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Running in the CloudChronoRace<br />Maarten Balliauw – RealDolmenE-mail: maarten.balliauw@realdolmen.comBlog: http://blog.maartenballiauw.beTwitter: @maartenballiauw<br />

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Who am I?<br />Maarten Balliauw<br />Antwerp, Belgium<br />www.realdolmen.com<br />Focus on web<br />ASP.NET, ASP.NET MVC, PHP, Azure, VSTS, …<br />MVP ASP.NET<br />http://blog.maartenballiauw.be<br />http://twitter.com/maartenballiauw<br />

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Agenda<br />Cloud computing?<br />Windows Azure?<br />The ChronoRace case<br />ChronoRace?<br />Infrastructure<br />The project<br />Resources<br />Q&A<br />

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What’s in the cloud?<br />Cloud Computing<br />

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Cloud computing<br />On-demand self service<br />Standardized access<br />Location independant resource pooling<br />Rapid elasticity<br />Pay per use<br />

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IT as a Service<br />Private<br />(On-Premise)<br />Infrastructure<br />(as a Service)<br />Platform<br />(as a Service)<br />You manage<br />Applications<br />Applications<br />Applications<br />You manage<br />Runtimes<br />Runtimes<br />Runtimes<br />Security & Integration<br />Security & Integration<br />Security & Integration<br />Managed by vendor<br />You manage<br />Databases<br />Databases<br />Databases<br />Servers<br />Servers<br />Servers<br />Managed by vendor<br />Virtualization<br />Virtualization<br />Virtualization<br />Server HW<br />Server HW<br />Server HW<br />Storage<br />Storage<br />Storage<br />Networking<br />Networking<br />Networking<br />

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What’s in the cloud?<br />Windows Azure<br />

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The Windows Azure Platform<br />Windows Azure<br />SQL Azure<br />Windows Azure platform AppFabric<br />Microsoft Codename “Dallas”<br />Microsoft Codename “Sydney”<br />

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Windows Azure<br />Flexible application hosting<br />Lights-out service management<br />Provide code & service model, hit ENTER<br />Storage at massive scale<br />Blobs, tables, queues<br />Compute<br />Storage<br />Management<br />

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Windows Azure<br />

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Storage options<br />Blobs, tables, queues<br />Windows Azure Drive (a.k.a. XDrive)<br />Virtual NTFS volume that can be mounted<br />.vhd format<br />Use existing NTFS API’s<br />Easier migration<br />Stored on blob storage provides quick mount/unmount in other VM<br />

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SQL Azure<br />Relational database as a service<br />Highly available, automatically maintained<br />Extension of the SQL Server Data Platform<br />Reporting<br />Data Sync<br />Business Analytics<br />Database<br />

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Windows Azure AppFabric<br />Secure connections between services<br />Across organizational boundaries<br />Claims-based access control<br />ServiceBus<br />AccessControl<br />

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Service Bus Overview<br />

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Microsoft Codename “Dallas”<br />Content brokerage and discovery platform <br />Available as a CTP<br />Microsoft Codename “Dallas”Information Services<br />

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Microsoft Codename “Sydney” - Connectivity<br />WINDOWS AZURE PLATFORM<br />ENTERPRISE<br />Data Service<br />Service Bus<br />Access Control Service<br />Code Name “Project Sydney”<br />

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North America Region <br />Asia Pacific Region<br />Europe Region<br />N. Europe <br />Sub-region <br />N. Central – US <br />Sub-region <br />E. Asia<br />Sub-region <br />W. Europe <br />Sub-region <br />S. Central - US <br />Sub-region<br />S.E. Asia<br />Sub-region <br />

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What’s in the cloud?<br />Running in the Cloud<br />The ChronoRace case<br />

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ChronoRace<br />

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ChronoRace<br />Delivering infrastructure for timing sports events<br />Running, biking, triathlon, mountainbike, …<br />Founded 10 years ago, Malmédy, 4 persons<br />Timing of every participant<br />Video footage of every participant<br />PDF certificates for every participant<br />Around 340 events per year!<br />Belgium, Luxemburg, France, Germany, Netherlands, …<br />Small events<br />Large events<br />Dwars door Brugge 8.000 participants<br />Antwerp 10 Miles 17.000 participants<br />20km of Brussels 30.000 participants<br />

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What’s in the cloud?<br />Infrastructure<br />The ChronoRace case<br />

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Current infrastructure<br />

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Google Analytics from Antwerp 10 Miles 2010<br />

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Big event…<br />20km of Brussels upcoming! (30/05/2010)<br />Expected 30.000 participants<br />Downloading their certificate 30.000 hits processing a PDF<br />Watching results online 30.000 hits*<br />Having a video online 30.000 x +/- 10MB (= 292 GB)<br />Watching their video 30.000 video views<br />And showing off to family and friends… 30.000 x 10MB x 10 views (avg.) = 2,92 TB bandwidth in 1 day<br />About 35 Mbps<br />Over a 10 Mbps line…<br />But there’s an option to a 100 Mbps line!<br />

