Microsoft Azure Virtual Machine Scale set FAQs?

December 12, 2016 — Laxmikant Patil

Imagine a situation where your application has variable resource consumption nature which is mostly a case in real world. If you keep constant number of servers / resources you will have to consider higher side of traffic pattern and provision extra resources which will not efficient economically. Such unpredictable nature of applications usage is very much common and needs cost efficient solution. Virtual machine scale set feature provides this ability where in platform can add more resources automatically based on the existing resource consumption. In simple term, if your servers are running for example at 75% CPU utilization, platform can automatically add X number of VMs to sustain the load and promise consistent user experience, as soon as your resource consumption goes down additional virtual machines are removed saving cost of the ownership.

As name indicates, Virtual Machine Scale set feature can create Virtual machines for providing high availability to your application by spawning multiple identical machines instantly. This feature is also used in case your application has big compute requirements like processing big data.

Now let us discuss few frequently asked questions on scale set –

Once I have Scale set defined which can create Virtual machines dynamically, how load distribution happens between them?

Microsoft Azure has integrated load balancer which can help distribute the load.

Are Windows and Linux both types of VMs creation possible using this feature?

Yes, Windows and Linux images along with their extensions can be created using this feature. Extensions are scripts which enables / configure additional features on Virtual machine.

Does this scaling happens automatically?

Yes, VM scale set is a feature integrated with Azure Insights Autoscale which makes this automatic scaling possible.

If I have a Web application with variable resource needs, Can I use Virtual machine scale set feature?

Yes, you can use it for web front ends or services layer. You will have to plan state of application in such case so that during scale out and scale in state is not lost.

Is it necessary to use Azure Resource Manager deployment for creation of Scale set?

Yes, it works with only Azure Resource Manager model, you can create it using Portal UI or thru JSON template or REST APIs, choice is yours. There are quick start templates available here.

Do VM Sale sets work with Azure Availability sets?

Yes. A VM scale set is an implicit availability set with 5 Fault Domains and 5 Update Domains. You don’t need to configure anything explicitly for that.

Can I use my Custom VM Images for Scale set or I am limited to available platform images¹ only?

Yes, you can use your Custom images but you can create VMs up to 40, this is because custom images are currently limited to single storage account. If you use platform available images¹, you can create up to 100 VMs which can be distributed across multiple storage accounts.

¹A platform image in this context is an operating system image from the Azure Marketplace, like Ubuntu 16.04, Windows Server 2012 R2, etc.

Is each VM in the Scale set have public IP associated with it?

A VM scale set is created inside a Virtual Network and individual VMs in the scale set are not allocated public IP addresses. To connect to these VMs or RDP it, you have multiple options like – Use other Azure resources in your Virtual network like load balancers (with public IP) or other VMs outside scale set having public IP.

Can I attach data disk to VMs in Scale set?

As of today, this feature is not available, you cannot have data disk attached. Available options are – 1. Azure files storage (SMB mounted drives) 2. Azure Storage – blob, Tables 3. OS drive 4. Temp Drive which is not backed up by Azure.

Can I install my own software or setup something while VM images are being provisioned in scale set?

Yes, you can install new software on a platform image using a VM Extension. A VM extension is software that runs when a VM is deployed. You can run any code you like at deployment time using a custom script extension.

It is advisable not to have long running script / VM extension which can delay the VM provisioning impacting applications performance. Considering creating custom image if lot of customizations are required for platform images.

What are the available options for login into VMs in Scale set?

Since each individual VM in scale does not have public IP, you cannot RDP it directly, you have following options available –

Connect to VMs using NAT rules: You can create a public IP address, assign it to a load balancer, and define inbound NAT rules which map a port on the IP address to a port on a VM in the VM scale set.
Create standalone VM in same Virtual network/subnet, assign it a public IP, log in to this standalone VM using RDP and then connect to individual VMs in scale set using internal IP addresses within the Virtual network. Such standalone VM is sometimes referred as “jumpbox”

Typically what types of rules can be defined for scaling out and scaling in Scale set?

Below picture shows typical rule available while configuring the scale set –

m-scale-set

So in above example you are configuring Scale set which will have minimum 1 VM and maximum 10 it can go up to. Whenever CPU percentage reaches 75%, 1 new VM is added, as soon as it drops to 25%, 1 VM is removed from scale set.

Hope this helps in gaining basic understanding on Virtual Machine Scale Set.

Happy reading !! Thanks.

Posted in Windows Azure. Tags: Azure Scalesets, Microsoft Azure Scale set, Scale Sets, Scalesets, VM Scale set interview questions, VM Scale Sets. Leave a Comment »

What is Microsoft Azure DevTest Labs feature all about?

December 2, 2016 — Laxmikant Patil

In almost every Project we work, we provision some time like 1-2 weeks’ time for environment (Dev/Test) provisioning where we plan our Project with low Productivity, we buy software licenses if any needed or upgrade existing to new versions, upgrade machine configurations to get ready for another mission. So far this has been acceptable solution and considered to be pre-requisite step no matter how critical is the project from business point of view, this waste, we were allowed to doJ.

Few companies tried to tackle this problem with solutions available in the market such as CloudShare, a Cloud computing company providing ready to use development and testing Labs. However, adoption was not so quite high due to non-alignment of primary IT strategy with their Cloud Computing platform. For e.g. if your Active Directory is not in sync with Dev Labs in CloudShare, you will have to create entire dummy replica of it to mimic it, which is not practical most of the time.

Recently more mature solution have been devised by Microsoft – Azure DevTest Labs, a feature which enables companies to quickly provision development and test environments. This makes more promising solution due to its market adoption where customers are already having major of workload in Microsoft Azure Cloud platform, building Dev, Test, and Prod in same Cloud makes more sense as it just becomes your on premise extended network.

So in a nutshell, we are no more allowed to waste 1-2 weeks’ time, ultimately you are that much close to your market and end customers helping win the business.

So lets us start understanding some basics about the Azure DevTest Labs –

“Lab” creation is the first activity, basically “Lab” is outer container or boundary for collection of Virtual machines for development of testing purpose
- A Lab provides secure boundary so a machine from one lab cannot see other machines in different lab, same way user permissions are organized
- In real life, a lab could be a Project name of a sub-Project name
- You can automate lab creation, including custom settings, by creating a Resource Manager template and using it to create identical labs again and again.
- A lab owner has the access to any resources within the lab. Therefore, they can modify policies, read and write any VMs, change the virtual network, and so on.
- An Entire Lab can be auto shut downed to save the resource cost when not in use
Once you create a Lab, you create multiple “Virtual machines” in it.
- Each Virtual machine will have a O.S image attached to it.
- You can limit the number of Virtual machines in a Lab, and also number of Virtual machines per user
- To save the cost, each machine can be auto started and auto shut downed at specific time of day/week
- You can use out-of-the-box VM images available or you can create and upload your own Custom VM image
- A Lab user who uses the VMs, however, he is not allowed to modify any settings
Each Virtual machine can have “artifacts”, an artifacts is some configuration or tool which you want to install during VM provisioning so you’re VM will have it ready before first logon.
- An example of artifacts could be 7-Zip utility, notepad++ software or some specific browser for testing purpose. Picture below shows few samples of artifacts, however, there is long available –

artifacts

Sometimes if you have more than one artifacts to be added, you may decide order in which they should be added

Along with above core features, there are very attractive use cases which can be used by companies such as –

Training setups: You don’t have to work with your training vendor to rent a Lab for training purpose which may have some high end configured machines. Organizations outsource entire training programs due to hardware requirement, as they cannot afford to procure such hardware just of the training purpose due capital and operation expenditure involved.

With Azure DevTest Labs, this wait time or costly affairs are not more required, you can easily configure required training environment in minutes, use it wisely, save the cost and complete your training. Once training is over, delete the environment. That’s it!

VM image snapshot: We all have faced situations wherein, some piece of code or functionality works fine in Dev environment but fails in Test, or works somewhere and fails on some specific machine. Sometimes testers had tough time in reproducing the issues as meanwhile somebody changed some VM settings making it hard to find the root cause.

With Azure DevTest Labs, you can take snapshot of VM image, preserve it for later use for reproducing defects which are environment specific. An ability to create same environment with few clicks improves the DEV-TEST team communication and collaboration.

