and 17
<webContainer> Linux supports Tomcat, JBoss EAP 7.2, and Java SE
Windows supports Tomcat and Java SE
<resource> Specifies where the WAR or JAR is located in the project

Deployment options

If you've already created an App Service plan, you can specify the settings for that plan in your pom.xml file. When you deploy your web app to Azure, Maven uses those settings to deploy your new app to the existing App Service plan.

<!-- Deploy Web App to the existing App Service Plan -->
<appServicePlanResourceGroup>${PLAN_RESOURCEGROUP_NAME}</appServicePlanResourceGroup>
<appServicePlanName>${PLAN_NAME}</appServicePlanName>

Another option is to allow the azure-webapp-maven-plugin to create the App Service plan for you when you configure the plugin setup interactively. This option is the default behavior of the plugin if you don't specify an existing App Service plan in your pom.xml file.

Whether you choose to create the App Service plan interactively or manually, you use the same Maven command to deploy your application code to Azure:

mvn package azure-webapp:deploy

In the next exercise, you'll deploy your web app to Azure App Service.