Search results matching tag 'Windows Azure'

Where are the Windows Azure customer case studies – and why aren’t there more?

BuckWoody — Wed, 08 May 2013 14:31:28 GMT

“Case Studies” are a great tool when you’re evaluating a platform. Having evidence that other companies have deployed Windows Azure, in addition to how they did it, is a good way to plan your own deployments or even just evaluate whether Windows Azure would be a good fit. And we have several case studies you can examine here: https://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/home/case-studies/

But there aren’t a lot of them – and there isn’t much detail on some. Why not?

Well, as to the first question, we only keep a few of these on the web at any given time. They rotate based on date, industry, and other factors. If you want more, you can contact your local Microsoft team for something more specific to your situation or industry.

But even when you do, you may not get what you’re looking for – a full-scale architecture diagram with costs, names and dates, sizes and layouts and so on. That’s a tougher thing to put on the web, and here’s why: companies are reluctant (as they should be) to include that level of detail in a public place. There are legal and competitive reasons they just can’t do that. And of course at the very beginning of any project we have to get the company to agree to do a case study, and no, we don’t pay for that. The company is going to have to let us document things, work with them, and generally get involved in the project. Not a lot of companies are willing to do that. In the end, the case studies prove out that folks in your industry are using Windows Azure successfully, and that the detail is specific to your requirements and constraints. They are very useful to the business side of the company, but not as useful to the technical folks who want details.

So we’ve stepped into that gap with more of the “real details” on how to implement a Windows Azure solution. In most cases these are live, real apps – not just theoretical or best-practices kinds of documentation. We have a few places you can check for more detail, including the Windows Azure Training Kit, and much more.

Complete Applications

Contoso Cycles – a fully-functional, open sourced demo site on Azure: http://archive.msdn.microsoft.com/contosocycles

Fabrikam – a fully-functional, open sourced demo site on Azure: http://www.fabrikamshipping.com/

Complete Samples

Simple picture display app with source code: http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/windowsazure/MyPictures-on-Windows-91bb3057

Cloud Survey – walkthough of a complete survey site using multiple components: http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/Windows-Azure-Web-Sites-Modern-Application-Sample-Cloud-Survey

Bidnow - Auction site running on Azure source code: http://bidnow.codeplex.com/

Layered Architecture Example – Very in-depth pattern for working with hybrid and scale-out projects: http://cloudsample.codeplex.com/

Other Code Samples: https://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/develop/net/samples/

Guidance and Patterns

General Guidance: https://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/develop/net/guidance/

Architecture Patterns: https://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/develop/net/architecture/

Patterns and Practices for Windows Azure: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff898430.aspx

SQL Server in Windows Azure Infrastructure Services – Updated Documentation and Best Practices for GA, Upcoming Blogs

SQLOS Team — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 22:04:16 GMT

It’s been just over a week since Windows Azure announced the GA of Infrastructure Services, marking the beginning of a fully supported Infrastructure as a Service in Windows Azure, with SQL Server as a major component.

Pre-installed SQL Server VMs are available for pay-per-hour usage in the Windows Azure gallery. Currently Enterprise, Standard and Web edition VMs running on Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 are available, with more SQL Server editions coming soon. SQL Server editions running on Windows Server 2012 images are also on the way. For more details on the scenarios and benefits of running SQL Server workloads on Windows Azure Virtual Machines, please visit the SQL Server blog post here.

We are very happy to announce that the updated technical documentation for deploying and running SQL Server in Windows Azure Infrastructures Services is now available online. When deploying SQL Server in Windows Azure Virtual Machines, we recommend that you follow the detailed guidance given in the new SQL Server in Windows Azure Virtual Machines documentation in the library. This documentation includes a series of articles and tutorials that provide detailed guidance on:

Over the next few weeks we are planning a series of blog posts to provide more detailed information on specific SQL Server topics. Subjects in the pipeline include: high availability, disaster recovery, performance, application migration and security. Let us know what topics you would like to see covered in this series by adding comments to this post.

SQL Server Team

Originally posted at http://blogs.msdn.com/b/sqlosteam/

Creating a Windows Azure Virtual Machine - the RIGHT Way

BuckWoody — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 13:08:00 GMT

Windows Azure has added Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), the ability to deploy, run and manage Virtual Machines, to its growing list of services. You can create Virtual Machines from a gallery, upload them from images you create locally on Hyper-V (that's right, you can do that, even from PowerShell) and of course you can just jump right in and just click the "Plus" sign at the bottom of the Windows Azure Management Portal, then hit Compute, then Virtual Machine and then Quick Create. Enter a few fields and you're off to the races.

Of course, that works just fine - but if you do it that way you're doing it wrong. There's a better way - there are a few steps you should take before you deploy a Virtual Machine, and a few steps after. In general, the process looks like this:

Create an Affinity Group
Create a Virtual Network
Create your Storage Account and Container
Create the Virtual Machine
Optionally, add an Availability Set

Note - some of these steps need to be done only once, others once per logical group of Virtual Machines, and so on. Hit the links below for more info on when to do what.

Step One: Create an Affinity Group

An Affinity Group is a logical grouping that dictates how Windows Azure will lay out the resources assigned to it. When you create services, you can assign them to the Affinity Group, and the Fabric will deploy those into the same Datacenter cluster. Create one these per grouping that you want.

More Detail: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsazure/jj156085.aspx

Steps to do that: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsazure/jj156209.aspx

Step Two: Create a Virtual Network

The TCP/IP address for Windows Azure Virtual Machines come from a predefined range. You can just let us pick that for you, or you can create your own Virtual Network that has a user-defined range of DHCP addresses, and even place a DNS Server or connect your local network to the Windows Azure network for your Virtual Machines. When you create the Virtual Network, you can assign it to the Affinity Group. It's a way of grouping machine networks together. Create one of these per group of Virtual Machines that you want to have the same DHCP and DNS Server.

