Static Web Sites

Definition

A static web site allows users to access web resources that requires no server-side application processing.

With no compute resource required to generate the web resources, static sites have unique characteristics:

• they are low-latency as resources can be heavily cached
• they are highly scalable, with no compute resource forming a CPU/memory bottleneck
• they have a smaller attack profile, as there is no server-side application code to exploit
• they are cheap to host and run

• Azure

Workloads

The static website stack is an ideal candidate for the following workloads:

• Web-based documentation, advice, and guidance
• Marketing microsites and brochureware
• Browser-based JavaScript apps (which might use interactive APIs from other sites)

With low costs, static websites are a good platform for testing out innovative ideas which might otherwise be cost or complexity-prohibitive to deliver via a traditional dynamic web app.

DevOps Integration

A static website works best when managed from source control. A configured build pipeline can be used to both build the static website assets and deploy the cloud infrastructure. Example tools include:

• Jekyll which powers GitHub Pages
• Gatsby

Source control can also be used as a basic content management system such as Netlify, allowing an interactive editing experience from the browser. Multi-stage deployment pipelines can also be leveraged to provide staging environments for publishing previews.

Tools

To deploy a new static website, use the New-CmAzPaaSWebStatic command. Documentation is provided in the command reference.

New-CmAzPaaSWebStatic -SettingsFile "c:\source\azure\mysite\paas.web.static.yml"