Persistent Systems provides software development services that help enterprises and public sector customers enhance their offerings. One of the company’s primary offerings is an e-government solution that helps governments and agencies deliver services and interact with constituents electronically. Persistent Systems needed a way to deliver its solution without requiring local governments to invest in new IT infrastructure and personnel. The company used the Windows Azure™ platform to deliver its e-governance applications on the Internet through a Microsoft® data center. Now Persistent Systems can offer its solution in a high-availability environment while reducing capital and maintenance costs for itself and its customers.

1. Windows Azure
Customer Solution Case Study
Software Services Provider Delivers Cost-
Effective E-Government Solution
Overview “With Windows Azure, our customers don’t have to
Country or Region: India
Industry: Information technology invest up front in infrastructure or hosting services. And
because they can pay as they go, their budgeting is
Customer Profile
Persistent Systems provides software much easier.”
product development services for
Madhuri Tambe, Senior Project Manager, Persistent Systems
enterprises and the public sector.
Headquartered in Pune, India, the Persistent Systems provides software development services that
company has 4,300 employees in Asia,
Europe, and North America.
help enterprises and public sector customers enhance their
offerings. One of the company’s primary offerings is an e-
Business Situation
Persistent Systems needed a way to
government solution that helps governments and agencies
deliver its e-governance solution to local deliver services and interact with constituents electronically.
governments without requiring them to
invest heavily in new IT infrastructure and
However, the company’s ability to promote the solution was
personnel. often limited by the IT infrastructure capacity of governments in
Solution
developing regions. Persistent Systems needed a way to deliver
Persistent Systems used the Windows its solution without requiring local governments to invest in new
Azure™ platform to develop a solution
that would host its e-governance
IT infrastructure and personnel. The company used the Windows
applications on the Internet through a Azure™ platform to deliver its e-governance applications on the
Microsoft® data center.
Internet through a Microsoft® data center. Now Persistent
Benefits Systems can offer its e-government solution in a high-availability
Simplified application deployment
Flexible, cost-effective scalability
environment while reducing capital and maintenance costs for
Reduced costs itself and its customers.
Quick, inexpensive development
Enhanced government services

2. “From the customer’s Situation software applications, hosted in the
Headquartered in Pune, India, and with customer’s own data center. However, the
perspective, they have operations in Asia, Europe, and North company found that its ability to promote
America, Persistent Systems provides its e-governance solution was often limited
much more flexibility. As software product development services to a by the technology capabilities of local
they move forward, they wide range of customers in the governments.
telecommunications, life sciences, data
can easily purchase infrastructure, and government sectors. In India, many local and regional
With more than 4,300 employees, governments lack the IT infrastructure
additional applications Persistent Systems offers services that help necessary to fully deploy Persistent Systems
or discontinue its customers enhance their offerings while e-government applications as on-premises
reducing overall costs. software solutions. Even where
applications they do not governments or agencies have the funding
One of Persistent Systems’ primary available to develop a high-performance
need.” offerings is an e-government solution that server environment, they may lack the
Madhuri Tambe, Senior Project Manager, offers regional and local governments and technology expertise to adequately
Persistent Systems agencies the ability to deliver services and manage the networking, redundancy, and
interact with citizens and businesses other infrastructure issues that can add
electronically through a set of four Web- additional costs. Moreover, they may not
based applications that the company calls want the technology capacity or expertise,
its e-governance suite. The suite forms a needing instead to focus on delivering
cohesive solution for public service, and government services.
encompasses complaint resolution, roads
and infrastructure, census, and election Persistent Systems knew that its solution
management systems. would enhance those governments’ ability
to provide services. The company needed a
The Grievance Redressal System allows way to deliver its e-governance suite to
citizens to register and track incident local governments without requiring them
reports to any government department. to invest heavily in new IT infrastructure
With the Roads and Infrastructure and personnel. It wanted to offer customers
application, citizens can report issues a way to scale the solution up or down,
related to roads and infrastructure, adding or removing component
identifying specific locations with an online applications, computing capacity, or data
mapping tool. Registered hospitals, storage as necessary— quickly, easily, and
doctors, and other authorized personnel cost effectively.
can use the Census Department application
to register births and deaths. The Election The company wanted to provide potential
Office application interacts with Census customers that didn’t already have a high-
Department to maintain up-to-date voter performance infrastructure with a way to
lists and help authorities manage and test the solution, and it wanted to offer
schedule elections. them a way to pay just for what they used,
as they used it. At the same time, Persistent
Persistent Systems developed the e- Systems had already made a significant
governance suite using Microsoft® ASP.NET investment in developing its e-governance
and Microsoft SQL Server® database suite; it needed a new delivery model that it
management software, offering the could develop efficiently, without having to
separate components as client-based significantly re-engineer the solution.

