Azure Solution for Business Portals

Azure Platform as a Service (PaaS) offerings can be used to build new or replace aging on-premises custom business portals that combine the services and data from disparate back-end systems for access by users such as suppliers, distributors, customers, and employees.

Users connect to a Web site and mobile applications that are hosted in Azure Web Apps and Mobile Apps, which are offered through Azure App Service. Users can be authenticated by Azure Active Directory (AAD) or other authentication services. The Web and mobile applications use Azure database and storage services to store temporary or persistent data to, for example, maintain user profiles and log events for application monitoring.

The Web and mobile applications use a common API that is published with an API App (a component of App Service) and managed with the API Management service. The common API eliminates the need for specific code paths in the Web and mobile applications for each back-end business system.

Logic Apps workflows are used to handle communication with each back-end system. The Logic Apps service offers a large catalog of connectors to connect to on-premises and externally hosted systems such as Dynamics, Salesforce, and SAP. Logic Apps connects to on-premises systems using the Gateway Cloud Service, which is hosted in Azure, and the on-premises data gateway, which must be installed on-premises. The Service Bus service handles communication between the Gateway Cloud Service and the on-premises data gateway.