No more follow ups to IT Support guys for adding small features on VMs, with power in your hand, you can select artifacts from the available set, add them and test them. No dependency on other stakeholders, a Lab owner user can perform all such operations and installation happens automatically without manual intervention.

To summarize, Azure DevTest Labs is a great addition to platform, this makes sense whether or not start allowing DevOps culture within your organization. Essentially this feature enables each organization save cost and time achieving their business objectives.

Posted in General, Windows Azure. Tags: Azure Dev Labs, Azure DevTest Labs, Azure Labs, Azure Test Labs, Development Environment, DevTest Labs, Test Enviornment. Leave a Comment »

What is a microservice? Why we need it?

November 30, 2016 — Laxmikant Patil

Before we touch upon microservices, let us discuss why are they needed? Why now? Why not 5 years ago or 5 years down the line?

We started programming world with procedural programming in languages such as C, Pascal etc., we invented new way of doing same using Object Oriented principles where we talked about the Object Orientation, encapsulation, abstraction etc. (C++, Smalltalk etc.).

Initially, we were running all our classes, interfaces on same machine with just logical separation of functional layers such as Presentation, business and data access layer followed by actual database management system. We found the need of having more componentization to run components separate so they can scale individually, we adopted COM (Component Object model) and DCOM (Distributed Component object model). Finally, we reached more mature and web enabled option of Services and modernized our applications using Service oriented architecture (SOA) and principles.

Now to understand what has gone wrong in so far programming and deployment models? – Well, there is nothing wrong in what we did so far, but there is scope for improvement as we witness technological innovations around us which are primarily business driven.

The problem with our recent adoption of SOA based applications or traditional client server systems is – we have applications which are logically divided in different logical layers (same machine) or sometimes different tiers (different machines) and the focus has been the functional nature of these layers like presentation/ web, business and data access – but it was never the business requirement which insisted us for this separation.

Because of just functional separation, applications became monolithic from business point of view – as I can’t deal with specific set of business requirements independently without disturbing other requirements, maintenance becomes difficult too. I can’t scale business scenarios separately or make more resilient, also the testing and deployment becomes more complicated since you are always dealing with one functional layer or application as a whole, instead of set of business scenarios. This leads to more time to deliver few changes to business and get the feedback, more time to test to understand impact and dependency, since everybody is testing the same application, you need to wait for others to test and confirm before you deploy, though, one part of it may be ready to go.

Also Monolithic applications can be scaled by just cloning it on more than one server, this way of resource utilization is not efficient as it does not have possibility to provision more resources to specific business requirements than other least used features, this causes in-efficient use of resources causing more cost of ownership. With Microservices adoption, resource utilization can be optimized.

So why is this new paradigm coming our way now not earlier? – I would say there are two reasons to it 1. Increased adoption of agile delivery model 2. As Cloud becomes reality and the way to go

Agile delivery model is most widely used and becoming more and more popular because of its ability to deliver fast, helping business achieve more aggressively – what else do you want?

As we helped business to go to market faster, test and provide feedback so improvements can be done, that raised organizational expectations on further engineering the way we write our applications and how our applications can be deployed to sustain un-predicable business growth.

So, in a nutshell, if I can use agile methodology (preferable but not limited to) to develop, test and deploy specific business requirement independently without tight coupling with other requirements or components, I can write microservices for that. Additionally pre-requisites are – Microservices should be resilient and scalable independently for un-predictable user growth, and for high resiliency you need Microservices to report health continuously so corrective actions can be taken.

As result of this, your application will become collection of Microservices (each addressing one unique business requirement) which can uniquely identify each other, communicate with each other, however, still remain independent as far as their versioning, scaling and internal business data and changes are concerned.

Cloud computing platforms such as Windows Azure helps implement all above tenets of microservices providing adequate resources and models for high resiliency, scalability and cost efficiency.

So if we have to conclude with top 3 rewards of using Microservices, these could be –

Faster Delivery time due to focus on business requirements, respond to your customer faster
Scalability which provides agility to your business, allow your business to venture into new geography without any wait – adopt more customers, support inorganic growth
Improved resource utilization to reduce cost of ownership

In my next article, we will discuss more details on microservices.

Posted in Windows Azure. Tags: Azure microservices, Containers, Microservice, Microservices. Leave a Comment »

Books reviewed by Me

October 28, 2015 — Laxmikant Patil

I am happy to share that two of the books which I technically reviewed for PacktPub Publication, UK has been published recently. You can checkout these books on Amazon !

Books Published

Posted in .NET, Windows Azure. Leave a Comment »

Lotus Notes to SharePoint Migration : Key Guiding Principles

January 17, 2015 — Laxmikant Patil

There is a definitive wave of application migration happening from Lotus notes to SharePoint Platform. These initiatives are usually cost and time consuming. Clearly formulated strategy implementation from day one is needed for long running benefits.

I have put together some key guiding principles thru by experience, Please have a look and provide your feedback,

Please note that SharePoint Platform journey for end users should start well before LN apps start appearing there.
SharePoint institutionalization is the key to success, even before first app is migrated.
Don’t try to build LN look alike apps in SharePoint, since these platforms are entirely different, you will end up spending lot in this desire. Always think from SharePoint perspective than an existing Notes apps.
LN will be around for some more time, it takes time, it’s not overnight job, so please be prepared to support both the platform for sometime.
Think cohesively for all business stakeholders including Partners, vendors, remote users, global users, multilingual users – so that all can participate, maintain and share information effectively.
Understand the pain areas and try to address them effectively even by changing business process to improve productivity.
Also Please note that every Notes app need not be migrated to SharePoint, always check feasibility. Some apps may remain there or some may be developed using ASP.NET/Java frameworks or even SaaS route.
Take a chance to improve and standardize application portfolio using Industry best practices. It is your golden chance to reorganize.
Which App to take first –
- Application which can easily be migrated to OOB feature of target platform.
- Sometimes Business critical apps are taken first for taking first come advantage, this can help set credibility of the platform.
- However, judicious decision can only be taken after detailed assessment and listening point of views of different stakeholders.
Meeting with stakeholders and understanding their expectations should ensure success of migration exercise.
Effective Governance practice to control performance degradation because of content growth. Generally, the larger the number of people who get information from a particular type of site, the more tightly it is governed, and vice versa.
Focus on Reuse and standardization by leveraging consistent Framework, Tools, products.
Proper Migration Assessment paves the road to success, allow sufficient time to accomplish this activity.
Work closely with ERP, this can give enormous power to users where information is available in SharePoint which is controlled and secure.
Devise a strategy on maintaining and sharing Master data between applications and portals.
Future-proof organization with Mobility, build some apps to be usable on mobile devices.
What areas of the business offer the most opportunity for growth? – Act in that direction, from both Migration and SharePoint Platform adoption perspective.
As far as possible, target using Out-of-the-box feature of SharePoint, this may lead to cost saving and ease of maintenance in future. Achieve more and more things using SharePoint Client side object model, this will keep your SharePoint upgrades lighter(low cost).
Please note that, Not everything to be achieved in SharePoint, consider cost-benefit analysis and don’t hesitate to look for some third party product on Microsoft technology which can replace some Lotus Notes applications, even some times some business processes can be moved to ERP.

Hope this will help anybody going migration route.

Happy reading !!

Regards,

Laxmikant Patil

Posted in SharePoint. Tags: Ket principles for Notes migration, Lotus Notes Migration. Leave a Comment »

Lotus Notes to SharePoint Migration Scenarios – White Paper

January 17, 2015 — Laxmikant Patil

One of my white paper written a couple of years ago which was published on KPIT Technologies company web site is now moved to Birlsasoft’s corporate website since Birlasoft has acquired KPIT. This is about migration scenarios while migrating Lotus Notes applications to the SharePoint platform.

The new location of my paper is – https://www.birlasoft.com/sites/default/files/resources/downloads/whitepapers/microsoft/lotus-notes-sharepoint-data.pdf

It is so nice to see my work getting accommodated thru company acquisitions.

Happy reading !!

