Now, a question in particular was about whether or not SharePoint can be migrated to Azure App Service, and if not, is there any particular documentation from Microsoft that clearly states that it can't be done.
This post hope to help anyone trying to understand why it can’t be done, in my personal opinion.
I did my little research - which I know it can't be done - to find any explicit statement from Microsoft docs that says so. Unfortunately, as I thought before, I couldn't find any. Or maybe somewhere under the rock. Okay, so I have to explain on what is Azure App Service and what are needed in order to run SharePoint any where.
In a nutshell, SharePoint can’t run on Azure App Service because of the complex services it serves, as most of these services aren’t just simply HTTP just like a web application/web service.
Azure App Service essentially is exactly the same like your typical web application sitting in your IIS in Windows Server or Apache in Linux. It serves files stored under IIS folder such as HTML, JavaScript, or compiled .NET code as DLL to be served via HTTP/S protocol. From the infrastructure perspective, Azure App Service basically same like your Windows Server, or Linux. One big advantage of using the App Service is that you don’t need to care the server configuration, setting up join domain, authentication provider, ports, so you can focus on building the application you like and serve it directly. Just like staying in a hotel, you just come, pay, and lie down literally.
Of course come to the disadvantage, you can’t roam freely to the kitchen where the chefs work, you can’t force the hotel appearance and ambience you like, or sleeping in the reception area much like your living room, much towards altering the entire hotel itself. App Service doesn’t allow you to install Window Service, dictate how many IIS sites you need to add, or connect to other servers you want. Your space is only that little tiny folder assigned to you via Azure App Service.
To take on the same analogy, SharePoint on the other hand, is not just you moving in but also your furniture, electronics, appliances, cupboard, and kitchen area that has a very specific requirements to operate it.
For instance, SharePoint User Profiles that is used to crawl users in your Active Directory, Timer Jobs that runs essential scheduled job for SharePoint, not to mention SharePoint Search to crawl the content of this SharePoint. These are under Window Service and served via particular ports and consumed by other SharePoint servers in the same farm.
For SharePoint SQL Server database however, you have the option to use Azure SQL Managed Instance (MI), with caveats. Forget about Azure SQL MI if your SharePoint farm was configured using Windows Authentication, but you can if it’s SQL Authentication. I saw some articles too that you can convert SharePoint database from Windows authentication to SQL, but let’s not talk about this for now.
What’s feasible then if you ask? SharePoint on Azure is the answer, not via App Service but the traditional Virtual Machine (VM). Lift and shift, load your existing VM to Azure (require downtime), then set your networking properly and make sure the servers can communicate each other, and ensure connection to Domain Controller is also established.
With this explanation, you will not get any complain from the hotel for bringing your own fridge and kitchen appliances down to hotel because you can’t do so. 😉
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