Dev/Test/Prod in the Same Application Service Environment?

2
votes

I have an Azure Application Service Environment.

Is it okay to have multiple App Service Plans (Dev,Test, and Production) all running in the same ASE?

Basically, I know they'll share the Front End Pool, which I'm assuming is fine because no app code is running there and it "...contains compute resources responsible for SSL termination as well automatic load balancing of app requests within an App Service Environment. "

I guess my confusion is around the Worker Pools and Instances. If I have a Dev Test and Prod can I host each one in a Different Worker Pool? Or would I even need to, could I just host them all in the same worker pool but they'd be using different instances so they're separated? Would I need 2 Worker Pool Instances per App Service Plan to make sure I have redundancy? (Confused why the Website says you only need one additional Instance (for 1-20 instances).

Basically, is this okay? And if so, what would the worker pool setup look like? Would I have 6 instances in 1 pool with auto-scale turned on? 2 Instances in each of the separate 3 pools with auto-scale turned on? Or would I need 3 separate Application Service Environments?

I've spent the last 2 hours reading Microsoft articles but none speak clearly about this or have a real-world example setup.

1
azurease

1 Answers

0
votes

The documentation clarity regarding ASEs is still very much a problem. This is troublesome as ASEs are sold as a premium integrated hosting product in Azure.

I have had a discussion with an engineer at Microsoft about this very question and I still cannot say I understand the resource enough to be happy. Here is what I understand:

  • An ASE comes with 3 worker pools (vm) by default
  • All worker pools run the applications defined in your worker pool 1
  • You can define a different set of ASP and Applications for your worker pool 3 for example and have production on 1 & 2 and dev on 3.
  • Instances in a worker pool affect all the applications of your configuration.

The way I see it ASE is designed for a very specific business scenario that I have yet to see. It is quite powerful but you will most likely never use it to it's potential. I guess that's why Microsoft engineers recommend using simple App Services in most scenarios.