Regards,

Laxmikant Patil

Posted in SharePoint. Tags: issues in LN migration, LN migration issues, Lotus Notes, Lotus Notes Migration, migration scenarios, Notes migration, SharePoint, SharePoint Migration. Leave a Comment »

Quality Management Systems(QMS) in SharePoint

January 17, 2015 — Laxmikant Patil

How will you map typical QMS (generic instead of specific industry type) with SharePoint Product features? Here I have given a try, please have a look –

QMS Specific Core Features*

KPI’s, Interactive Reports
Powerful Workflow engine
External partner Access
Document Management & Control
Document conversions
Records Management
Electronic and digital signatures
Metadata control
PDF rendering
Controlled Printing
Governance
Communities of Practice

Security & Compliance

Segregation of duties
Tasks configuration and management
Notifications
Escalations, Delegations
With its integrated security features, Platform supports Security and identity Management sufficient for non-repudiation
Microsoft Cloud services and GXP compliance. Office 365 services are SAS70 Type II, ISO 27001, Safe Harbor, HIPPA w/BAA available

Platform Development features

Widely used .Net based Platform
Build around collaborative features
Rapid development features and frameworks
Ability to integrate with ERPs, CRMs, SCMs
Integrated nature of Microsoft office
Data migration possible from existing Systems
Cloud as well as On-Premise availability
Works closely with Exchange, Lync

User Experience

MS Office like UI
Entire platform can be used on various mobile devices, PC and tablets
Sortable, filterable views of information, ability to control information for set of users,
Ability to create ad-hoc views and data exports

* Some of the features may need custom development

Below is pictorial representation of above information, I hope this information will be useful to you.

Happy reading !

Regards,

Laxmikant Patil

Posted in SharePoint. Tags: QMS features in SharePoint, QMS in SharePoint, QMS in SP, Quality Management in Sharepoint, SharePoint QMS, SharePoint QMS feasibility. Leave a Comment »

Windows Azure – Cloud Usage Scenarios and Total Cost of Ownership

August 18, 2013 — Laxmikant Patil

[This paper explains, Windows Azure Cloud usage scenarios in relation to different Web Application Patterns/scenarios and justifies how Cloud Computing can save your money against on-premise deployment in each of the pattern/scenario.]

Introduction

Mission of every business is to devote all of its energies to the production of tangible or intangible objects that are high in quality and competitive in cost, meet customers’ expectations for performance, and are delivered in a timely manner. Finding and achieving the appropriate balance among these attributes—quality, cost, performance, and time to market—challenge all businesses. Those companies that are successful in meeting that challenge remain in business; those that are not usually disappear.

An objects (Tangible/intangible) production environment that is perhaps changing more rapidly now than during the Industrial Revolution, competing successfully will require that businesses increasingly provide customers with shorter times between order and delivery and between product conceptualization and realization, greater product customization, and higher product quality and performance, while meeting more stringent environmental/market constraints.

Accomplishing these goals will require major changes in current industry practices; such changes include the use of new and/or more complex technologies, greater use of information to reduce waste and defects, and more flexible business styles.

A million dollar question rests, what can be done to effective face these challenges?

And a one word answer to such a gigantic question is “Innovation!”

Now with this answer, one may innovate in specific core business processes and/or innovate in support processes which can substantially impact overall performance of business. Innovation in specific core business processes goes hand in hand with basic engineering and science progression which has got its own pace. One can invest and wait till such innovation to happen where results may not be in control of decision maker.

Smart business owner may keep an eye on this progress of core engineering area with appropriate investment but will also empower his business by adopting something which is cutting edge, latest and ever fast growing area which can substantially change the game and prove as an differentiator in the market i.e. Information Technology!

Over a decade it has been proven fact that information Technology is the only dimension of modern industry which can wonderfully impact on progress of every part of industry processes giving tremendous benefits to early adopters.

The role that IT can play –

IT (information technology) can provide the tools to help enterprise achieve goals widely regarded as critical to the future of enterprise –

Faster implementation of new concepts in products/services with ever fast Sales/marketing
Faster delivery of Products/Services to customers/users
More intimate and detailed interactions with customers
Fuller utilization of capital and human resources
Streamlining of operations to focus on essential business needs
Elimination of unnecessary, redundant, or wasteful activities
Faster, accurate, and more useful presentation and analysis of information for decision makers and information workers

All of above key objectives can be addressed by judicious use of Information Technology.

Q. What? Information Technology has been part of every industry from at least a decade? What has changed recently?

Well, it is fact that IT has been playing critical role in business growth, but it is also fact that yesterday’s technology was inefficient in solving all the problems that industry has been facing. IT, being the fastest growing technology industry, solution has been found and realized which can take care of all of above business challenges in cost effective manner. Yes, this is about Cloud Computing which is now a reality, a new era of computing.

The development and implementation of new information technology to meet these goals will be shaped by organizational, managerial, and human resource concerns that may prevent businesses from exploiting fully the technology that exists today.

Sensitivity to these concerns will be essential to the successful development and implementation of the information technology associated with visions of industry for this century.

This paper outlines how Cloud Computing techniques under Information technology, a wing of your organization can empower your business in driving your business goals and meeting challenges effectively.

Q. Ok, let me understand how Cloud Computing will impact my existing way of working and Information Technology wing of my business?

There are couple of things those we need to consider before answering it simply-

In a typical business environment, things may not be so simple or smooth going always. So many external factors impact on business and you need to provision that flexibility and agility in your enterprise to sustain those changes. For e.g. one decision by Olympic committee on dropping wrestling from 2020 Olympics can result significant impact on businesses directly or indirectly related to this game. Will those businesses be able to stand through such an impact had they invested all they can in IT capital investment?

Let us take an example of Pizza Shop owner, who accepts Pizza orders over phone and using his web based system running on his owned IT resources which can serve 100 customers placing orders at the same time. What will happen during Christmas period or holiday season when 500 customers trying to place orders. Predictable, he will lose his business.

“A Pizza shop owner has to decide how much time
he wants to invest in inventing new Pizza versus little investment on how he
can increase sell of existing Pizzas to mass by opening multiple sell channels
leveraging information Technology” – A Judicious decision decides his future

Now, should he buy IT resources worth sustaining 700 customers placing orders concurrently in anticipation? If he does that, he his investing too much for short period of year for peak load being over optimistic assuming that there will not be any new Pizza shop opening in due course as a competitor.

“Will it be sensible decision to procure high-end IT resources for a Pizza owner considering huge capital investment” – IT expenses are necessary but with extra care

To solve this problem, a typical business should be agile in all possible scenarios, and should adopt technology which enables required business agility.

“Pizza shop owner need an IT which is agile and will cope up with his customer demands” – On-demand IT is the new mantra

Now suppose Pizza shop owner has invented a new Pizza with delicious recipe. He wants to make it popular by marketing it quickly so that he can realize quick benefits over his investment in innovation. Apart from so many marketing channels, nowadays best place to market a product is on Internet. The time required for starting a web based system to launch his new Product will decide his success of business. Although he has product ready which can be sold and can become popular, time to market remains the critical part of complete cycle

“Time distance between innovation and market should be minimal for a business – every minute wasted after innovation before reaching market is loss to the business.”

Understanding the need of IT, Now Pizza Shop owner invests in IT to grow his business and believes in powerful IT to add more channels for online sale. Ultimately, he provisions high power software and hardware resources along with skilled labor to manage IT related activities including procurement, maintenance, backups, Servers, licenses, load balancing mechanisms, disaster recovery, failover mechanism, antivirus tools etc.

As a result of his investment in IT resources including human resources, he is forced to spend his time to manage these things and take decisions as an owner of business. One day, he feels he needs a good manager who will manage all these things. He ends up spending more for IT manager who will manage IT and human resources. Over a short period, he found out that, his business is getting impacted because of ever increasing IT expenses resulting because of technology changes, licenses getting expired, maintenance expenses going higher, employee attrition rate and foremost his personal time spent on IT related activities which defocused him from core business innovation and customer interactions.

“A Pizza shop owner should never defocus himself from innovating new Pizzas and talking to customers. He should never become IT expert with huge upfront investment in terms of money and time” – Cloud computing allows him to do so.

Even after investing so much in IT, Availability of IT resources all the time is a challenge along with Performance which users love when it comes to online business applications.

Just to summarize with above few examples, Cloud computing can benefit businesses with various aspects like lower capital expenditures, maintaining good ratio of CapEx vs. OpeEx, time to market, agility, elasticity, scalability allowing you to focus on core business and not on IT integrities.

Now, after analyzing importance of IT in business and importance of Cloud computing in IT, let us understand some scenarios where Cloud computing can be leveraged.

