Moving WordPress websites between Azure Subscriptions

I’m keen to learn practical aspects of Azure and cloud computing, so I can really understand their value for small businesses who rely on cloud computing. I don’t feel comfortable advocating for something I don’t really understand, or haven’t tried myself. So I set up my Data Relish website using Azure and WordPress, and integrated it with HubSpot so I could use Power BI and HubSpot together. I also set up other tools such as SendGrid by Twilio and CloudFlare. I learned a lot about technologies with which I’m not very familiar.

So now that my learning and confidence has increased, I decided to move my Azure website from a trial/test subscription to a different subscription. So how did I do that?

It turned out to be easy to move my website and all of the artefacts from one Azure Subscription to another. Note that my setup met the following conditions and limitations for moving a Web App, which I’ve copied here from the Azure website:

• The destination resource group must not have any existing App Service resources. App Service resources include:
  • Web Apps
  • App Service plans
  • Uploaded or imported SSL certificates
  • App Service Environments
• All App Service resources in the resource group must be moved together.
• App Service resources can only be moved from the resource group in which they were originally created. If an App Service resource is no longer in its original resource group, it must be moved back to that original resource group first, and then it can be moved across subscriptions.

How did I move Subscriptions?

In the Azure Portal, I selected the Azure database for MySQL database that underpins my WordPress site.

Then, I clicked on the Change Subscription link in the Overview blade.

The next page told me the associated Azure artefacts I’d need to move with it. This page was super helpful since it saved me a step in working out what else I needed to move.

From the drop-down list, I chose my new Subscription, and then clicked Apply.

I waited for two minutes while it deployed to the new subscription, and then the Azure notification popped up in the browser to say that the move had completed… and then I checked to see if my website was up and running.

Much to my huge relief, yes, my website was still up and running. As far as I can see, it all moved seamlessly across. I will be checking the functionality over the next few days just to check it is all running.

Not all Azure operations can be moved so easily, and it is worth checking before you move anything. Here’s a good Azure reference page to review before you start.