title: Deploying a web site to azure as a package
body: <p>I'm starting an ASP.net web project that will be hosted on Azure, but I'm not certain whether to develop the project as a regular ASP.net application and deploy it as a Web Site on Azure, or to develop it as a Cloud Application with a Web Role.</p>
  
  <p>The project's nature is that of a web site (simple database back-end), but the question is one of deployment. We aim to build versions of the application and then deploy to staging and production environments, meaning the output of a build should result in a single package (similar to what's described in <a href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd394698.aspx" rel="nofollow">msdn</a>).</p>
  
  <p>There's plenty of information on how to <a href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsazure/ff683672.aspx" rel="nofollow">create a service package</a> to publish a cloud service, but articles on publishing a web site to azure follow a 'web deployment' scenario, where deployment is done via Visual Studio (subscription file from Azure etc).</p>
  
  <p>Is there a way to deploy a web site to azure as a package? Or are tools like Visual Studio needed for a web deploy?  If so, then is composing the project as a Cloud service with only a web role the correct choice?</p>