Q. As I know there are many cloud vendors, which one should we consider for understanding and discussion purpose?

We will consider Microsoft Windows Azure cloud Platform for the discussions which is complete cloud platform, when needed we will refer about other cloud platforms.

Q. Why do you think Microsoft Windows Azure can help me in my IT better way? Let me understand the Economics first!

To talk about economics we need to compare apple with apple, which might not be the exact case when you compare on-premise data center with Cloud deployed data center. Still we will try to do fair comparison of your on-premise data center running an application in various situations. To start with lets us understand Pricing method of Windows Azure platform.

Windows Azure Cloud Platform Pricing Methods

Free usage – Try your idea and then pay for it!

Windows Azure provides some resources free for use. This free quota can be used for setting Run up to 10 Web Sites per sub-region for free in a multi-tenant environment. Seamlessly upgrade to a paid Shared multi-tenant or reserved instance model as your traffic grows.

Pay-As-You-GO – Pay only for what you absolutely use

The Pay-as-You-Go pricing option is extremely flexible. It involves no up-front costs and no long-term commitment. You pay only for the resources that you use each month.

Resource Type	Charging Pattern
Cloud Services and Virtual Machines	Per hour usage
Storage, SQL Database, Bandwidth, Caching and Content Delivery Network(CDN)	Per Gigabyte
Some resources(Storage, Service Bus)	Per transaction

Pay less if you are sure you are going to use it for longer period

Commitment based plans – Have commitment with Microsoft and pay less

Make a monthly commitment to Windows Azure for 6 or 12 months and receive a significant discount. The discount you earn is determined by the monthly monetary amount you commit.

6 months plan

Make upfront commitment for 6 months for minimum $500 per month and win 20% discount

12 months plan

Make upfront commitment for 12 months for minimum $500 per month and win 22.5% discount

Pay upfront your commitment and win discount

PrePay

Win additional 2.5% discount if you prepay your entire commitment amount upfront. Below table shows discounts and their upper limits.

Monthly commitment	Discount
$500 to $14,999	20%
$15,000 to $39,999	23%
$40,000 and above	27%

If your computing demands are excessive, one can contact Microsoft and talk on those.

Microsoft is continuously inventing new ways of maintaining their data centers at reduced cost effectively so that same benefit can be provided to customers, as a result Microsoft has reduced Azure pricing many times.

Modes of using Azure resources

There are basically three modes for using Windows Azure resources.

Free

Some of the Azure resources are free in limited form. Such types of resources can be used when you are low in resource/traffic demand or you want to try an idea and till that time want not getting paid. Even smaller web sites intended for small duration such as product launch sites with less longevity can be hosted here.

Note: Please note that not all types of resources are available under this category

Can you please mention which of the Services/resources are free?

Websites, mobile services, scheduled jobs are free in limited form along with some amount of storage, bandwidth are free. Please refer http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/pricing/details/ for more details.

Shared

In this mode, one can use resources in shared mode along with other applications on the same instances. This is cost effective way of hosting your applications to start with, once your idea shines or are convinced about outcomes, you can go for reserved or dedicated instances for your application.

Note: Please note that not all types of resources are available under this category

Reserved instances

Reserved instances are only for you and will be dedicated for your application. You still are not locked with specific number of instances; you are in complete control of removing or adding instances to your application deployments. Since you control resources available for your application, you are in control of giving better performance and throughput to your users.

Before we move on to deal with economics let us try to understand the different application usage patterns/scenarios, enterprises have been dealing with these scenarios with crude way because of lack of innovative options available.

Web Application Usage Patterns

Let us now understand how different web application usage patterns can leverage cloud computing for cost effectiveness and added advantages.

1. Time bound and on-off Application Pattern

These are the applications having less longevity. Such applications live small life because of the intention of their existence is any occasion spanning for few days or few months. They may be used again after some duration in on-off pattern periodically but never constantly.

For example-

Company launching new product or offers, or periodic launch of products
Notifying customers or employees about something periodically
Seasonal initiatives
Sports events
Social events
Movie releases
Conference or competition enrollments
Sometimes such applications acts as an extension to existing large portal where users get navigated to new sites which are meant for small duration

Resource requirements of such applications may be low, medium or high, to fulfill the resource requirement, enterprises face challenges in provisioning resources which are required for small duration causing budgets to increase because enterprise has to ensure every part of data center ready for anticipated load, there is always rush in provisioning Servers, network hardware, system software, database software’s, storage systems, load balancing/failover mechanisms and last but not least human resources need in managing all these. Usually it has been found that to serve such kind of business request will cause total cost of ownership to go considerably high. Again these resources cannot be used in other initiatives because of periodic use of that which blocks them for same purpose decreasing utilization.

Since industry had no option to opt any cost effective option other than traditional way, this results in high expenses, resources being underutilized after the period, inconvenience to stake holders and impact of possible customer dissatisfaction along with risks of losing business or impact on the business goal may result.

Scenario Analysis

In below given sample scenario, we are launching an internet facing web site which will be used for 6 months period at a time. This 6 months usage is needed with a gap of 6 months. For deploying this application in on-premise environment, architect of this solution has suggested to have 2 web servers in load balanced manner and 1 Database server. Because load on this application cannot be correctly known, IT has to provision all three servers for complete 6 months period.

No of Web servers	2
No of Database Servers	1
No of months	18 months
Actual usage of servers	12 months

Considering traffic pattern is unknown, to sustain traffic for 6 months, all servers are provisioned for from day one till last day. This results in wastage of resources.

If we use Windows Azure Cloud platform for hosting this application, Actual Azure VMs can be provisioned and de-provisioned in response to on-going traffic as shown below graph which will result in cost saving, better user experience by providing required resources to application when absolutely needed.

Cost Analysis

Information below gives complete cost analysis about different options such as On-Premise Servers, Azure Deployed Servers and Azure costing plans such as Pay-As-You-Go, commitment based plans for availing discounts. Some of the conclusions drawn with the help of below analysis are –

With 3 On-premise Servers for all 18 months, required cost is $20,448 which includes web servers and database server

Where as with cloud adoption, you don’t need to allocate all 3 servers for 18 months, we can just provision servers in minutes when needed. With 3 Cloud Servers for 12 months, required cost is $10,809 (If we use VM installed SQL Server) and $7,488 for use of SQL Cloud Database (SQL Cloud database). These rates are as per no-commitment Azure pricing plans. With Azure based Hosting using Pay-AS-you-GO plan we are getting net 47% and 64% savings respectively as compare to on-premise option.
With 3 Servers in Cloud for 12 months using 6-Months Azure Commitment pricing plan, we are saving 58% (SQL Server in VM) and 71% (SQL cloud database) cost as compare to on-premise option respectively.
By leveraging Auto Scaling feature, you can save up to 81% (SQL Server in VM) and 84 %( SQL cloud database) for a given sample usage/traffic scenario.
Additional 2.5% of savings can be done by prepaying the monthly Azure services fees
For very low usage/traffic scenarios one can use Free/Shared services as part of the Azure platform such as ‘Websites’, using this will bring down cost substantially.

Application with short life (6 months, intermittent for 18 months) – TCO – Amortized over 36 months (2 Web Servers, 1 Database Server)*

*Please refer below assumptions section for understanding base for above calculations

**6-month commitment based plan

2. Steady – Application Pattern

These applications live long life may be through entire business life. Users of such kind of applications are pre-decided or known in total number. Such applications may have some spikes in between occasionally but may not cause impact of it on real business or cause of worry for IT.

For example-

Company/ corporate websites
Sites for employee , partners, customers collaboration
Sites for company subsidiaries, public relations or for key stakeholders

Although the traffic attracted by such sites is known, predictable and can be controlled. Resource requirements may vary over a period with slight spikes because of occasional increase in download or upload of information such as appraisal letters, pay-slips, media contents (audio/video), Process/Product (PDF) manuals, accounting reports, Periodical reporting etc.

Scenario Analysis

In below given sample scenario, we are considering an internet facing web site which will be used for 36 months period. The users of the application are known and fixed in number so this site doesn’t undergo so many spikes in un-controllable manner. For deploying this application on on-premise environment, architect of this solution has suggested to have 2 web servers in load balanced manner with 1 database server. Although load on this application doesn’t vary so much, but to sustain the anticipated smaller spikes, IT has to provision all three servers for complete period of 36 months.

