Install Sitecore 9.2 XP and XC from Azure Marketplace

Introduction

 

In my previous articles, I have shown how to install Sitecore using ARM template. In this article, I will show you how to install the Sitecore 9.2 XP & XC using Microsoft Azure Marketplace. If you are not comfortable with ARM templates or you are new in Sitecore & Azure, this is going to help you a lot.

 

Pre-requisite

1. Active Azure subscription
2. SOLR connection string if you are going to use SOLR as search engine. If you are going to use Azure search, then no need to have this. As in marketplace you will get two options, one is using SOLR and another is using Azure Search.
3. Sitecore license file

So, let's begin the installation process.

 

Steps

 

Step 1

 

Open Azure portal and login with your credentials.

 

Step 2

 

Click on the Create resource link at the very beginning. And search for “Sitecore”.

 

 

 

You will find the Sitecore Experience Cloud in the auto drop-down list. Select this and click on “Create” to proceed.

 

Step 3

 

In the new Sitecore Experience Cloud, you must choose your subscription to continue. Post your selection of the subscription when selecting the resource group name. Here, unlike every other resource, you can create a new resource group, or you can select an existing one. If you are selecting an existing one, please be sure it is a complete empty. Otherwise, it will throw an error.

 

Step 4

 

Now click on the Sitecore settings option. It will open a new blade where you have to fill the environment, credentials & region.

 

First select the Sitecore version from the drop-down. Here in our case, we will select Sitecore 9.2 Initial release.

 

Then we must select the topology. Here, we have to select Sitecore Experience Platform (XP).

 

Then select the configuration as “Scaled production”. This is for the production environment, for development there are multiple other environments like “Developer”, “Scaled Developer” & “Scaled Production”.

 

Once you select the “Scaled Production”, you have to choose “Size”. Sitecore comes in five (5) sizes. “Extra small”, “Small”, “Medium”, “Large”, “Extra large”. This is the SKU you select during ARM template installation.

 

In our case, we are going to choose “Small”. 

 

 

Once you select the size, you have to choose the Sitecore XC (Commerce) module for installation.

 

Select “Sitecore Commerce™ 9.2 Initial Release”, “Sitecore Experience Accelerator Storefront 3.0 Initial Release” & “Sitecore Experience Accelerator 1.9 Initial Release”.

 

Click on the “Next” button to proceed. Before proceeding, Sitecore is showing some important message on the right side. Feel free to go through this.

 

 

On the second Credential tab, set your Sitecore credentials. You have to put Sitecore admin password, SQL server username & password. Please note, the Sitecore default username will remain “admin” and you can’t change it from here. While setting the password, please make sure you are following the Sitecore password policies. The installation wizard will not prompt you for password validation, in the middle of installation, you will get the password policy violation error. And you have to install the same from the beginning,

 

You must upload the Sitecore license file. Then choose whether you want to go with Azure Search or SOLR. If you are going to chose SOLR, please make sure the URL should be something like this https://<your-solor-url>/solr.  Https and nothing at the end are the actual URL. The certificate should be a valid one, otherwise, the installation process will fail.

 

In the Authentication part, set the certificate name as “certificate” and the password as “secret”. Obviously, you can set your own information here.

 

Select the Application Insight checkbox if this is required in your project. At the end, put the Braintree IDs. If you don’t have the actual Braintree ID, then you can create a sandbox account and set the key here. Braintree is the default payment gateway for Sitecore.

 

Click on the “Next”. In the next page you have to choose the region where you are going to install the Sitecore. We have two different dropdowns, one for Sitecore and another for Application Insight. This is because, for some region (like South India & West India), Application Insight doesn’t support. So. Choose your regions and click on “Next”.

 

Step 5

 

On the next page, you will get an overview of the whole Sitecore installations. Click on OK and come back to the initial blade. Here click on the “Legal terms” and go to the end. Check the term & condition checkbox and click on “OK”.

 

Step 6

 

On the initial blade Click on “OK” and your installation will start. It will take near about 2 – 2:30 hrs. After installation, you will find all your resources under your selected Resource group. From there you can directly access the same.

 

A small scale Sitecore 9.2 commerce will have the below resources:

 

Sr. No.	Resource	Count
1	App Insight	1
2	App Service Plan	9
3	App Service	17
4	Redis cache	2
5	Service Bus	1
6	SQL Db	17
7	SQL Server	1
8	Search Service (If Azure search is taken)	1