More Detail: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsazure/jj156007.aspx

Steps to do that: http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/manage/services/networking/create-a-virtual-network/

Step Three: Create a Storage Account and Container

Windows Azure Virtual Machine Disks are stored in Windows Azure Storage. That's a great benefit. If you don't define a Storage Account and a Container first, The Windows Azure Management Portal will do that for you as you create the machine. Defining that Storage Account and Container ahead of time allows more control, and a better naming convention than what we'll pick for you. Read more to find out the strategy you should use to group the disks. Also, some workloads such as SQL Server have a best-practice of creating a separate disk for data and backups.

More Detail: http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/develop/net/how-to-guides/blob-storage/#what-is

Steps to do that: http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/develop/net/how-to-guides/blob-storage/#header-3

Step Four: Create the Virtual Machine

You have a lot of choices here, from creating the Virtual Machine quickly, from a Gallery with pre-loaded software (like SQL Server), or even choosing from Windows or Linux. You can also create the Virtual Machines by uploading an image of your own, or create them through PowerShell. With the previous steps completed, you can select those pre-defined entries as you build the machine - just select them from the drop-down menus when prompted.

More Detail: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsazure/jj156003.aspx

Steps to do that:

Step Five: Optionally, Add an Availability Set

When you build more than one Virtual Machine (always a good idea, and required for availability) you can load-balance the IP ports for them, and you can also specify that they are on separate "fault domains" for greater availability. This is called an Availability Set. Even if you think you're only going to build one VM, you can add the Availability Set it up now and use it when you grow the systems. Create one of these per group of Virtual Machines you want to add into your High Availability strategy.

More Detail: http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/manage/windows/common-tasks/manage-vm-availability/

Steps to do that: http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/manage/windows/common-tasks/manage-vm-availability/#createset

But what can I do with Windows Azure? Create (Free) Websites and Applications

BuckWoody — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 19:32:00 GMT

f you want to know more about Windows Azure, how it works, the components, or more about the entire platform, I’ve written about that here: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/buckwoody/archive/2012/06/13/windows-azure-write-run-or-use-software.aspx

But….

Maybe you just want to cut to the chase. Windows Azure. What do I *do* with it? How about...create some websites. Or website applications. Or both. For free. OK, ten of them are free, then you have to pay for more.

This week I wanted to set up a DotNetNuke Content Management System (More here if you don't know what that is: http://www.dotnetnuke.com/Products/DotNetNuke-Platform.aspx) for a charity I work with. DotNetNuke (DNN) is an open-source project, all ready to go and easy to manage place for web parts, content, blogs, whatever. With Windows Azure, you have the ability to quickly and easily create websites based on ASP or PHP code, for free. You also have the ability to use packages from a gallery, and one of those packages is DotNetNuke - both the community and the professional (pay for) use. I set this one up in 9 minutes:

It's easy to set these up. A simple website where you can deploy ASPX or PHP code is just a few clicks, but while I was setting up my site I figured I'd grab the screenshots and show them to you here.

First, you need an account - you can get one of those for free: https://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/pricing/free-trial/

After you sign up for the account, hit the http://windowsazure.com site and click the "Portal" button at the top right of the screen. Then click the second icon down, called "Web Sites":

Click the "Create a New Web Site" link on the screen and you're shown this menu:

If you want a quick web site, just click "Create Web Site". If you want another type, click "From Gallery" and make your choice:

I selected the Community Edition of DotNetNuke. That brings up a configuration panel that looks like this:

You'll have to pick a name that isn't already in use, and in my case I told the system to create and build a SQL Azure (Windows Azure SQL Database) to hold the data. You'll also need to pick a region. After you make those selections, you'll need to enter the information for the database server and database:

Write down the database name, database administrator name and password - you'll need those later.

After that, you'll see the system deploying the code, creating the database server and so on.

From there, you're all set.

Whenever you want to monitor the site's health, you can just click the name here in the Portal to get more information on it:

Write down the URL of the site so you can access it in a moment. But don't move off of this screen - Windows Azure is now all set up, but DotNetNuke needs a little info when you first log in.

Before you leave the Portal, click the "DB" icon, and click the name of the database server you created a moment ago (blanked out here on my graphic):

Write down the entire server name (looks like myserver.database.windows.net) and database name (looks like mydatabasename) from this panel.

Now open your new DotNetNuke URL in your browser, and DotNetNuke will take over. You'll be asked the name of the database server (type in the whole name with the .database.windows.net part) and database name, and the database admin name and password you wrote down earlier.

You'll be asked to name the first site, and create a DotNetNuke admin name and password. Write all that down too.

Now log in to your DotNetNuke site with the admin name and change the site to whatever you like! It defaults to "Awesome Cycles", but since you probably don't want that one, read up on what to do with DNN once you're here:

PS - Want to do more than just deploy a canned site? Write code! Do HTML5! BE the Web: https://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/develop/net/tutorials/get-started/

But what can I do with Windows Azure? Backups

BuckWoody — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 17:27:29 GMT

If you want to know more about Windows Azure, how it works, the components, or more about the entire platform, I’ve written about that here: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/buckwoody/archive/2012/06/13/windows-azure-write-run-or-use-software.aspx

But….