No of Web servers	2
No of Database Servers	1
No of months	36 months

Since all servers are provisioned from start, this result in wastage of resources in relative low in volume, in this case because of steady state nature of this application.

If we use Windows Azure Cloud platform for hosting this application, Actual Azure VMs can be provisioned and de-provisioned in response to on-going traffic as shown below which will result in cost reduction, better user experience by providing required resources to application as need be.

Below graph showing how resource demand is being served cost effectively over a period.

Cost Analysis

With 3 On-premise Servers for all 36 months, required cost is $40,896 which includes web servers and database server
With 3 Cloud Servers for 36 months, required cost is $32,427 (If we use VM installed SQL Server) and $22,463 for use of SQL Cloud Database (SQL Azure). These rates are as per no-commitment Azure pricing plans. With Azure based hosting using Pay-AS-you-GO plan we are saving net 21% and 45% respectively.
With 3 Cloud Servers for all 36 months using Azure Commitment pricing plan, we are saving 39% and 57% using SQL Server in VM and SQL cloud database usage respectively.
By leveraging Auto Scaling feature, you can save up to 41% and 59% for a given sample usage/traffic scenario. In this sample scenario, by dynamic allocating/ de allocating resources as shown in graph
Additional 2.5% of savings can be done by prepaying the monthly Azure services fees

Application with Steady State – TCO – Amortized over 36 months (2 Web Servers, 1 Database Server)*

*Please refer below assumptions section for understanding base for above calculations

**12-month commitment based plan

3. Predictable Spikes – Application Pattern

These are long living public facing business (core) applications. Traffic attracted by such applications indicates popularity, transaction volume of your business. Customers visit such sites either for direct purchase of product or services or take part in surveys you launched or to track orders or log complaints about their orders and most importantly product enquiries or quotations. Such applications do not have liberty to perform slow, sluggish or keep users waiting for completing their intended operations. This will directly impact on your business and customer satisfaction index. These applications not only get accessed by end users browsing through the home page but also will be accessed by other means such as Search engines, analyst reports, blogs, Product reviews, Product comparison sites etc. These users are more important because they are the potential customers of yours and your site should have potential to satisfy them with performance for turning their opinions about your offerings, customer focus and IT enablement aspects.

One can monitor the traffic and predict spikes in such applications with greater degree of accuracy but spikes are normally very heavy and your normal infrastructure may not be sufficient to serve your business as normal. You need to be very aggressive in handling traffic spikes and provisioning required resources during that period. Most common approach enterprises consider for this by extra provisioning IT resources which remain underutilized except the peak period leaving behind high cost of ownership, underutilized resources wasting capital investment.

Scenario Analysis

In below given sample scenario, we are considering an internet facing web site which will be used for 36 months period. The users of the application are not known and not in fixed in number but with appropriate traffic monitoring and experience one may predict the load pattern. For deploying this application on on-premise environment, architect of this solution has suggested to have 3 web servers in load balanced manner and 1 database server. Because load on this can be predicted with some amount of accuracy, some resources consumption can be optimized but considering business dynamics one has to be ready for un-expected case so IT has to provision all four web servers for complete period of 36 months. IT may add or remove some Servers with great care as shown in below graph.

No of Web servers	3 ( 1 Web server added in 12th month because of predictive nature)
No of Database Servers	1
No of months	36 months

Graph shows IT has deployed 3 servers for initial 12 months, and later added one more server for rest of the 24 months. Since all four servers are procured for disaster scenarios; there is certainly loss of capital investment here.

Cost Analysis

With 3 On-premise Servers for initial 12 months and 4 servers for remaining 36 months, required cost is $49,536 which includes web servers and database server
With 4 Cloud Servers for all 36 months, required cost is $42,831 (If we use VM installed SQL Server) and $32,867 for use of SQL Cloud Database (SQL Azure). These rates are as per no-commitment Azure pricing plans. With Azure based hosting using Pay-AS-you-GO plan we are getting new saving of 14% and 34% respectively.
With 3 Cloud Servers for all 36 months using Azure Commitment pricing plan, we are saving 33% and 49% using SQL Server in VM and SQL cloud database usage respectively.
By leveraging Auto Scaling feature, you can save up to 58% and 66% for a given sample usage/traffic scenario.

Application with Predictable Spikes – TCO – Amortized over 36 months (3 Web Servers, 1 Database Server)*

*Please refer below assumptions section for understanding base for above calculations

**12-month commitment based plan

4. Unpredictable Spikes – Application Pattern

Again these are long living applications having unpredicted user base and their access patterns. Even if you monitor the resource utilization over a period you will not get an idea about the usage pattern leaving behind low prediction accuracy. These are also your core business applications but based on content or nature of business you do, user access pattern remains unpredictable. It has been also found that predictions does not turn true because of number of variable parameters involved in prediction are very high or the geography your business caters is very wide.

For e.g. You are a global manufacturer of some cosmetic products, such products are in demand based on population of country their ethnicity, weather conditions, sales and marketing efforts, your competitors presence, sudden goodwill by analyst reports or successful campaigns or offers which has high turnout rates. It is difficult to judge impact of all such variables on traffic ratio accurately as these variables are scoped globally.

IT has very important role to play in such scenarios, enterprise cannot keep on investing new resources to sustain every possible spike found high for current infrastructure. Such high capital investment cannot be justified in terms of their outcomes and utilization over a period. IT cannot use these resources for other business scenarios and take risk of losing users/customers. Such underutilized resources sometimes applies breaks in progress in new IT initiatives which can benefit business where organization does not see value because of lack of IT innovation in other areas where wastage is happening.

Scenario Analysis

In below given sample scenario, we are considering an internet facing web site which will be used for 36 months period. The users of the application are not known and not fixed in number so this site may undergo any number of spikes in un-controllable form. For deploying this application on on-premise environment, we have considered 3 web servers in load balanced manner with 1 Database server. Because load on this application may vary to greater extent, IT has to provision all four web servers for complete period of 36 months.

No of Web servers	3
No of Database Servers	1
No of months	36 months

Since average utilization of servers may remain low, this may result in wastage of resources in relative high in nature in this case because of unpredictable state of this application.

Windows Azure Cloud platform is ideal for such kind of applications providing complete elasticity and high scalability and availability.

Cost Analysis

With 4 On-premise Servers for all 36 months, required cost is $53,856 which includes web servers and database server
With 4 Cloud Servers for all 36 months, required cost is $42,831 (If we use VM installed SQL Server) and $32,867 for use of SQL Cloud Database (SQL Azure). These rates are as per no-commitment Azure pricing plans. With Azure based hosting using Pay-AS-you-GO plan we are saving net 20% and 39% cost respectively.
With 3 Cloud Servers for all 36 months using Azure Commitment pricing plan, we are saving 38% and 52% using SQL Server in VM and SQL cloud database usage respectively.
By leveraging Auto Scaling feature, you can save up to 62% and 71% for a given sample usage/traffic scenario.

Application with Unpredictable Spikes – TCO – Amortized over 36 months (3 Web Servers, 1 Database Server)*

*Please refer below assumptions section for understanding base for above calculations

**12-month commitment based plan

5. Rapid Growth – Application Pattern

This type of applications become popular day by day and continuously attracts traffic. Normally this happens with successful startups or with companies launching new innovative ideas. Although, we know that site is doing good we can’t predict what will be the rate of progress and anticipated resource requirements of it. Since it’s highly impossible to predict the traffic and resource need, you need a flexible resource model to provide consistent user experience. Long delays in procuring server(s) can hamper your business and you may start losing users. Aggressively provisioning resources in anticipation is also not suggested as it might prove bad capital investment.

Scenario Analysis

In below given sample scenario, we are considering an internet facing web site which will be used for 36 months period. The users of the application are not known but are continuously increasing; site may grow and become uncontrollable very quickly if resource requirements are not well coped with.

For deploying this application in on-premise environment, we have considered 4 web servers in load balanced manner with 1 Database server. Because load on this application will grow constantly but without knowing the actual rate, IT has to provision all 5 web servers for complete period of 36 months. Since there is some idea that not all four web servers will be needed for total period, IT has procured 3 web servers initially and 1 web server in 16^th month as shown in graph below.