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How to overcome these predictable peaks?<br />Make videos only available after a day or 2<br />Many hits to the results page can be handled<br />Videos online during week: traffic spread<br />Invest in streaming?<br />Costly, big capacity only needed for +/- 7 events per year<br />The videos are not the only problem<br />

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How to overcome these predictable peaks?<br />A better WAN connection?<br />Costly<br />Currently the server can handle all traffic because of the 10 Mbps cap<br />Buy additional hardware?<br />Costly<br />Estimated use of additional hardware is +/- 7 events per year<br />14 days of required uptime<br />342 days of money burning<br />

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“Growing Fast“ <br />“On and Off “ <br />Inactivity<br />Period <br />Compute <br />Compute <br />Average Usage<br />Usage<br />Average<br />Time <br />Time <br /><ul><li>On & off workloads (e.g. batch job)

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Over provisioned capacity is wasted

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Time to market can be cumbersome

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Successful services needs to grow/scale

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Keeping up w/ growth is big IT challenge

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Complex lead time for deployment</li></ul>“Unpredictable Bursting“ <br />“Predictable Bursting“ <br />Compute <br />Compute <br />Average Usage <br />Average Usage <br />Time <br />Time <br /><ul><li>Unexpected/unplanned peak in demand

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Sudden spike impacts performance

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Can’t over provision for extreme cases

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Services with micro seasonality trends

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Peaks due to periodic increased demand

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IT complexity and wasted capacity </li></ul>Workloadpatternsoptimalforcloud<br />

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What’s in the cloud?<br />The Project<br />The ChronoRace case<br />

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Where did it start…<br />Microsoft salesguy is a runner<br />Annoyed by the slow / failing website<br />Decided to give a call<br />ChronoRace interested in the cloud story<br />RealDolmen chosen as partner<br />Already investing heavily in Windows Azure for 1,5 year<br />Mostly building PoC’s to see what fits / what not<br />Experience<br />

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Step 1: Identify the possible use case for cloud<br />Obviously: peaks, mostly predicted<br />

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Step 2: Identify possible pitfalls<br />Current website<br />VS2003 Web Site<br />Database<br />1 GB or 10 GB?<br />PDF generation<br />32 bit component (Azure is 64 bit)<br />License key requires registry access<br />Streaming<br />Possible from Azure?<br />Directly from storage?<br />Scaling<br />Not automatic on Azure<br />Deployment<br />Site is +/- 300 MB, deploy this every time?<br />Pricing<br />Is this all worth the migration?<br />

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Current web site<br />VS2003 Web Site<br />Should be easy!<br />File -> New -> Cloud<br />Add a web application<br />Copy the VS2003 web site in<br />Right click -> Convert to web application<br />Done!<br />

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Current web site<br />VS2003 Web Site in a VS2010 Web Application<br />Would not compile (no namespaces)<br />Migration took some time<br />Add namespace<br />Restructure classes<br />Throw out stuff that was no longer used<br />Actually migration allowed us to get a cleaner application<br />

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Database<br />Current database size: around 2,5 GB<br />Squeeze stuff into 1 GB?<br />Data retention<br />Restructure database?<br />

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Database<br />Decided to go for 10 GB version<br />Migration<br />Using open-source: SQL Azure Migration Wizardhttp://sqlazuremw.codeplex.com<br />Worked surprisingly good!<br />2 stored procedures could not be migrated<br />Test migration took 7 hours initially!<br />Don’t migrate on your home connection <br />

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Database<br />Current website at www.chronorace.be runs on SQL Azure<br />As easy as changing the connection string!<br />After installing SQL Server 2008 R2 client<br />After installing SQL Server 2008 R2 management objects<br />

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Database<br />Backups?<br />Do you NEED backups on Azure anyway???<br />Not supported in current version, backups manually via SQL Azure Migration Wizard to local SQL Server<br />One of the upcoming SQL Azure versions will support database backups<br />

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PDF generation<br />Using “WebSuperGoo ABCpdf”<br />Requires registry access for the license key<br />Not allowed on Azure<br />We built a small PoC in Development Fabric which worked!<br />Deployment to production learned that this was false optimism <br />Current version: 32 bits<br />Azure: 64 bits<br />We tried to run the non-licensed version on Azure<br />Did not work: author has disabled 64 bits support<br />

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PDF generation<br />64 bits version…<br />Decided to keep this on the current web server for now<br />Migrate to an open-source PDF component in the future<br />