Maybe you just want to cut to the chase. Windows Azure. What do I *do* with it? Let’s talk about that. One of the quickest, easiest ways to use Azure is in the storage feature, as a backup target. Can Windows Azure backup data, servers, workstations or databases? Yes. Yes it can. Windows Azure storage is replicated three times in one datacenter (on different fault-domains) and then those three are replicated to another geographically separate (but still in the same country region) location, you get six copies of the data automatically. Your data stays in the datacenter you choose, and is replicated within a geo-politically same region. So it’s actually a great target for backups.

First, you need a storage account, a container underneath that, and a Blob object to put the backups on. Here’s how you do that (for free):

Set up an account: https://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/pricing/free-trial/
Create a Container: http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/develop/net/how-to-guides/blob-storage/#create-account (Steps 1-7 are all you need)
Get the Account String: Open the Portal (as above), click on Storage, select the account you want, and click Manage Keys at the bottom of the screen. Copy that string to a secure place.

OK, now that you have all that, you’re all set. In fact, you’re all set for things like Web Sites, VM’s, Code Deployment and lots of other things, but let’s focus on backups first. What are your options?

Mount a Drive, Use as Backup Target

The easiest way to send files to Windows Azure is to mount the storage as if it is a local drive. You can use that as regular storage (I’ll talk more about this in my next post) but you can also use that as a drive letter where you can send backups. While that’s simple to implement, it isn’t always the most efficient – you’re going through a layer of storage abstraction. Still and all, it’s a good choice and quick and easy to implement. Here are some options:

Gladinet: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/avkashchauhan/archive/2012/01/10/accessing-windows-azure-blob-storage-as-network-drive.aspx, and http://www.gladinet.com/
Cloudberry: http://www.cloudberrylab.com/virtual-drive-amazon-s3-azure.aspx
CloudDrive: http://www.clouddrive.com.au/default.html
Open Source: http://coderead.wordpress.com/2011/09/02/mount-azure-blob-storage-as-a-windows-drive/ which uses: http://dokan-dev.net/en/

Backup Servers and Workstations using Third-Party Software

In addition to (and including) the providers mentioned above, some also skip the step of having to mount a drive to use as a backup target, and simply allow you to mount an agent or tool that just backs up straight to Azure.

Cloudberry: http://techinch.com/blog/backup-your-files-to-windows-azure-with-cloudberry
Veeam is an interesting product which focuses on backing up Virtual Machines: http://blogs.technet.com/b/haroldwong/archive/2013/02/14/modern-data-protection-for-virtual-environments-using-veeam-and-windows-azure.aspx
Commvault (Simpana) Lots of options here: http://news.commvault.com/articles/011089_Microsoft_CommVault_Offer_Simpana_Data_Management_With_Windows_Azure_.asp
Evault is a backup service that use Windows Azure: http://www.evault.com/products/cloud-storage-services/laptop-backup/endpoint-protection.html

Backup Servers and Workstations using Hardware

StorSimple – a hardware appliance that can act as storage or backups, with encryption, de-duplication, compression and a Hierarchical Storage Management concept: http://www.storsimple.com/total-storage/
Riverbed Whitewater – hardware, provides de-duplication and encryption onsite prior to backup to Windows Azure: http://filipv.net/2012/08/11/using-windows-azure-cloud-storage-with-riverbed-whitewater/
Nasuni: http://www.nasuni.com/

Backup Servers and Workstations using Data Protection Manager

Data Protection Manager is a feature that is part of the System Center suite. We’ve updated that in the latest versions that will allow you to incrementally back up Servers and even Workstations and Laptops straight to Windows Azure. The beauty of this feature is that if the user is in a remote office or traveling the data will flow up to Windows Azure from wherever they are.

More on Windows Azure Backup Services here: http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/home/features/online-backup/
And more on how to use DPM with Azure here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj728752.aspx

Backup SQL Server Databases

SQL Server can use the mounted-drive approach described above, and you can back up your databases

Mount Drive (first option described above)
SQL Server 2012 backup to Windows Azure: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj919148.aspx
And, as part of HADR, this: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/buckwoody/archive/2013/01/08/microsoft-windows-azure-disaster-recovery-options-for-on-premises-sql-server.aspx

DevOps for Windows Azure

BuckWoody — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 15:29:00 GMT

"DevOps" (Short for Developer Operations) is one of a group of new terms such as "Cloud", "Big Data" and "Data Scientist" - words that are somewhere between marketing and tasks we've actually had around in other forms for years.However, working in a Distributed Environment (Both on and off premises) like Windows Azure does bring a new set of tasks to the operations we currently perform in Information Technology.

Before I offer some guidance here, I need to carefully define the term "DevOps" as I use it.There are other definitions that involve Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) and standard operations policies, and you're free to use those as well, but this is the definition I'll use for this post: By DevOps I mean those tasks involved with deploying, managing and monitoring a Windows Azure (or hybrid) project.

Another caveat: This is a non-authoritative, non-comprehensive post. I'll include only an outline of the major tasks, not a complete manual on the topic. There's enough knowledge needed on this topic for at least a whitepaper or two, and perhaps even a book, but for the moment I wanted to get some information out to ensure you have something to work from until those come along.This is primarily a list of resources for a DevOps team.

With all of those caveats in mind, we'll start the discussion after the project is conceived and architected. In most cases the DevOps team (whether that is a dedicated team or simply part of what the current IT Ops team does) is also involved in the design, at least from an information point of view. There's a great overview of the entire process available in poster form here: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=36837 And you should also read this complete manual in preparation here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh871440.aspx

Deployment

The first task after the design of the project is deployment. The deployment method depends on the type of solution; Windows Azure has the ability to run VM's, software code, or provide services that are already created (such as Active Directory).

IaaS

Monitoring

Monitoring the system after deployment involves watching the availability and uptime of the system, along with security intrusions and tracking access through code.