No of Web servers	4 (3 Servers from day one, 1 added in 16^th Month)
No of Database Servers	1
No of months	36 months

Since we don’t know the rate of traffic increase, there is always risk of underutilized and over utilized servers if you procure in advance or be pessimistic and wait of the day. Windows Azure Cloud platform is ideal for such kind of applications providing complete elasticity and high scalability and availability.

Cost Analysis

With 3 On-premise Servers for initial 16 months and 4 servers till 36 months, required cost is $74,016 which includes web servers and database server
With 4 Cloud Servers for all 36 months, required cost is $43,587 (If we use VM installed SQL Server) and $33,623 for use of SQL Cloud Database (SQL Azure). These rates are as per no-commitment Azure pricing plans. With Azure based hosting using Pay-AS-you-GO plan we are saving net 41% and 55% cost respectively.
With 3 Cloud Servers for all 36 months using Azure Commitment pricing plan, we are saving 54% and 65% using SQL Server in VM and SQL cloud database usage respectively.
By leveraging Auto Scaling feature, you can save up to 71% and 77% for a given sample usage/traffic scenario.

Application with Rapid Growth – TCO – Amortized over 36 months (4 Web Servers, 1 Database Server)*

*Please refer below assumptions section for understanding base for above calculations

**12-month commitment based plan

Scenarios Summary – Cost Comparison

Assumptions for cost analysis

A . Assumptions – Azure Server

*Considered ‘Web’ Version of database for SQL Server Azure VM calculation
‘Predictable Load’ and ‘unpredictable Load’ Scenarios -10 GB of SQL Database considered
‘Time bound’ Scenario – 5 GB database size considered
VM size considered is – Large VM with 4 x 1.6 GHz CPU, 7 GB RAM, 300 GB storage)
Band width costing is not considered in either cases for keeping calculations simple

B. Assumptions – On-Premise Server

On-premise Costs for 1 Server amortized for a 3-year Period

Details

Resource Type	Details
On-Premise Server Hardware	Per month Expenses = $1519/36 months = $42
Network Hardware, Hardware Maintenance	Per month Expenses = 3695/36 = $102,Per Server contribution =102/4 Servers = $25.5,Load balancer – $10 per server
Power Cooling	$29/Month/Server(Cooling and electricity)
Data Center Space	$24/Month/Server
Personnel	$200/Month/Server (50:1 Server-to-People ratio),cumulatively all people involved(Admin, DBA, Network Admin,Security) to cost $120,000/annum
System Software – Windows Server 2012	$882 i.e. $25/Month
Database Management Software- SQL Server2012 Standard Edition	$2000 i.e. $56/Month
Virtualization software	Not Considered to keep calculations simple
Band with(Inbound/outbound)	Not Considered to keep calculations simple

On-Premise Server and Network Hardware configuration

(Equivalent to Windows Azure – Large VM instance – Large VM 4 x 1.6GHz CPU, 7GB RAM, 3,00GB Storage)

Costing by Dell as As of Date & Time: February 18, 2013 4:53 AM CST

Dell PowerEdge R310

Standard Price $2027.00

Discounts -$508.00

Sub Total 1519.00

Dell Edge Rack 1920W UPS

Dell UPS, Rack, 1920W, 2U, 120V, with 5-20P to C19, 3m input cord

Standard Price $1218.00

PowerConnect 6200 Series

PowerConnect 6224, 24 GbE Ports, Managed Switch, 10GbE and Stacking Capable

Standard Price $3128.00

Stacking Module $299.00

Discounts -$950.00

Sub Total $2477.00

SYSTEM COMPONENTS

PowerEdge R320	Quantity	Unit Price
PowerEdge R320	1	$2,027.00
Special offer – Save 25% on select PowerEdge R320 servers through Dell Small Business!		– $508.02
Catalog Number: 4 BECT133

Module	Description	Product Code	Sku	Id
PowerEdge R320	PowerEdge R320	R320	[225-2955][938-3184][939-6767]	1
Hardware SupportServices	3Yr Basic Hardware WarrantyRepair: 5×10 HW-Only, 5x10NBD Onsite	U3OS	[939-6857][939-6947][994-4019][995-8451]	29
ProactiveMaintenance	No Installation	NOINSTL	[900-9997]	32
Shipping	PowerEdge R320 Shipping	SHIP	[331-6952]	1500
Add-in NetworkAdapter	On-Board Dual GigabitNetwork Adapter	OBNIC	[430-4715]	1514
EmbeddedSystemsManagement	Basic Management	BMC	[331-3482]	1515
ChassisConfiguration	3.5″ Chassis with up to 4Cabled Hard Drives andEmbedded SATA	4CBSATA	[318-2037][331-6958]	1530
Bezel	No Bezel	NOBEZEL	[313-0869]	1532
RAIDConfiguration	No RAID with EmbeddedSATA (1-4 SATA HDD) withCabled Chassis	NRS110C	[331-6986]	1540
RAID Controller	Embedded SATA	NCTRLR	[341-3933]	1541
Processor	Intel® Xeon® E5-24072.20GHz, 10M Cache, 6.4GT/s QPI, No Turbo, 4C,80W, Max Mem 1066MHz	E52407	[317-9802][317-9826]	1550
Memory Capacity	(2) 4GB UDIMM, 1333 MT/s,Low Volt, Dual Rank, x8 DataWidth	4U3LDR	[317-6881][317-6881]	1560
Memory DIMMType and Speed	1333 MHz UDIMMs	1333UD	[331-4423]	1561
MemoryConfigurationType	Performance Optimized	PEOPT	[331-4428]	1562
Hard Drives	1TB 7.2K RPM SATA 3Gbps3.5in Cabled Hard Drive	1TS35C	[341-9211]	1570
SystemDocumentation	Electronic SystemDocumentation andOpenManage DVD Kit forR320	EDOCS	[331-6962]	1590
Internal OpticalDrive	DVD+/-RW, SATA, Internal for4HD Chassis	DVDRW12	[313-9091]	1600
Rack Rails	ReadyRails™ Static Rails for2/4-post Racks	STATIC	[331-4764]	1610
Power Supply	Single, Cabled Power Supply,350W	SCPS350	[331-7025]	1620
Power Cords	NEMA 5-15P to C13 WallPlug, 125 Volt, 15 AMP, 10Feet (3m), Power Cord	125V10F	[310-8509]	1621
ServerAccessories	8x DVD-ROM, USB, External	8DRUSB	[313-9094]	1630
Operating System	No Operating System	NOOS	[420-6320]	1650
OS Media Kits	No Operating System MediaKit	NOSDOC	[420-1908]	1652

Dell PowerEdge 1920W Rack UPS	Quantity	Unit Price
Dell UPS, Rack, 1920W, 2U, 120V,with 5-20P to C19, 3minput cord	1	$1,218.00
Catalog Number: 4 BECTU219R

–

Module	Description	Product Code	Sku	Id
Dell PowerEdge1920W Rack UPS	Dell UPS, Rack, 1920W, 2U,120V,with 5-20P to C19, 3minput cord	150WLR	[225-2386]	1
Hardware SupportServices	3Yr Basic Hardware WarrantyRepair: 5×10 HW-Only, 5x10NBD Onsite	U3OS	[935-2197][938-8378][995-3092][996-4610]	29
InstallationServices	Onsite Installations Declined	NOINSTL	[900-9997]	32
NetworkManagement	Dell UPS NetworkManagement Card	UNTWM	[430-4100]	1230

–

PowerConnect 6224	Quantity	Unit Price
PowerConnect 6224, 24 GbE Ports, Managed Switch,10GbE and Stacking Capable	1	$3,128.00
Special offer – Save $950 on select PowerConnect 6224 switches through Dell Small Business.		– $950.00
Catalog Number: 4 BCCWRK1_CC

–

Module	Description	Product Code	Sku	Id
PowerConnect6224	PowerConnect 6224, 24 GbEPorts, Managed Switch, 10GbEand Stacking Capable	PC6224	[222-6710]	1
HardwareSupportServices	Switch includes LifetimeWarranty repair. Choose DellProSupport™ for advancedtechnical support.	PD	[934-7080][981-0890][985-5977]	29
InstallationServices	ONSITE INSTALLATION: PowerConnect Hardware InstallationOnly	UMOUNT	[989-6197]	32
SFP+ Optics andCables	PowerConnect SFP+ DirectAttach Cable (Twinax) 3m	SFPTD3	[330-6566]	1217

–

Stacking Module, 48Gbps, Includes 1m StackingCable	Qty	Unit Price
Dell Part# 320-5171 Manufacturer Part# K0644Dell Part# 320-5171	1	$299.99
Catalog Number: 4 BCCWRK1_CC

Friends! I hope this analysis will help you understand the Cloud Usage scenarios, different Web Application patterns and associated cost savings as compared to on-premise deployment.
Please let me know if you are interested in knowing further details of above calculations. Just express your will by putting ‘Comment’ against this article, I will share every bit of information with you.