3. “Because we had worked Solution monthly subscription, rather than investing
Persistent Systems decided to develop a up front in an on-premises infrastructure.
with… SQL Server solution that would host its e-governance Persistent Systems will use the TPS to
suite on the Internet through a data manage auditing and billing for individual
software, we were able center—an application delivery system subscribers, and customers will be able to
to save a significant sometimes referred to as “cloud” provide feedback to system administrators
computing. The company chose the if they want to modify their subscription.
amount of time Windows Azure™ platform, an Internet- “From the customer’s perspective, they
scale cloud services platform that is hosted have much more flexibility,” says Madhuri
migrating the existing in Microsoft data centers, for its reliable Tambe, Senior Project Manager at
applications to SQL high availability and scalability to match Persistent Systems. “As they move forward,
usage needs. they can easily purchase additional
Azure. We were able to applications or discontinue applications
Persistent Systems is using the Windows they do not need.”
minimize our learning Azure cloud services operating system, the
curve and make the development, service hosting, and service Persistent System uses SQL Azure to store
management environment for the Windows the e-governance application database and
overall transition very Azure platform, to provide on-demand a configuration database. Log-in details
computing and storage capacity for its Web and attachments uploaded by users are
smooth.” applications. It will use the Microsoft SQL stored using the Windows Azure Table
Padmaja Uk, Technical Lead, Persistent Azure™ database as a service to store and Storage and Blob Storage features. The
Systems manage application data, and application system uses the Service Bus feature in
users will be able to store files and images Windows Azure to connect applications
using the Blob Storage feature in the within the e-governance suite and share
Windows Azure platform. With Live data between applications.
Services, they can search for information
using Bing™, and identify locations with Because Persistent Systems developed its
Bing Maps for Enterprise. original e-governance solution using
ASP.NET and SQL Server, company
In addition to the four core components of developers were able to move the suite to
the e-governance suite, Persistent Systems the Windows Azure platform with minimum
will deploy its own Tenant Provisioning effort. For instance, developers used SQL
System (TPS) in the Windows Azure scripts to move the existing SQL Server
environment. With the TPS, Persistent schema to the SQL Azure database.
Systems will provision specific components “Because we had worked with traditional
to individual customers (or tenant on-premises SQL Server software, we were
applications). Persistent Systems will deploy able to save a significant amount of time
each tenant application on individual migrating the existing applications to SQL
Windows Azure project accounts, Azure,” says Padmaja Uk, Technical Lead at
automatically isolating each tenant Persistent Systems. “We were able to
application from the others, enhancing minimize our learning curve and make the
security and scalability for each tenant. overall transition very smooth.”
With the e-governance solution deployed
on the Windows Azure platform, local Benefits
governments now can pay only for the With the Windows Azure platform,
applications they need in the form of a Persistent Systems can offer its e-

