The document discusses how ChronoRace, a company that provides timing services for sports events, migrated their infrastructure to Windows Azure to handle unpredictable traffic bursts during large events. Key points covered include identifying pitfalls of their current on-premise solution, migrating their website and database to Azure, implementing auto-scaling to dynamically scale resources during events, and testing the Azure-based solution at an upcoming large event. The migration overall was successful in addressing ChronoRace's needs, though one component requiring registry access could not be migrated and remains on-premise.

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

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

5. Agenda Cloud computing? Windows Azure? The ChronoRace case ChronoRace? Infrastructure The project Resources Q&A

6. What’s in the cloud? Cloud Computing

7. Cloud computing On-demand self service Standardized access Location independant resource pooling Rapid elasticity Pay per use

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

9. What’s in the cloud? Windows Azure

10. The Windows Azure Platform Windows Azure SQL Azure Windows Azure platform AppFabric Microsoft Codename “Dallas” Microsoft Codename “Sydney”

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

12. Windows Azure

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

14. SQL Azure Relational database as a service Highly available, automatically maintained Extension of the SQL Server Data Platform Reporting Data Sync Business Analytics Database

15. Windows Azure AppFabric Secure connections between services Across organizational boundaries Claims-based access control ServiceBus AccessControl

16. Service Bus Overview

17. Microsoft Codename “Dallas” Content brokerage and discovery platform Available as a CTP Microsoft Codename “Dallas”Information Services

18. Microsoft Codename “Sydney” - Connectivity WINDOWS AZURE PLATFORM ENTERPRISE Data Service Service Bus Access Control Service Code Name “Project Sydney”

19. North America Region Asia Pacific Region Europe Region N. Europe Sub-region N. Central – US Sub-region E. Asia Sub-region W. Europe Sub-region S. Central - US Sub-region S.E. Asia Sub-region

24. What’s in the cloud? Running in the Cloud The ChronoRace case

25. ChronoRace

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

27. What’s in the cloud? Infrastructure The ChronoRace case

28. Current infrastructure

29. Google Analytics from Antwerp 10 Miles 2010

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

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

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

35. Over provisioned capacity is wasted

36. Time to market can be cumbersome

37. Successful services needs to grow/scale

38. Keeping up w/ growth is big IT challenge

40. Sudden spike impacts performance

41. Can’t over provision for extreme cases

42. Services with micro seasonality trends

43. Peaks due to periodic increased demand

44. IT complexity and wasted capacity Workloadpatternsoptimalforcloud

45. What’s in the cloud? The Project The ChronoRace case

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

47. Step 1: Identify the possible use case for cloud Obviously: peaks, mostly predicted

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

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

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

52. Database Current database size: around 2,5 GB Squeeze stuff into 1 GB? Data retention Restructure database?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

67. Pricing – Current pricing Server lease for 2 servers Including 10 Mbps bandwidth +/- 450 EUR / month

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

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

70. Pricing – Windows Azure Estimated worst-case scenario would cost: Current setup: 450 EUR / month Windows Azure worst-case: 590 EUR / month

71. What’s in the cloud? Summary The ChronoRace case

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

73. Resources Where do I find more info?

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

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

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

77. Maarten Balliauwhttp://blog.maartenballiauw.be http://twitter.com/maartenballiauw THANK YOU!