Health

Using MetricsHub: http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Cloud+Cover/Episode-102-Using-MetricsHub-to-Monitor-Your-Windows-Azure-Applications

Uptime and Availability through the Portal: http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/support/service-dashboard/

Uptime and Availability through Third Party Vendors: http://www.paraleap.com/AzureWatch, http://blogs.msdn.com/b/buckwoody/archive/2012/07/03/management-and-monitoring-tools-for-windows-azure.aspx

Automatic Notification: http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/375892/Adding-SMS-notifications-to-your-Windows-Azure-pro

Performance

Performance Counters: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsazure/hh411520.aspx

Logging Diagnostics PaaS: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsazure/gg433048.aspx

Internal Instrumentation for PaaS: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsazure/hh674491%28v=vs.103%29.aspx

Third Party Performance Testing: http://www.neustar.biz/enterprise/web-performance, http://blogs.msdn.com/b/buckwoody/archive/2012/07/03/management-and-monitoring-tools-for-windows-azure.aspx

Costs

Understanding Costs: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff803372.aspx, http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/gg213848.aspx

Subscription Management: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsazure/gg465713.aspx

System Center: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh221354.aspx

Third-Party Tools: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/buckwoody/archive/2012/07/03/management-and-monitoring-tools-for-windows-azure.aspx

Example of listing your deployments: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg651127.aspx

Management

Managing the deployment involves Security, Upgrades, Troubleshooting, and High-Availability/Disaster Recovery.

Windows Azure Management Portal: http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/

Management API's: https://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/downloads/?fb=en-us and http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee460812.aspx, http://www.packtpub.com/sites/default/files/2220-chapter-7-managing-hosted-services-with-the-service-management-api.pdf?utm_source=packtpub&utm_medium=free&utm_campaign=pdf

Security

Security Trust Center: http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/support/trust-center/

Working with Windows Azure Active Directory: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/windowsazure/archive/2012/11/28/windows-azure-now-supports-federation-with-windows-server-active-directory.aspx

Windows Azure Authentication: http://www.asp.net/vnext/overview/fall-2012-update/windows-azure-authentication

Deploying a secure ASP.NET MVC application with OAuth: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/webdev/archive/2013/03/12/deploy-a-secure-asp-net-mvc-application-with-oauth-membership-and-sql-database.aspx

Upgrades

ALM Process for PaaS: http://sqlblog.com/blogs/buck_woody/archive/2011/01/25/windows-azure-use-case-agility.aspx

Troubleshooting

Windows Azure Support: http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/support/contact/

Upgrade and Fault Domains: http://blog.toddysm.com/2010/04/upgrade-domains-and-fault-domains-in-windows-azure.html

HADR

Load-Balancing Endpoints for IaaS: http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/manage/windows/common-tasks/how-to-load-balance-virtual-machines/

Extending SQL Server HADR to Windows Azure: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/buckwoody/archive/2013/01/08/microsoft-windows-azure-disaster-recovery-options-for-on-premises-sql-server.aspx

HADR for IaaS: http://www.visionsolutions.com/, http://blogs.technet.com/b/windowsserver/archive/2012/03/28/microsoft-online-backup-service.aspx

Multiple Instances for PaaS: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsazure/ee871996.aspx

Business Continuity for Windows Azure: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsazure/hh873027.aspx, http://blogs.msdn.com/b/avkashchauhan/archive/2011/10/14/windows-azure-vm-downtime-due-to-host-and-guest-os-update-and-how-to-manage-it-in-multi-instance-windows-azure-application.aspx

Disposition

When the project is complete, you'll need to remove the VM's in IaaS, or data and code from PaaS and shut down the deployment. Prior to doing that, you should:

Copy all data from the deployment to a local repository
Document the process
Notify Microsoft of your intent to stop the project to work with your representative on billing matters

The primary tool for disposal is the Windows Azure Portal.

How Does the Cloud Change a Developer's Job?

BuckWoody — Tue, 12 Feb 2013 16:26:51 GMT

I've recently posted a blog on how cloud computing would change the Systems Architect’s role in an organization, another on how the cloud changes a Database Administrator's job, and the last post dealt with the Systems Administrator. In this post I'll cover the changes facing the Software Developer when using the cloud.

The software developer role was the earliest adopter of cloud computing. This makes perfect sense, because the software developer has always used computing "as a service" - they (most often) don't buy and configure servers, platforms and the like, they write code that runs on those platforms. And there's probably not a simpler definition of a software developer to be found, but as with all simple statements, you lose fidelity and detail. I'll offer a more complete list in a moment.

Because the software developer's process involves designing, testing and writing code locally and then migrating it to a production environment, all of the paradigms in cloud computing - from IaaS to PaaS to SaaS - come naturally.

The Software Developer's Role

The software developer has evolved since the earliest days of programming.The software developer not only "writes code" - there are far more tasks involved in modern systems development:

Assisting the Business Role(s) in developing software specifications
Planning software system components and modules
Designing system components
Working in teams writing classes, modules, interfaces and software endpoints
Designing data layouts, architectures, access and other data controls
Designing and implementing security, either programmatic, declarative, or referential
Mixing and matching various languages, scripting and other constructs within the system
Designing and implementing user and account security rights and restrictions
Designing various software code tests - unit, functional, fuzz, integration, regression, performance and others
Deploying systems
Managing and maintaining code updates and changes

Like most of the previous roles, those tasks also unpacks into a larger set of tasks, and no single developer has exactly that same list. And like the DBA, the role is often more, or less of that list based on where the developer works. Smaller companies may include the development platform in the duties so that a developer is also a systems administrator. In larger organizations I've seen developers that specialized on User Interfaces, Engine Components, Data Controls or other specific areas.