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Streaming<br />Currently a Flash player<br />Downloads chunks of +/- 1 MB<br />Should work on blob storage!<br />Cheap storage<br />Cheap traffic<br />CDN support<br />API supports downloading chunks<br />

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Streaming<br />Getting a chunck took a few seconds for each video…<br />What if a participant watches the video 10 times?<br />Decided to cache the video to compute<br />During the advert that is shown<br />Next view of the video is instant!<br />Demo: http://bit.ly/d8koz6<br />

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Scaling<br />Done by doing this:<br />Would be awesome to have this:<br />Not possible!<br />“When” should it scale?<br />“How” should it scale?<br />“Who” / “What” is responsible for scaling?<br /><Instancescount="2" /><br /><InstancesminInstances="3" maxInstances="10" /><br />

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Auto-Scaling<br />Auto scaling would be a big benefit<br />During events all 4 people are busy<br />It is the cloud after all? The scale-up/down thing?<br />We decided to build something for that<br />Application should be able to monitor itself<br />Only one instance should be responsible for that<br />

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Auto-Scaling – Scaling logic<br />Scaling logic provider uses sensor data to suggest an action (up/fast-up/down/stable)<br />To implement per application<br />Just a suggestion!<br />Scaling logic provider uses sensor data to suggest an action (up/fast-up/down/stable)<br />To implement per application<br />Just a suggestion!<br />

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Auto-Scaling<br />Uses all the standard API’s of Windows Azure<br />Master election  Role Environment<br />Performance counters  Diagnostics API<br />Queue length  Storage API<br />Scaling (changing # instances in config)  Management API<br />

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Auto-Scaling in ChronoRace<br />Sensor based on concurrent video streams<br />Scales between 2 and 20 instances automatically<br />Hard to verify! The Windows Azure portal is not willing to disclose the number of instances during scale.<br />MMC Snap-In does give useful info!http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/windowsazuremmc<br />

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Deployment<br />Site is +/- 300 MB, deploy this every time?<br />Deployment through portal seems to take forever<br />Uploading 300 MB for a very small change is crazy<br />We decided to move images and static content to blob storage and serve it from there<br />Code and dynamic content are on Windows Azure. Making it a 3,5 MB application.<br />

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Deployment<br />Deployment can be done in 2 ways<br />“Upgrade”<br />“VIP swap”<br />Website will mostly run on 1 or 2 instances<br />Case 1  upgrade will bring the site down!<br />Process: use VIP swap<br />

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Pricing – Current pricing<br />Server lease for 2 servers<br />Including 10 Mbps bandwidth<br />+/- 450 EUR / month<br />

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Pricing – Windows Azure<br />Storage<br />30 GB required x $ 0,15 = $ 4,50 / month<br />SQL Azure<br />10 GB database x $ 99,99 = $ 99,99 / month<br />

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Pricing – Windows Azure<br />Compute<br />On average 1 instance = $ 43,20 / month<br />Worst case 15 days 3 instances = $ 129,60 / month<br />Traffic<br />3 TB x $ 0,15 / GB = $ 450,00 / month*<br />*will probably be less<br />

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Pricing – Windows Azure<br />Estimated worst-case scenario would cost:<br />Current setup: 450 EUR / month<br />Windows Azure worst-case: 590 EUR / month<br />

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What’s in the cloud?<br />Summary<br />The ChronoRace case<br />

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ChronoRace summary<br />Pitfalls were identified and mostly tackled<br />Except for the PDF generation<br />Most hours spent with VS2003 web site to VS2010 web app<br />Database migration<br />One test run of 7 hours (unattended)<br />Final migration took 1 hour<br />Development using Windows Azure Storage API<br />Max. 1 day spent<br />Website on Azure will be put to test next weekend:<br />20 km of Brussels is D-Day<br />Confident that it will not explode this time<br />

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Resources<br />Where do I find more info?<br />

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Resources<br />Windows Azurehttp://www.azure.com<br />Steve Marxhttp://blog.smarx.com/<br />PDChttp://microsoftpdc.com<br />My bloghttp://blog.maartenballiauw.be/category/Azure.aspx<br />RealDolmen blogs is running on Azure!http://www.realdolmenblogs.com<br />RealDolmen will be happy to work with you in identifying if cloud computing is beneficial to your applications.<br />Stop by our booth for a chat!<br />

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AZUG.BE – Azure User Group Belgium<br />Focus on the Azure Services Platform<br />Community-driven<br />Focus on architecture<br />And development<br />And the business value of Azure<br />www.azug.be<br />

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Questions<br />Possibly Answers<br />Q&A Session also later today,check your session schedule<br />or stop by our booth.<br />

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Maarten Balliauwhttp://blog.maartenballiauw.be<br />http://twitter.com/maartenballiauw<br />THANK YOU!<br />