4. “The Windows Azure governance applications to local Rather than investing in server capacity for
governments while reducing capital peak loads and then underutilizing that
platform is a very viable expenditures for itself and its customers. capacity during other periods, customers
Governments can quickly test and deploy can pay just for the capacity they need as
approach to delivering the applications and scale up and down as they need it. “For instance,” says Uk, “if an
eGovernance solutions necessary, paying only for what they need election is coming up, we can add more
when they need it. Due to the ease of instances of a customer’s Election Office
for our customers and development, Persistent Systems brought application, provide them more computing
its new solution-delivery model to market power, and they only have to pay for it
we expect good growth quickly, and can now offer its e-governance during that period.”
in business.” applications to more customers.
Reduced Costs
Madhuri Tambe, Senior Project Manager, Simplified Application Deployment Governments that subscribe to the
Persistent Systems By hosting its solution on the Internet Persistent Systems e-governance solution
through Microsoft data centers, Persistent will be able to manage their costs more
Systems can deploy its e-governance suite effectively by minimizing their capital
to customers that don’t have their own investment, reducing operating costs by
server infrastructures, and the company can avoiding infrastructure-maintenance
offer a hosted solution without having to overhead, and paying only for what they
set up an infrastructure of its own. use as they use it.
Prospective customers can evaluate the
solution without having to deploy the For a given set of features in the e-
application on-premises, and Persistent governance suite, a customer might have to
Systems can provision applications to new spend U.S.$24,000 in capital costs and as
customers approximately 50 percent faster much as $60,000 in annual maintenance
using its new system. overhead. With Windows Azure, it can
completely forego capital and maintenance
“With Windows Azure, we can deploy the expenditures, paying only service fees that
applications to new customers very easily, might be less than U.S.$10,000 a year.
while reducing our overhead significantly,”
says Tambe. “Trial runs are very easy. A “With Windows Azure, our customers don’t
customer can simply subscribe as a trial have to invest up front in infrastructure or
user for one month, and that’s it.” hosting services,” says Tambe. “And
because they can pay as they go, their
Flexible, Cost-Effective Scalability budgeting is much easier.”
Because Microsoft data centers offer high
availability and scalability, Persistent Because Persistent Systems can provision
Systems can upgrade configurations for and manage the solution on the Windows
customers easily and quickly, adding or Azure platform, it will increase profitability
removing components of its e-governance and reduce costs by as much as 70 percent
solution per a customer’s need. And with as it offers its e-governance suite to more
the vast computing power offered through customers. “By delivering our e-governance
the Windows Azure platform, customers solution through the Windows Azure
have the capability to handle varying loads platform, we will get more business from
without a full capital investment. more customers,” says Tambe. “And
adding, managing, and billing customers

5. For More Information through the platform will enhance Windows Azure Platform
For more information about Microsoft efficiency and reduce costs.” The Windows Azure platform provides an
products and services, call the Microsoft excellent foundation for expanding online
Sales Information Center at (800) 426- Quick, Inexpensive Development product and service offerings. The main
9400. In Canada, call the Microsoft Because they could take advantage of components include:
Canada Information Centre at (877) 568- existing skills, developers at Persistent Windows Azure. Windows Azure is
2495. Customers in the United States and Systems spent less time learning how to the development, service hosting, and
Canada who are deaf or hard-of-hearing work with the Windows Azure platform, service management environment for
can reach Microsoft text telephone reducing the time it took to deploy the e- the Windows Azure platform. Windows
(TTY/TDD) services at (800) 892-5234. governance solution with Windows Azure. Azure provides developers with on-
Outside the 50 United States and And because they did not have to demand compute and storage to host,
Canada, please contact your local configure an infrastructure to support the scale, and manage Web applications
Microsoft subsidiary. To access deployment, they could focus on the on the Internet through Microsoft data
information using the World Wide Web, business logic and design of the centers. In addition, Windows Azure
go to: applications. “Without Windows Azure, we serves developers’ connectivity needs
www.microsoft.com might have spent 25 percent more time in through the following services.
process development,” says Tambe. The Service Bus connects
For more information about Persistent services and applications across
Systems products and services, call or Enhanced Government Services network boundaries to help
visit the Web site at: By subscribing to Persistent Systems e- developers build distributed
www.persistentsys.com governance solutions, local governments in applications.
India and elsewhere can provide The Access Control Service
government services and interact with provides federated claims-based
constituents more effectively. They can access control for REST Web
provide convenient access to services, services.
empower citizens with information, and Microsoft SQL Azure. Microsoft SQL
enhance government transparency and Azure offers the first cloud-based
accountability, while reducing costs, relational and self-managed database
service built on Microsoft SQL Server
simplifying operations, and improving
2008 technologies.
efficiency.
To learn more about the Windows Azure
“The Windows Azure platform is a very
platform, visit:
viable approach to delivering eGovernance www.windowsazure.com
solutions for our customers and we expect
good growth in business,” says Tambe.
Software and Services − Live Services
Windows Azure Platform
− Windows Azure
− Microsoft SQL Azure
− Service Bus
− Blob Storage
This case study is for informational purposes only.
MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.
Document published November 2009