How the Cloud Changes Things

The software developer role obviously has the same concerns and impacts of "the cloud" as the Systems Architect. They need to educate themselves on the options within this new option (Knowledge), try a few test solutions out (Experience) and of course work with others on various parts of the implementation (Coordination).

The big changes for a developer include three major areas: Hybrid Software Design, Security, and Distributed Computing.

Hybrid Software Design

After the PC revolution, software developers designed systems that ran primarily on a single computer. From there the industry moved to "client/server", where most of the code still lived on the user's workstation, and various levels of state (such as the data layer) moved to a server over fast connected lines. After than followed the Internet phase, which had less to do with HTML coding than it did with state-less architectures. While no architecture is truly stateless, there are ways of allowing the client to be in a different state than the server of the application at any one time - this is the way the Web works.

Even so, the developer often simply moved one the primary layers (such as Model, View or Controller) to the server, using the User Interface merely as the View or Presentation layer. While technically stateless, this doesn't require a great deal of architecture change - there are various software modules that run on a server, and perhaps that connects to a remote data server. In the end, it's still a single paradigm.

We now have the ability to run IaaS (hardware abstraction), PaaS (hardware, operating system and runtime abstraction) and SaaS (everything abstracted, API calls only) in a single environment such as Windows Azure. A single application might have a Web-based Interface Server with federated processes (using a PaaS set of roles), a database service (using a SaaS provider such as Windows Azure SQL Database), a specialized process in Linux (using an IaaS role in Windows Azure) and a translator API (from the Windows Azure Marketplace). This example involves only one vendor - Microsoft. I've seen applications that use multiple vendors in this same way.

Thinking this way opens up a great deal of flexibility - and complexity. Complexity isn't evil; it's how complicated things get done many times. The modern developer needs to understand how to build hybrid software architectures.

Resources: Hybrid Architectures with step-by-step instructions and examples: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh871440.aspx and Windows Azure Hybrid Systems: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh871440.aspx?AnnouncementFeed

Security

Having a single security boundary, such as "everyone who works in my company", is a relatively simple problem to solve. Normally the System Administrators configure and control a security provider, such as Active Directory, and developers can access that security layer programmatically. That allows for good separation of duties and role-based control.

In modern applications, clients, managers, and users both internal and external need various levels of access to the same objects, code and data. A client should be able to enter an order, a store should be able to accept the order, the credit-card company should be able to check the order and authorize payment, and the managers should be able to report on the order or change it if needed. Using role-based security across multiple domains would be impossible to maintain.

Enter "claims-based" authentication. In this paradigm, the user logs in with whatever security they use - corporate or other Active Directory, Facebook, Google, whatever. The application (using Windows Identity Foundation or WIF) can accept a "claim" from that provider, and the developer can match whatever parts of that claim they wish to the objects, code and data. And example might be useful.

Buck logs in to his corporate Active Directory (AD), and attempts to use a program based in Windows Azure. Windows Azure rejects the login silently, and is configured to check with Buck's AD. Buck's AD says "yes, I know Buck, and he has been granted the following claims: "partner", "manager", "approver". The developer does not need to know about Buck's AD, Buck, his login, or anything else. She simply codes the proper data access to allow "approver" to approve a sale.

This allows a lot of control, at a very fine level, without having to get into the details of each security provider. .

Resources: Overview of using claims-based Azure Security: http://adnanboz.wordpress.com/2011/02/06/claims-based-access-and-windows-azure/

Distributed Computing

Is there a difference between stateless computing, or even the hybrid programming I mentioned earlier, and "Distributed Computing"? Yes - the primary difference is latency. Even stateless code can have too small a tolerance for latency.

Dealing with slow connectivity, or breaks in connections has many impacts. One method of dealing with this is to locate data and computing of that data as closely as possible, even if this means relaxing consistency or duplicating data. Another method is to go back to a great paradigm from the past that is possible underused today is a Service Oriented Architecture. The Windows Azure Service Bus is possibly one of the fastest and easiest way to adopt cloud computing without completely rearchitecting your application.

References: Great breakdown of the thought process around a distributed architecture: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/jj553517.aspx and using a Windows Azure Relay Service: http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/develop/net/how-to-guides/service-bus-relay/

How Does the Cloud Change a Systems Administrator's Job?

BuckWoody — Tue, 05 Feb 2013 15:46:02 GMT

I recently posted a blog entry on how cloud computing would change the Systems Architect’s role in an organization, and another on how the cloud changes a database administrator's job. This time I'll cover a few of the changes the cloud brings for the Systems Administrator.

The systems administrator shares some similarity with the database administrator, in that it's rare to find a single job description that fits all people in that role. There are some basic similarities among various organizations, so I'll use those as a starting point.

The Systems Administrator Role

The systems administrator role is perhaps one of the earliest in technology, at least as far as the implementation of a system goes. In the earliest days of computing, electronic technical professionals built prototype computers, and newly minted "programmers" wrote logical instructions for these systems. In time, the systems administration role owned the installation, configuration, operation and tuning of these systems once they went into production and use on a larger scale. A few of the tasks associated with the role are:

Planning, installing and configuring systems
Planning, designing and creating storage, networking and other system components
Planning, designing and implementing High Availability and Disaster Recovery for each system
Maintaining and monitoring systems
Implementing performance tuning systems based on monitoring
Re-balancing workloads across servers based on monitoring
Securing systems, networks and individual computers based on requirements and implementation
Planning, implementing and controlling user and account security rights and restrictions

Like the DBA, that’s just a short list, and each of those tasks also unpacks into a larger set of tasks. And like the DBA, the role is often more, or less of that list based on where the system administrator works. In smaller companies I've been a "systems administrator" that also ran the database and mail servers, web systems, front-line end-user support and made the coffee. In larger organization I was only able to spend the day on one or two parts of that list, since there were so many systems and they interacted with so many other systems.

