Scenarios for using Windows Azure platform services for your solutions. Data storage and processing

Aplana’s company has prepared an extensive review of usage scenarios for Windows Azure platform services. We are pleased to share with you this interesting document, which will be useful for any individual developers and companies involved in creating applications and considering the Windows Azure cloud as a platform for their solutions. This manual consists of three parts, in the first part you will learn about data storage and processing scenarios.
UPD: The second part of the article

Many companies are already familiar with the concept of cloud computing - an approach to the organization of computing with high scalability, fault tolerance and reliability and providing resources on request with the possibility of payment upon their use. Among the three key options for the implementation of the "cloud" - private, public and hybrid is difficult to name some of the most preferred option - companies usually choose a hybrid option that allows the most efficient use of both the local infrastructure and the services provided by the "cloud".

Private cloud is an implementation of cloud services on resources fully allocated to the customer, either in the local infrastructure or remotely. The resource pool is supported, their dynamic allocation for all divisions of the company. The private cloud provides control and configuration of allocated resources.
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The public cloud allows customers to deploy and consume application services running on shared, multi-tenant resources. The highly scalable service platform supports the pay-as-you-go model and is located in the service provider's data center.

A hybrid cloud is a combination of the key capabilities of a private and public cloud.

Windows Azure Platform

Microsoft provides technology for all cloud options. The tools for creating private clouds are based on the Windows Server server operating system and System Center infrastructure management tools; Microsoft offers the Windows Azure platform as a public cloud.

The Windows Azure Platform is a highly scalable, fault-tolerant Microsoft cloud platform for creating and hosting applications and data and providing them as services.

Speaking of the public cloud, it should be noted that usually within the cloud platform provides one or more types of services - infrastructure services (also called “infrastructure as a service”, IaaS), platform services (also called “platform as a service”, PaaS) and application services (also called “apps as a service,” SaaS).

In the case of using infrastructure services, organizations rent a hardware platform, including servers, storage, and network infrastructure. In the case of using platform services, the provider represents a platform and a set of software interfaces on the basis of which various software solutions are created. In the case of the use of application services, applications are delivered and consumed through a web interface.

Windows Azure platform services provide a large number of components and functional blocks from which scenarios and solutions can be implemented that are of interest to corporate customers.

Business Challenges and IT Challenges

Quite often, you have to face the problem when the capabilities of cloud platforms are discussed in isolation from the discussion of the challenges facing the business. At the same time, often tasks that seem at first glance "purely IT tasks" are, first of all, business tasks, they are simply formulated in another language. Understanding how “pure IT tasks” can solve business problems is a key factor in the success of launching, implementing and implementing cloud projects. Let's look at a simple example. The following is a list of typical business tasks as well as typical IT tasks.

Business objectives	IT challenges
Improving business processes Cost reduction Attraction of new clients Increase productivity Increased use of data, information, analytics	Using Virtualization Cloud computing implementation Mobile access Network, communication, collaboration Implementing Business Intelligence

A careful analysis of the two lists above allows us to conclude ...

Let's see how some typical business tasks can be solved with the help of services implemented on the basis of a public cloud.

Ensuring effective work	Reduced storage costs Disaster recovery Increased availability and resiliency Storage and processing of large data
Collaboration	Secure File Storage
The expansion of the customer base	Mobile access to resources
Maintain loyalty	Increase website resiliency
Quick start of projects	Data collection and processing Marketing programs

It should be noted that when implementing solutions based on the cloud platform, companies are beginning to have an opportunity to extract profits (monetization) of data and services, and, in some cases, there may be a smooth transition to the SaaS model - i.e. Additional income from the provision of a number of services, both to partners, customers and end users - for more details, see the “ Monetization of data and services ” section.

Below we will get acquainted with a number of solutions implemented on the basis of functional blocks that are part of the Windows Azure platform services. The solutions described are distinguished by relative ease of implementation and are designed to solve various business problems facing companies. All the solutions described can be customized to the needs of customers.