Happy reading 🙂
Regards,
Laxmikant Patil

Posted in Windows Azure. Tags: application patterns, Application scenarios, Cloud Cost effectiveness, Cloud costing, Cloud hosting, cloud TCO, on-premise hosting, TCO, Total Cost of ownership, Windows Azure, Windows Azure Costing, Windows Azure TCO. 2 Comments »

Business Agility and Windows Azure Cloud Platform

July 31, 2013 — Laxmikant Patil

IT contribution to Business agility using Cloud Technology

This white paper describes what is business agility, how it can be improved using IT Agility and role of Cloud computing on IT and business agility. “Agility typically refers to the ability of an organization to rapidly adapt to market and environmental changes in productive and cost-effective ways and meet customer demands by adjusting to the changes in a business environment by taking advantage of available resources”. Here, the word “resources” carries significant importance as it indicates what can change the entire game in organizations operations. Agility and competitiveness goes hand in hand and is key factor in success of any business. As an Organization, who does not believe in agility is supposed to be leaping towards the obsoleteness and will be out of business in no time. Consider below 6 attributes which majorly influence the business agility in typical case.

An Organization can acquire agility by institutionalizing above 6 pillars in every possible business function of it. And IT is considered as one of the most important strategic business function of modern industry. IT becoming agile adds higher percentage of agility to overall organization. In this paper we will try to understand how IT agility impacts business agility. We will discuss this in the context of Microsoft Windows Azure Cloud computing as a platform to make your IT more agile, cost effective, efficient and flexible.

Agility attributes

Focus on Time to value:

There is an almost obsessive focus on getting new products/services/features to market as soon as possible. This enables a shorter feedback cycle and, equally importantly, a quicker timeframe to earn a return on the investment made. One can influence the market and competitor with this attribute.

IT Response using Windows Azure Cloud Platform

Provision IT resources (Processing power, storage, bandwidth, databases, O.S etc.) in minutes. No procurement review/approval cycles, negotiations, shipping delays, escalations. Windows Azure provides resources as quickly as you can imagine. Hit the market with your innovative ideas/ products in least possible time.
Tools and frameworks support to rapid application development shortening time to market. Windows Azure platform provides all the tooling and frameworks for your team to help build applications quickly.
Respond to your customers/needs immediately with added capacity, Windows Azure powers you with scalability and elasticity to allocate resources on the fly automatically as much you need any time. You can double or multiply the data/application load capacity in automatically.
Achieve quicker, faster and secure integrations with customers, partners, and vendors. Windows azure platform provides secure way to connect on-premise applications for data exchange with best in class security standards.
Expand your business around the globe. IT will follow you everywhere in no time. Windows Azure has data centers around the world providing lowest latency by deploying applications near to customer locations.
Gather data intelligence and analytics for taking brave decisions quickly, enable your application with cloud based reporting, Big data options to provide business predictions
Collaborate with stakeholders, provide right information at right place for right people using SharePoint Online or with any Content management and collaboration software

Innovation:

Always look for better way of doing things using latest and better technologies. This is considered as the most significant attribute and can impact to larger extent on enterprise’s success.

IT Response using Windows Azure Cloud Platform

Cloud technology is the future, early adopters will benefit from it, all the innovations impacting business and IT will happen on this platform, future proof your business with this technology before your competitor does.

Flexibility: Flexible processes and options

This is where a lot of businesses (particularly larger enterprises) find it very difficult to move quickly to exploit new opportunities. The more each business process is intertwined (coupled) with others, the harder it is to implement change quickly.

IT Response using Windows Azure Cloud Platform

One of the reasons Cloud technology exists today is to provide required flexibility to business which was difficult to achieve earlier. Windows Azure platform provides numerous features and resources and each resource is available for use on Pay per use model. No capital expenditure is needed. No commitment to use resources is needed. Businesses can leverage Cloud resources on clock hourly basis and release them any time when no required. This flexibility will bridge the gap in large and small businesses where large business use to rely on their IT capacity to beat the small business competitors.

Low Latency: Faster decision making

The quicker a decision can be acted upon, the sooner the business knows whether the decision was right and what else needs to be done to achieve the underlying goal.

IT Response using Windows Azure Cloud Platform

Once you sign up for Cloud, you will not face any challenges in procurement of resources like we do in on-premise case. No need to worry about Operating system software’s, Database software licenses, Server hardware, Network hardware, storage devices, load balancing mechanisms, back up mechanisms, disaster recovery mechanisms, failover sites, antivirus software’s, hardware support contracts, trainings, SLAs, WAN optimizations, routers, switches, power UPS, cooling, storage space, Blade/Rack Servers and what not. Cloud eliminates the decision making and waiting time delays.

Economic efficiency: Cost effective processes and resource leverage

A lazy, bureaucratic organization will protect its turf at the cost of progress and innovation. Lean operations that minimize waste have the added incentive of promoting new and innovative ways of doing things, and being able to implement them quickly.

IT Response using Windows Azure Cloud Platform

No upfront capital investment in any hardware, software’s, licenses allows you to try more business ideas with the market and fine tune your idea in response. This not only saves capital expenditure but also provides economic value in terms of Pay as you use model.
Reduce overall Total cost of ownership by eliminating CapEx and controlling OpeEx smartly.
If you don’t want 5 servers out of 7 in the night time, just remove them instantly and save money
With the help of Windows Azure platform support, Man to server maintenance ratio will increase allowing IT admin to manage, monitor more Cloud deployed Servers saving time which otherwise can be spend on innovative ideas which can benefit customers and prove to be differentiator in the market
If you are sure that you need certain resources for at least 6 months, you can opt commitment based plan and gain discounts up to 20%

Rapid Adaptation

This component really refers to the mindset of continual monitoring of, and adaptation to, changing market conditions. It is the ultimate feedback mechanism that ensures the product/service offering is continually refined to best meet the needs/constraints of customers, suppliers and partners.

IT Response using Windows Azure Cloud Platform

With an advent of cloud computing technology, you save lot of time in procurement, IT resource management, training, managing peak loads, licensing policies, support contracts etc. This allows you to focus more on your customer needs and studying market trends. This study will empower you to add more value in your business and correcting, fine tuning ideas, processes and methodologies regularly.
Once you are sign up for Windows Azure platform, all the inventions happening in the platform will follow your way which will help you further optimizing resources, adding more features to your applications and get feedback on it from customers to fine tune your offerings.

Business Requirements and solutions

Company Profile for the Case study:

Dream medico equipment’s is public limited company having 2000 employees with annual revenue of $600 million. Company primarily manufactures innovative medical devices for customers around the globe which are majorly hospitals, pathologies spanning public, private and military sectors. Company has captured good market in America, Europe and Asia and is also planning to develop low cost medical devices/Products for personal use at home. Company has got many market competitors selling products at aggressive rates and providing good quality support services. As of now, IT department which manages all the application ecosystem on-premises including core JD Edwards ERP product. Through its lifespan company tries to solve above mentioned problems to be more agile and competitive. Let us see how IT agility will help company in achieving certain goals.

Revenue Growth

Problem statement: Dream medico equipment’s has been reviewing its revenue growth since last two quarters and it was found that it is satisfactory. However, company management thinks that if they focus more on possible growth areas they can increase revenues further.

Company higher management decides to be little aggressive in introducing new products in the market which was supposed to be launched one quarter later under personal use product category.

Company wants to prelaunch few innovative products with attractive price portfolio and sees how market responds to it. Company wants to book good amount of business during pre-launch offer and collect feedback about the sample products and Product specifications in accordance with prices quoted. Also customer, partners and vendors may provide feedback in terms of few new features they want to see in the products or entirely few new product ideas may take birth.