Systems administrators often deal with multiple operating systems. In one company where I was a system administrator, I worked with no less than six operating systems from mainframes to PC servers, two of them highly specialized to the hardware.

How the Cloud Changes Things

The systems administrator has the same concerns and impacts of "the cloud" as the DBA and the Systems Architect. They need to educate themselves on the options within this new option (Knowledge), try a few test solutions out (Experience) and of course work with others on various parts of the implementation (Coordination).

I've mentioned the three big buckets of cloud computing, dealing with Virtual Machines (IaaS) writing code (PaaS) and using software that’s already written and being delivered via an Application Programming Interface (API). In my experience, the systems administrator role normally tackles the first "bucket" most often - IaaS, which has at its base the technology of virtualization.

Virtualization

One of the first areas the systems administrator is involved with "the cloud" is in the area of virtualization. This technology isn't new - in fact, I worked on Virtual Machines (VM's) way back in my mainframe days. It's the process of using software to emulate hardware - which has implications far beyond that simple sentence.

Virtualization is normally a standard on-premises process. When you take Virtual Machines and host them in another location, this is called Co-Location, or CoLo. Personally, I don't define either of these activities as "Cloud" computing - it's simply virtualization. Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) normally involves several more components, at the very least being able to set up the systems (provision) and deploy them in a standard, automated way. It also involves (at a minimum) the ability to monitor, move and alter the systems using a prescribed methodology. There are other parts of IaaS to be sure, but this level above simply scripting installations or virtualizing a machine is where the system administrator becomes involved in this new "cloud computing" paradigm.

There are multiple VM technologies available, from the hypervisor that is built-in to the Windows operating system (Hyper-V) to third-party alternatives such as VMWare. The choice of cloud provider often dictates the selection of hypervisor. Windows Azure uses Hyper-V, and allows you to move systems from the cloud to the desktop and back again. Other providers use VMWare, or a proprietary format. Some allow you to push or pull images from the cloud service, others do not. The systems administrator must educate themselves on the business need and then select the cloud provider that best fits the requirements for a workload. It's also common to use several cloud providers within a single company.

Resources: Windows Azure Virtual Machines: http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/manage/windows/tutorials/virtual-machine-from-gallery/ and System Center: http://blogs.technet.com/b/server-cloud/archive/2011/12/01/managing-and-monitoring-windows-azure-applications-with-system-center-2012.aspx

Cloud Computing Architecture - Private, Public and Hybrid

It's important to note that IaaS can be on-premises, at another facility, or both. The first is called "private cloud", the second "public cloud", and the third "hybrid cloud". Yes, these are marketing terms, but they are useful in describing where the decisions are for deploying a system. If data security is paramount, then private cloud may be the right choice for a given workload. If agility or cost is an issue, public cloud may be the right answer for another workload. And in many cases - perhaps most - using both architectures is the right way to split the workload.

The key is to understand the workload well. In the past the system administrator needed to know the component requirements, such as how much memory, CPU, network and storage a workload needed. In cloud computing, these are also concerns, but you need to add in the questions of cost, business use, location of users, security and other vectors. These concerns bring the systems administrator closer to the business and its goals.

Resources: Windows Azure Hybrid Systems: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh871440.aspx?AnnouncementFeed

DevOps

One new term introduced into cloud computing is "DevOps" - short for Developer Operations. Not everyone agrees that this is even a real "thing" - that it's a made-up term by cloud vendors. Regardless, there is a new set of tasks that the cloud brings that may sit within the purview of the system administrator.

Basically it involves the administration needed at the PaaS or SaaS level. The IaaS function of cloud computing holds most of the same characteristics as an on-premises system, defined the in the first list I mentioned above. But when the organization uses Platform as a Service, the operating system, much of the security, scale and other components of infrastructure are abstracted into the platform, and are often even controlled by the developer.

But once the application "goes live", there are a host of billing, controlling, scaling and other security questions that developers aren't equipped to handle. Who takes care of those? As companies are finding out, they need to appoint someone to cover these overlapped areas between developers and administrators.

References: How DevOps brings order: http://searchcloudcomputing.techtarget.com/feature/How-DevOps-brings-order-to-a-cloud-oriented-world and Managing Windows Azure: http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/manage/overview/

How Does the Cloud Change a Database Administrator’s Job?

BuckWoody — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 15:08:32 GMT

I recently posted a blog entry on how cloud computing would change the Systems Architect’s role in an organization. In a way, the Systems Architect has the easiest transition to a new way of using computing technologies. In fact, that’s actually part of the job description. I mentioned that a Systems Architect has three primary vectors to think about for cloud computing, as it applies to what they should do:

Knowledge - Which options are available to solve problems, and what are their strengths and weaknesses.
Experience - What has the System Architect seen and worked with in the past.
Coordination - A system design is based on multiple factors, and one person can't make all the choices. There will need to be others involved at every level of the solution, and the Systems Architect will need to know who those people are and how to work with them.

The Database Administrator Role

But a Database Administrator (DBA) is probably one of the harder roles to think about when it comes to cloud computing. First, let’s define what a Database Administrator usually thinks about as part of their job:

Planning, Installing and Configuring a Database Platform
Planning, designing and creating databases
Planning, designing and implementing High Availability and Disaster Recovery for each database (HADR) based on requirements for its workload
Maintaining and monitoring the database platform
Implementing performance tuning on the databases based on monitoring
Re-balancing workloads across database servers based on monitoring
Securing databases platforms and individual databases based on requirements and implementation

That’s just a short list, and each of those unpacks into a larger set of tasks.

