Introduction to Azure: Microsoft s Cloud OS

(1)

Introduction to Azure:

Microsoft‘s Cloud OS

DI Andreas Schabus Technology Advisor Microsoft Österreich GmbH

[email protected] www.codefest.at

Version 1.0

(2)

Agenda

 Cloud Computing Fundamentals

 Windows Azure Overview

 The Windows Azure Service Model

 Windows Azure Storage

 Some Thoughts about an App Architecture

(3)

Cloud Computing Fundamentals

(4)

What is a „Cloud“?

“A standardized IT capability, such as

software, app platform, or infrastructure,

delivered via Internet technologies in a

pay-per-use and self-service way.”

“How To Message "Cloud" Offerings And Not Get Lost In The Fog”,

(5)

A. Schabus Windows Azure Introduction v.1.0

The Cloud Stack

Users/Customers/Consumers

Cl oud Sta ck

The Metal

Infrastructure as a Service

Platform as a Service

Software as a Service

White-label VARs / ISVs

Windo ws Azu re Amazo n EC2

Appistry

Sal es for ce.co m Mic ro soft CRM L ive

SQL Az ure

SmugMug Fo rce.c om

Custom Pr odu ct s

Slide 6

(6)

Cloud: Efficiency vs. Control

= Managed for You Standalone Servers

IaaS PaaS SaaS

Applications Runtimes Database

Operating System Virtualization

Server Storage

(7)

Die Microsoft „Cloud Offerings“

Slide 8

Users/Customers/Consumers

Cl ou d Stack

The Metal

Infrastructure as a Service

Platform as a Service

Software as a Service

White-label VARs / ISVs

Windo ws Azu re

Office 365

Custom Pr odu ct s

Windows Live

(8)

Microsoft Azure

Overview

(9)

Windows Azure

 Windows Azure is an OS for the data center

 Handles resource management, provisioning, and monitoring

 Manages application lifecycle

 Allows developers to concentrate on business logic

 Provides common building blocks for distributed applications

 Reliable queuing, simple structured storage, SQL storage

 Application services like access control, caching, and connectivity

Slide 10

(10)

What do we need from a „Plattform“?

Access to Data Stores

(ADO.NET EF, nHibernate, System.IO...) Business Logic

UI (Web) UI (AJAX, RIA, Client)

Services from other Applications and

Organisation

TCP / TDS

HTTP / XML (SOAP, REST…) HTTP / HTML

HTTP / XML (SOAP, REST…)

Stream

(11)

What do we need from a „Plattform“?

Slide 12

Organisation

TCP / TDS

Stream

Computing Power

(scalable)

Store

Relationale

Database

Secure

Integration

(12)

What do we need from a „Plattform“?

Organisation

TCP / TDS

Stream

(13)

Windows Azure Platform

Slide 14

Windows Azure Networking

“Red Dog” Front End (RDFE)

Windows Azure Compute

Windows Azure Middleware

Services

Windows Azure Applications

Windows Azure Data Services

(14)

Windows Azure Datacenter

(15)

The Windows Azure Service Model

(16)

The Microsoft Application Platform

Database

Middle Tier

Applications / Services Windows Azure Marketplace

Microsoft Online Services

(17)

Windows Azure Application Philosophy:

Design for Failure

 Scale out for capacity

 Scale out for redundancy

 Asynchronous communication

 Short time outs with retries

 Idempotent operations

 Stateless with durable external storage

Slide 18

(18)

Multi-Tier Cloud Application

 A cloud application is typically made up of different components

 Front end: e.g. load-balanced stateless web servers

 Middle worker tier: e.g. order processing, encoding

 Backend storage: e.g. SQL tables or files

 Multiple instances of each for scalability and availability

Front- End Front-

HTTP/HTTP

Windows Azure

Load Balancer Middle-

(19)

The Windows Azure Service Model

 A Windows Azure application is called a “service”

 Definition information

 Configuration information

 At least one “role”

 Roles are like DLLs in the service “process”

 Collection of code with an entry point that runs in its own virtual machine

 Windows Azure compute SLA requires two instances of each role

 99.95% for connectivity to two instances

 Achieved with update and fault domains

Slide 20

(20)

Role Types

 There are currently three role types:

 Web Role: IIS7 and ASP.NET in Windows Azure-supplied OS

 Worker Role: arbitrary code in Windows Azure-supplied OS

 VM Role: uploaded VHD with customer-supplied OS

 VM Role: is it a VM?