Basic solutions on the Windows Azure platform

Aplana offers the following solutions based on the Microsoft Windows Azure cloud platform:

• Secure File Storage
• Data collection and processing
• Storage and processing of large amounts of data
• Reduced storage costs
• Increase website resiliency
• Backup for websites
• Mobile access to company resources
  
  • Mobile Application Access
  • Mobile data access
  • Mobile access to web resources

The solutions listed are distinguished by relative ease of implementation and are designed to solve business problems facing companies.

Secure File Storage

Many companies are looking for inexpensive, practical solutions that allow the implementation of "cloud" file storage with the ability to control access to individual files for groups and individual users. At the same time, users can be as employees of an organization working within an existing infrastructure, employees who need access to file storage from various mobile devices, partners of companies, end users, etc.

The use of existing “cloud” file storages is not always possible - in the scenario described above, different users or groups of users are in different, from the point of view of providing secure access “infrastructures”, and use different authentication mechanisms. For example, company employees can use Windows Active Directory-level authentication, while partners and end users can use other authentication systems that are external to the company’s system.

The advantages of the proposed solution:

• Ability to customize to customer needs
• Hosting solutions in your own Windows Azure account - simplified payment management, cost transparency
• Payment only for the functions that the customer really needs
• The ability to store files of almost unlimited size - up to 100 TB

Among the possible extensions of the above solution for creating a "cloud" file storage, we note the following:

• Automatic file conversion
  
  • Such functionality can be implemented for files in Microsoft Office format for converting them, for example, to PDF format, for converting files in Microsoft Office format of “previous” versions into files in Open XML format, and also for converting files to other most common formats - HTML, XML, etc.
• Full text search
  
  • If the “cloud” file storage (or part of it) is used to store files in the Microsoft Office format, an indexing and full-text search function for such documents can be implemented.

Example
The state authority needed a simple but flexible solution that allowed state officials equipped with tablets based on the Windows 8 operating system to have mobile access to the documents necessary for their daily work. Aplana’s specialists have proposed a solution based on a reliable, scalable and fault-tolerant “cloud” storage of Windows Azure Storage, which allows not only accessing documents via open communication channels, but also realizing user access to documents by using Windows Azure Active Directory.

This decision allowed to increase the productivity of civil servants, to ensure their mobility and timeliness of decision-making.

Example
The representative office of a large Western company was looking for a solution that allows for the exchange of large volume files, both between employees of the company and its partners. The solution proposed by Aplana uses a scalable, fault-tolerant and reliable storage of Windows Azure Storage, which acts as a file system in the cloud, and access control and role-based model for file management is based on Windows Azure Active Directory. Also, the storage allows you to share files of almost unlimited volume, provides automatic deletion of files according to a predetermined schedule, when new or updated versions of files appear, users receive e-mail notifications.

This solution provided company employees with an easy-to-use tool that significantly reduced the time required to provide access to data.

Data collection and processing

This scenario allows you to solve a problem that is often found in companies that work both with clients and partners and / or have a large number of employees in the staff who spend most of their time working outside the office. Another option in which this scenario may be relevant is when the company has the task of collecting and processing data from any devices.

Here are some examples of the applicability of this scenario:

• Employee survey
• Opinion poll
• Population census
• Filling out standard forms for banks, insurance companies
• Collecting readings from the counters

The advantages of implementing this scenario on a cloud platform are as follows:

• Inbound traffic is free.
• Reliable and fault-tolerant storage is relatively expensive, data in the "cloud" can be stored indefinitely
• Data processing does not require a large number of resources
• The cost of outgoing traffic when uploading data to a local repository or DBMS will be minimal, since the volume of processed data will be significantly less than the amount of incoming data.

Data collection and processing

Example
As part of the modernization of the internal infrastructure of one of the largest Russian airlines, it was necessary to create a solution that allows receiving, processing and saving data on the status of flights in real time. During the implementation of this project, Aplana's specialists implemented a secure VPN connection to the airline’s infrastructure, provided the necessary data and their processing, created a “cloud” storage based on Windows Azure SQL DB and implemented a set of software interfaces (APIs) providing access to data from the company's applications and services.

This reliable, scalable and fault-tolerant solution allowed us to provide information on the status of flights operated to consumers both inside and outside the company.