The issue is that I’ve never actually met a DBA that does all of those things, or just all of those things. Many times they do much more, sometimes the systems are so large they specialize on just a few of them.

And as you can see from the list, some of these areas are shared with other roles. For instance, in some shops, the DBA plans, purchases, sets up and configures the hardware for database servers. In others that’s done
by the Infrastructure Team. In some shops the DBA designs databases from software requirements, and in others the developers do that – or perhaps it’s done as a joint effort. The same holds true for database code – sometimes the
DBA does it, other times the developer, and still others it’s a shared task.

In fact, you could argue that there are few other roles in IT where the roles are so intermixed. Also, the DBA works with software the company develops, and software the company buys. They work with hardware, networking, security and software. There are certain aspects of design and tuning that are outside the purview of some of those things, and inside the others.

With all of these variables, simply telling a DBA that they should “use the cloud” is not the proper approach.

How the Cloud Changes Things

To be sure, the DBA has the same vectors as the Systems Architect. They need to educate themselves on the options within this new option (Knowledge), try a few test solutions out (Experience) and of course work with others on various parts of the implementation (Coordination). But it goes beyond that.

There are three big buckets of cloud computing, dealing with simply using a Virtual Machine (IaaS) to writing code without worrying about the virtualization or even the operating system (PaaS) and using software that’s already written and being delivered via an Application Programming Interface (API). Each of these has so many options and configurations that it’s often better to think about the problem you’re trying to solve rather than all of the technology within a given area - although some of that is certainly necessary anyway.

Database Platform Architecture

I’ll start with when the DBA should even consider cloud computing for a solution. Once again, it’s not an “all or nothing” paradigm, where you either run something on premises or in the cloud – it’s often a matter of selecting the right components to solve a problem. In my design sessions with DBA’s I break these down into three big areas where they might want to consider the cloud –and then we talk about how to implement each one:

Audiences
HADR
Data Services

Audiences

If the users of your database systems all sit in the same facility, you own the servers and networking, and the application servers are separate from the database server, it doesn’t usually make sense to take that database workload and place it on Windows Azure – or any other cloud provider. The latency alone prevents a satisfactory performance profile, and in some cases won’t work at all. It doesn’t matter if the cloud solution is cheaper or easier – if you’re moving a lot of data every second between an on-premises system and the cloud it won’t work well.

However – if your users are in multiple locations, especially globally, or you have a mix of company and external customer users, it might make sense to evaluate a shared data location. You still need to consider the implications of how much data the application server pushes back and forth, but you may be able to locate both the application server and SQL Server in an IaaS role. Assuming the data sent to the final client will work across public Internet channels, there may be a fit. There are security implications, but unless you have point-to-point connections for your current solution you’re faced with the same security questions on both options.

Your audience might also be developers looking for a way to quickly spin up a server and then turn it down when they are done, paying for the time and not the hardware or licenses. This is also a prime case for evaluating IaaS. And there are others that you'll find in your own organization as you work through the requirements you have.

Resources: Windows Azure Virtual Machines: http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/manage/windows/tutorials/virtual-machine-from-gallery/ and Windows Azure SQL Server Virtual Machines: http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/manage/windows/common-tasks/install-sql-server/

HADR

The next possible place to consider using cloud computing with SQL Server is as a part of your High Availability and Disaster Recovery plans. In fact, this is the most common use I see for cloud computing and the Database Administrator. The key is the Recovery Point Objective (RPO) and Recovery Time Objective (RTO). Based on each application’s requirements, you may find that using Windows Azure or even supplementing your current plan is
the right place to evaluate options. I’ve covered this use-case in more detail in another article.

References: SQL Server High Availability and Disaster Recovery options with Windows Azure: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/buckwoody/archive/2013/01/08/microsoft-windows-azure-disaster-recovery-options-for-on-premises-sql-server.aspx

Data Services

Windows Azure, along with other cloud providers, offers another way to design, create and consume data. In this use-case, however, the tasks DBA’s normally perform for sizing, ordering and configuring a system don’t apply.

With Windows Azure SQL Databases (the artist formerly known as SQL Azure), you can simply create a database and begin using it. There are places where this fits and others where it doesn’t, and there are differences, limitations and enhancements, so it isn’t meant as replacement for what you could do with “Full-up” SQL Server on a Windows Azure Virtual Machine or an on-premises Instance. If a developer needs an Relational Database Management
(RDBMS) data store for a web-based application, then this might be a perfect fit.

But there is more to data services than Windows Azure SQL Databases. Windows Azure also offers MySQL as a service, RIAK and MongoDB (among others) and even Hadoop for larger distributed data sets. In addition you can use Windows Azure Reporting Services, and also tap into datasets and data functions in the Windows Azure Marketplace.

The key for the DBA with this option is that you will have to do a little investigation this time, and potentially without a specific workload in mind this time. I think that’s acceptable thing to ask – DBA’s constantly keep up with data processing trends, and most will consider different ways to solve a problem.