Dream medico equipment’s CEO calls for a meeting with other executives to decide on feasibility to conduct prelaunch event in months’ time and seek if one month is sufficient for the preparation. CEO explains significance of this prelaunch offer for forthcoming projects in terms of below benefits –

Business Benefits

Booking a business in advance
Market capture ahead of competitors
Brand establishment
Seek customer feedback on products and go back to Product design team and incorporate wherever applicable
Reduce risk of mass producing products if certain products are not well received
Look for big orders by health care institutions and care homes

Sales Head explain about the possible sales channels for Product promotion and accepting prelaunch orders. He wants to open up multiple sales channels to promote the product.

Business head explains which products to be launched with which features. Since this event will be driven and owned by business. Business head has determined some budget for it, when he discloses the budget and the date for the event which is just one month away. Other executives are not happy with available time, required preparations and budget which is they feel is very constrained.

Business head reiterates the significance of this event and also explains why there is definite budget available, he explains – “Since this event can empower our revenue growth, event has significance in time which cannot be postponed. Since this is just a onetime event and not an ongoing activity there cannot be more budget available for this. Also if products are not received well by customer, all these expenses will become waste and also it may impact on company brand in the market, so management doesn’t want to spend very big numbers for this event.”

Business Risks

Available time – The entire event may fail if preparations are not completed well in time. This included efforts by teams like marketing, sales, IT and Products team.
User experience – New product site may have performance issues because of unpredictable number of customers, partners, and analysts can visit from around the world. As site will be visited, videos will be downloaded, product documents will be downloaded, adverts will be played, orders will be accepted, and payment transactions will be done.

As usual, IT head was under pressure to provide the required support for this business initiative. After further discussions with business, marketing and sales team, it was decided to build below systems for specific purposes.

Web Sales Channel – Major sales channel will be a new web site where all pre-launch products will be listed along with prices, estimated arrival time, features and specifications, videos, adverts. Customers can visit the site, review products and put comments /feedback against it. If they like a product they can place an order. This site should be separate from existing company product web site. However, there should be feature in existing and new site to allow users move back and forth.
Second sales channel will be a tablet application for sales team who will be in the field in various hospitals and health care institutes. Sales team will be demoing products and showing videos, adverts on the tablet along with accepting orders through tablet application.
Business team needs a light weight reporting tool for understanding business realization of this event. This reporting application will not be needed after this event unless another product launch in future.
Company wants to add new products into their existing distributor’s portal so that they can place orders for new products. Business estimates that there will be large traffic attracted by this portal because of distributors accessing it concurrently. IT needs to take care of appropriate performance needs during peak time.

Major challenges in front of IT manager are –

1. Development of –

New web site for web sales channel in short period of time
Tablet application for sales team
Reporting website

2. Manage high traffic demands on all of above sites

3. Provision hardware, network and software resources in available time and available budget

4. Delays in procurement of resources(hardware, software)

5. Keeping total cost of ownership low, avoid upfront investment as resources are not needed for ever

6. Look for some innovative way of achieving all these challenges to serve such requests in future

During this analysis, IT head and Manager decides to take a next step and concludes to select Microsoft Windows Azure Cloud Platform as a future platform not investing any more in on-premise data center.

Cost Reduction

The first challenge of budget limitation is addressed by choosing Windows Azure platform.

No upfront cost investment in software’s, hardware, licenses, failover sites, storage disks, bandwidth, Racks/blades, load balancers etc.
Company need to pay as per your usage only
Cost can be controlled at hourly unit basis
Stop paying for resources released back to platform
Company can also save from other costs involved in on-premise deployments like electricity power, cooling, Space
Human resource time saving which is usually required to monitor, manage and maintain the servers
Better human-to-server maintenance-ratio for managing cloud deployed servers saving administrators savings
Time saving in Procurement, decision making, reviews and approvals
Time saving in maintaining Server O.S and database licenses, service packs/patches, license expiries, hardware compatibility, CALS etc.

Manage Business in Peak Period

Major challenge in managing business in this period was lack of information on potential load or unpredictable nature of traffic spike. Team needed really dynamic scalable solution to auto adjust the server resources per actual traffic need.

Azure Platform inherently supports scalability and elasticity in cost effective manner. Team implemented auto scaling solution to increase number of servers as load increased and decrease number of servers during low traffic time. All this process can be done automatically without manual intervention.

Company could reduce lead time completely by providing adequate number of resources required for the event resulting in best user experience and successful sales trial.

Response to Risk

With the help of Windows Azure technology, IT department could deal with Business and IT risks in below way-

Using Windows Azure platform support, tools and frameworks, websites were developed in rapid way. Company opted for cloud enabled ‘NopCommerce’ open source framework to quickly develop the new web site. This framework has features already available required for this website.
Since ‘NopCommerce’ framework like other numerous products is pre-integrated into the Azure platform. This allowed development team to quickly develop the websites and test it by deploying it in Azure staging environment.
For storing video, audio, images, product specifications document, team used Windows Azure Blob storage services. This is very cost effective and efficient option.
For managing another risk of user experience under such a high load condition was managed by –
- Better video and audio streaming Video/audio content is stored in ‘Block blob’
- Since Site was supposed to be used across the globe, team used Azure Content distribution Network (CDN) for distributing and caching content among various Azure nodes for best performance.
- Using Azure ‘Auto scaling’ feature, sites could be dynamically scaled out to required number of servers to server the traffic

Thus, IT agility could help manage business risk effectively.

Low Cost Reporting Solution

Development of reporting site was done with least amount time by developing few reports using SQL Server Reporting services feature. Team needed web server to deploy the reports on-premises, which was time consuming process to get. Team used SQL Azure Reporting services for report deployment which is charged per number of reports, which also eliminated the need of buying SQL Server license. After the event, reports will be removed from the SQL Azure Reporting service server stopping getting charged further.

Sales team Mobility

For Tablet application development, Windows Azure Mobile Services proved to be accelerator where team just designed a database and platform automatically creates required template web services and sample client mobile application specific to platform such as windows Phone, IPad/IPhone etc. Team could save considerable time in development and testing phase, Team did not experience any environment differences (Production/Staging) and effort wastage cause of it. Team could gain required scalability in no time when needed.

Sales – Distributor Connect

Anticipating high load on Sales-Distributor portal, entire portal was moved to Azure platform. Team used IaaS feature of platform by provisioning Windows Server 2008 R2 Virtual machine and another virtual machine with SQL Server 2008 R2. Since this portal was built for scalability, team could scale this portal on multiple web servers in load balanced manner which is implicitly available in Azure platform. Team need not bought O.S or SQL Server licenses for this migration which is already considered by the platform in per hour pricing.

Friends ! I hope this helps 🙂
Laxmikant Patil

Posted in Windows Azure. Tags: Business Agility and Cloud, cloud agility, Cloud and agility, Cloud computing and agility, cost effective cloud, IT agility, IT Business agility, Windows Azure, Windows Azure Agility. 4 Comments »

Windows Azure Technology Partner Selection Guide – white paper

July 30, 2013 — Laxmikant Patil

Dear All,

I super happy to communicate you that one of my white paper has survived three company acquisitions, every time a company was acquired I use to think, they may drop my work from their corporate site, but my work is still adopted and carried on by 3 companies –

Company 1 – SYSTIME Global Solutions

When Microsft Azure platform was just launched and I wrote this paper and was initially published on SYSTIME’s corporate website which is no longer available today, that time marketing team also published at other location such as

https://www3.technologyevaluation.com/research/white-paper/windows-azure-cloud-computing-platform-technology-partner-selection-guide.html

Company 2 – KPIT Technologies

When SYSTIME was taken over by KPIT, they converted my paper in their own format and published on their website and also on the below location. Since KPIT is not taken over by Birlasoft, their corporate website is down but you can see it at below location –

Company 3 – Birlasoft

Now, Birlasoft’s corporate website is hosting the same site in new format –

Please have a look at same paper in a new theme, colors, and logo –

Click to access windows-azure-partner-selection-guide.pdf

I no longer work with any of these companies and have moved on working with 3 more companies, but it is so nice to go back and see if our work is still valued.

Enjoy reading it !! 🙂

Thanks

Posted in Windows Azure. Tags: cloud computing, Cloud integration, Cloud synchronization, IaaS, KPIT, Microsoft, private cloud, technology partner, Windows, Windows Azure, Windows Azure Partner. 1 Comment »

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