I’ve spend the last month or installing and running a simple WordPress site on Azure. My goal was to get better acquainted with Azure for a simple website. What I’ve learned is that WordPress Gallery solution with ClearDB (which costs an extra $55 a month) is an incomplete solution. It only backups the MySQL database and not any of the WordPress Admin files. So, if you make any WordPress admin changes (like changing the domain name) you are completely out of luck. You can’t restore and you can’t access the /wp-admin/ admin page. In summary, you just lost your entire WordPress site!
So I tried creating again on Azure. This time I created another WordPress site on Azure and tried using a WordPress plug-in called “Backupbuddy” (before creating any new content) Backupbuddy comes highly recommended (according to bloggers on the Internet). However, after two day of tests, I’ve given up. “Buddy” is slow, gives false zip errors and completely fails on full backup restore. In addition, there doesn’t seem to be a way to do a local store to a Mac.
I tried support and described my problem to iThemes (the company that sells Backupbuddy). The support engineer replied back asking “what is Azure?” He also included troubleshooting FAQ with over 100 links. Thanks for “help”.
In summary, I’m going back to a simple hosting site – wordpress.com. I’ve used that site for 4 years without any issues.
KevinMcCauley.com 