References:

Windows Azure SQL Databases: http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/home/features/data-management/

Windows Azure Reporting Services: http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/manage/services/other/sql-reporting/

HDInsight Service (Hadoop on Azure): https://www.hadooponazure.com/

MongoDB Offerings on Windows Azure: http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/manage/linux/common-tasks/mongodb-on-a-linux-vm/

Windows Azure Marketplace: http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/store/overview/

Continuous deployment of SSDT database projects to Windows Azure using Team Foundation Service

jamiet — Sun, 27 Jan 2013 20:07:00 GMT

Continuous deployment is described by Wikipedia as:

Most CI systems allow the running of scripts after a build finishes. In most situations, it is possible to write a script to deploy the application to a live test server that everyone can look at. A further advance in this way of thinking is Continuous Deployment, which calls for the software to be deployed directly into production
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuous_Integration

I think of Continuous Deployment as a natural extension of Continuous Integration where not only do we build the source code, we deploy it as well. As I continue to put together my SSDT Database Projects from the ground-up seminar it occurred to me that demonstrating Continuous Deployment for SSDT database projects would be very useful. It then occurred to me that the recently released Team Foundation Service (TFS) includes a facility to build source code so I wondered, could one perhaps use TFS to build an SSDT database project and deploy it to a Windows Azure SQL Database (aka SQL Azure)? It turns out that the answer is “yes” and this blog provides a step-by-step guide to doing just that.

Its worth noting that Team Foundation Service is free for up to five users. SSDT is also free. Windows Azure SQL Databases, however, are not free so you may have to pay a small amount to get one or alternatively adapt the steps herein to use Team Foundation Server to deploy to an on-premises SQL Server instance. Note that a MSDN subscription does include some small usage of Windows Azure SQL Database and that allowance will be more than enough to go through the steps herein.

We can break our process down into the following high-level steps:

Create a Windows Azure SQL Database
Sign up for Team Foundation Service (TFS)
Create an SSDT database project
Add the SSDT project to TFS Source Control
Setup your Publish Profile file
Create a Build Definition

Let’s dive into all of those steps.

Create a new Windows Azure SQL Database

Visit https://manage.windowsazure.com/ and sign up for a new Windows Azure SQL Database:

Your new database will be viewable in the portal immediately:

Windows Azure SQL Databases are, by default, closed to the outside world so you must edit the list of IP addresses that are allowed to access the server. Setting this up is outside the scope of this blog post however simply go to How to: Configure the Server-Level Firewall Settings (Windows Azure SQL Database) to learn how to do this (its very easy).

Sign up for Team Foundation Service

Visit https://tfs.visualstudio.com/ to sign up to use Team Foundation Service using your Microsoft Account (aka Windows Live ID). Once you have signed-up you will have a dedicated service URL (mine, for example, is https://jamiet.visualstudio.com/). Visit that URL and click “New Team Project”:

Fill in the pertinent details and hit “Create Project”:

Creating the Team Project will take a minute or so but will be ready for you when you need it shortly.

Create an SSDT database project

For this you’re going to need SSDT for Visual Studio 2010 or Visual Studio 2012. They are both free and can be downloaded from here; I am using SSDT for Visual Studio 2012.

You will need to create a new SQL Server Database Project:

Once the project is created it will appear in Solution Explorer and be empty at this point. We are going to be deploying to Windows Azure SQL Database therefore we must tell the project that that will be the case. To do that right-click on the project and select Properties:

In Project Settings select Windows Azure SQL Database as the Target platform:

You’ll need to add a database object to your project otherwise this is all rather pointless. Given that this is simply for demo purposes we shall simply create a table called [Table1].

OK, we now have a Windows Azure SQL Database, a TFS service (is that Team Foundation Service service???) and a SSDT database project with a simple table in it. Let’s now hook them all together.

Add the SSDT project to TFS Source Control

Interaction with TFS from within Visual Studio is done using the Team Explorer pane.

From Team Explorer you will need to connect to your new TFS. Click on the address bar in Team Explorer and point to “Connect to Team Projects…”

Choose your project and click Connect. Your server is simply the name of the server that was setup earlier; remember that mine was jamiet.visualstudio.com (note that it uses an https connection, not http):

You should now be connected to your Team Foundation Service. Add your source code to TFS Source Control from inside Solution Explorer:

And check in your SSDT database project (or “commit” if you prefer that terminology):

You will now be able to browse to your TFS home page (mine is https://jamiet.visualstudio.com), click on your project and browse through your checked in code:

Setup your Publish Profile file

You need to tell SSDT where to deploy the project to, that information is stored in a Publish Profile file. In Solution Explorer right-click and select “Publish…”

Enter the details of the Windows Azure SQL Database that you prepared earlier:

Once the Publish Profile file has been saved it will be saved in your project:

At the time of writing Windows Azure SQL Database only supports SQL authentication so we have to edit the Publish Profile file to include the password for the account that will be used for deployment. Right-click on the Publish Profile file, select “Open with…” and from the resultant dialog select “XML (Text) Editor:

Edit the Connection String to include your password:

NOW you can check in:

Create a Build Definition

A Build Definition defines how and when the source code in the project should get built. Create a new Build Definition by selecting “Builds” in the Team Explorer address bar and choosing New Build Definition:

Follow the steps shown in the screenshots below to setup your Build Definition:

(Credit for informing me about the MSBuild arguments goes entirely to Jakob Ehn and his blog post Deploying SSDT Projects with TFS Build)

And you’re done!

If you have set everything up correctly then any future check in should trigger a build and thus a Publish of the SSDT project to your Windows Azure SQL Database. Here is my first build report:

and back in SSDT I can use SQL Server Object Explorer to browse my newly deployed table:

That’s Continuous Deployment for SSDT projects to Windows Azure SQL Database using Team Foundation Service. Awesome!

@Jamiet

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Continuous deployment of SSDT database projects to Windows Azure using Team Foundation Service

Create a new Windows Azure SQL Database

Sign up for Team Foundation Service

Create an SSDT database project

Add the SSDT project to TFS Source Control

Setup your Publish Profile file

Create a Build Definition

And you’re done!

But what can I do with Windows Azure? Create (Free) Websites and Applications

But what can I do with Windows Azure? Backups