Azure Deployment to new OS Family

Question

I have recently updated my web application to target ASP.NET 4.5 which requires a deployment to a Windows Server 2012. achieved by setting the osFamily value to 3 in the ServiceConfiguration deployment file.

However once I have it deployed in staging I can't flip to product because production has a different OS version to staging and it errors telling me this isn't something it can do.

Stopping short of deleting the old production environment which will result in downtime and flipping staging to replace the empty production instance, how do I transition from Windows Server 2008 to 2012 without downtime?

EDIT: This is specific to migrating from 2008 to 2012, I believe it was possible with earlier versions however I get the error below when I try to edit the osFamily value of the hosted service from 2-3.

The Upgrade from OS family 2 to OS family 3 is not allowed

Thanks,

Answer 1

Unfortunately upgrade from OS family 1 and 2 to 3 is currently not supported - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsazure/hh472157.aspx

The following items are not supported during an update: • Changing the name of a role. Remove and then add the role with the new name.

• Changing of the Upgrade Domain count.

• Decreasing the size of the local resources.

• Updating from guest OS Family 1 or 2 to guest OS Family 3.

You can work around this limitation by deploying a new package that uses guest OS Family 3 to the staging environment and perform a VIP swap.