Storage and processing of large amounts of data

The solution for storing and processing large amounts of data allows you to implement the task related to the category of big data. For example, in the case of storing and processing customer data for a bank to identify trends, the sources of such data may be:

• Internal data
  
  • CRM, loyalty programs, profiles, purchase history, contacting customer support, etc.
• External data
  
  • Geography, demographic data, etc.
• Data from devices
  
  • Telemetry, GPS, NFC, ATMs
• Data from social networks
  
  • Ratings and reviews, forums, questions / answers, Facebook, Twitter, foursquare, Pinterest, LinkedIn, etc.

The task of collecting and post-processing such data may require a large number of both computing resources and resources for storing input and processed data - in this case, the “cloud” platform provides everything necessary for the rapid implementation of such a scenario. After the data have been collected and processed, they can be transferred to an analytical system for their display, analysis and other actions.

Storage and processing of large amounts of data

Example
A large western telecom operator needed a solution with the help of which tens and hundreds of millions of log files could be analyzed to find various information. Before processing the log files were cleared of any personal information. One example of such an analysis is the collection of data on the use of transport - private or public, allowing relevant services to have a detailed picture of the movement of people and, accordingly, regulate the operation of transport during peak hours.

The Aplana solution allows processing huge data arrays by optimizing the execution of processing algorithms that use the maximum number of computational resources of the virtual machine — parallel execution of calculations, storage of the processed data in memory, etc. Due to this, it is possible to significantly reduce the amount of data processed and ready for further analysis. The analysis implemented on the Microsoft SQL Server platform allows not only to obtain data in the required format, but also to present it on maps for more visual visualization.

Reduced storage costs

In this scenario, we use Windows Azure Storage to reduce the cost of data storage. Current expenses may include the creation and maintenance of file storage, which requires the creation of backup copies and ensuring its reliability, availability, and fault tolerance. For obvious reasons, cloud storage should be scalable, reliable, high-available and secure.

Note that documents, files, graphics, etc. are often stored in a relational database. This leads to the fact that the relational storage becomes more expensive to maintain, requires more resources to create backup copies, increases the time required to create backup copies and the subsequent restoration of data.

When choosing this scenario, you should pay attention to the following:

• You may need to make changes to applications that work with databases that have been optimized for reducing storage costs.
• The speed of data transfer to the "cloud" storage
• The cost of receiving data from the "cloud" storage - the cost of outgoing traffic,
• Data transfer rate from the "cloud" storage

Reduced storage costs

Example
The Russian representative office of a large foreign company specializing in the provision of information on medicines for specialists and end-users, required the modernization of the existing infrastructure. During the project, Aplana's specialists performed data transfer from the Microsoft SQL Server database server to the “cloud” - to the Azure SQL DB platform, ensured the reliability and fault tolerance of the storage, and also implemented a set of scalable software interfaces that allow obtaining information on drugs and create various solutions based on them.

About Aplana

The company “Aplana” specializes in the development, testing and maintenance of software created in accordance with the specific requirements of customers and provides services for the implementation and integration of applications for corporate clients in the Russian and foreign markets. Aplana is a member of the IT Group of Companies and has offices in Russia, the USA and the UK.

Aplana is the official partner of Microsoft and has a number of Microsoft Partner Awards in the field of software development ... in 2013, Aplana received the Partner of the Year award in nominations ...

Aplana was the first Russian company to become a member of Azure Circle, a program that brings together Microsoft's leading partners who perform a full range of work on creating applications on the Windows Azure platform for corporate clients. Participation in this program allows Aplana to expand the range of services provided, raise the technical level and quality of implemented projects, and also provides the ability to attract Microsoft resources when searching for solutions to emerging issues and offering optimized design solutions.

The company employs developers who have passed the Designing and Developing Windows Azure Applications exam, confirming their qualifications in the field of Microsoft platform and cloud technologies. In addition, Aplana has implemented a number of successful projects for Russian and foreign customers, including the Telegraph Media Group, UBM Medica, Sheremetyevo Airport and a number of other companies.

Continued in the next article ...