 No, because it is stateless

 Good for:

 Long install (5+ minutes)

 Manual install/config

 Fragile install/config

(21)

Windows Azure Portal

Slide 23

(22)

Windows Azure Storage

(23)

Windows Azure Storage Fundamentals

 Storage characteristics

 Durable – replicated three times

 Scalable (capacity and throughput)

 Highly available

 Simple and familiar programming interfaces

 REST (HTTP and HTTPS)

 .NET accessible

Slide 29

(24)

Storage Objects

 Blobs

 Provide a simple interface for storing named files along with metadata for the file

 Tables

 Provide lightly structured storage with a set of entities that contain a set of properties

 Queues

 Provide reliable storage and delivery of messages

(25)

Storage Account and Blob Containers

 Storage account

 An account can have many blob containers

 Container

 A container is a set of blobs

 Sharing policies are set at the container level

 Public READ or Private

 Associate metadata with container

 Metadata is <name, value> pairs

 Up to 8KB per container

 List the blobs in a container

Slide 31

(26)

Blob Storage Concepts

Blob

Container

Account

sally

pictures

IMG001.JPG

IMG002.JPG

(27)

Table Data Model

 Table

 A storage account can create many tables

 .NET classes and LINQ

 A table is a set of entities (rows)

 An entity is a set of properties (columns)

 Billions of entities and TBs of data

 Two “key” properties that together are the unique ID of the entity in the table

 PartitionKey – enables scalability

 RowKey – uniquely identifies the entity within the partition

Slide 33

(28)

Table Storage Concepts

Entity

Table

Account

sally

users

Name =…

Email = … Name =…

Email = … Photo ID =…

Date =…

(29)

Windows Azure Queues

 Provide reliable message delivery

 Simple, asynchronous work dispatch

 Programming semantics ensure that a message can be processed at least once

 Queues are highly available, durable and performance efficient

 Maximum size is 64K

 FIFO in general, but not guaranteed

 Pulling an item from the queue doesn’t delete it

 It becomes invisible for a visibility timeout

 Item must be deleted before timeout or else it becomes visible

Slide 35

(30)

Queue Storage Concepts

Message

Queue

Account

sally

thumbnail jobs

128x128, http://…

256x256, http://…

http://…

(31)

Account

Container Blobs

Table Entities

Queue Messages

Windows Azure Data Storage Concepts

http://<account>.blob.core.windows.net/<container>

http://<account>.table.core.windows.net/<table>

http://<account>.queue.core.windows.net/<queue>

(32)

Some Thoughts about an App Architecture

(33)

Scale-up – sometimes suboptimal

Cloud

DB Failover Cluster Web Farm

Load Balancer Clients

Cost/Month:

in Azure ~ 150 €

Slide 41

(34)

Sharding  Scale-out

Load Balancer Clients

(35)

Sharding LINQ Provider

[TestMethod]

public void ShardingTest() {

ThreadPool.SetMinThreads(10, 10);

var result = CreateQueryableRoot()

.Where(re => re.Location == "Wien"

&& re.HasBalcony.Value) .OrderBy(re => re.SizeOfGarden) .Take(25)

.ToArray();

}

Hidden Complexity of Sharding  identical LINQ Queries

(http://www.timecockpit.com/en/blogs/11-02-16/Custom_OData_Provider_for_Windows_Azure.aspx)

Slide 47

(36)

Summary

(37)

A. Schabus

Windows Azure Introduction v.1.0 Slide 53

“A standardized IT capability, such as

software, app platform, or infrastructure,

delivered via Internet technologies in a

pay-per-use and self-service way.”

“How To Message "Cloud" Offerings And Not Get Lost In The Fog”, Forrester Research, Inc., July 2009

(38)

Database Middle Tier

Applications / Services Windows Azure Marketplace

Microsoft Online Services

(39)

Cloud Web Farm Load

Balancer Clients

Cost/Month:

with Azure ~ 150 €

 stay constant!

DB Load Balancing Cluster of Failover

Clusters

(40)

(41)