Cloud

Will the inclusion of cloud-computing in Industries may decrease the job opportunities in future?

2012-04-04T08:40:57Z

We know that cloud-computing apart from providing benefits like reliability, availability, scalability, etc, it was also shifts some of the responsibility (from the infrastructure point of view) to the cloud-computing providers.

Once application/service deployed to the cloud computing infrastructure:

· Network administrators need not to worry about the load balancing, bandwidth balancing, etc

· System administrators need not to worry about updating the machines/servers with latest security and other patches, etc.

So from the application owner's perspective, he/she needs not to put much effort and money in this types of administrative works rather devote more on the application feature enhancement.

Does that mean personals involved in such administrative works are going to lose their job opportunities? ]]> Such a type of concern also evolved during the inclusion of software in industries. Many thought using software, quite a few processes will be automated which otherwise would have needed manual intervention. And with such kind of automation in countries like India where population is very high, might result into the higher unemployment.

But in reality what actually happened? The job opportunities that IT/software industries fetched are very high and not comparable to any previous opportunities. In-fact the unemployment was addressed to the maximum extent.

So basically with the advent of new technologies, and the subsequent automation, the job opportunities were never decreased but a new/different skill set for working in a new environment was demanded. Similarly need for the above said administrators/professionals will never extinct but they will need to acquire a new skill set to manage the new environment that the cloud-computing is providing.

Having said this and in support of this, please refer to this wonderful article depicting some good data which will certainly bring delight especially to the Indian professionals. So cheer up and happy clouding....

Along with data in on-premise database, can we also expose stored procedure using Azure building blocks to internet?

2012-03-20T12:52:58Z

While working in some project we might have come across the requirement:

· Migrate an existing web- application from on-premise to cloud for some of the obvious reasons. And I believe by now we know what are the different driving factors for migrating an/a application/service to cloud

· But keep the back-end database on-premise. Quite a few reasons for this, say for instance the data is of very "high business impact" type and can't be put outside the corporate network.

We must have explored quite a few options like being in Windows Azure domain, options are:

· Make use of Azure connect and create some kind of local area network comprising of the database server and the virtual machines having Azure roles (having the application).

· Make use of Azure appfabric service bus (my favorite option) to expose database over http as OData interface and also support the CRUD operations.

But now how to expose the SQL Stored Procedures and functions defined in the back-end database.

]]> One may promptly say, I would use Azure connect and hence could access the database in the same way in the code as the existing implementation. But there is one constraint in using Azure-connect, we have to install some client in the machines having the database and this specific reason of getting access and installing some client application may affect the migration process (because of concerns raised by the network guys and system adminstrator)

Another easy approach could be using the Azure appfabric service bus but this will need some code modification but if coded properly than it will be just one time effort. Let me try to provide an approach to achieve the same which could be extended to handle the requirement better.

Assumption:

The reader is aware of

· The Azure appfabric service bus related terminologies.

· The REST WCF implementation.

Approach:

We will leverage the basic feature of the Stored Procedure i.e. all the parameters passed needs to be of primitive type i.e. string , int, bool, etc, no user defined complex type.

We may expose REST WCF service interface through the Appfabric service as:

http://appfabric_namespace. servicebus.windows.net/SP/SP_name/SP_parameters

where SP_name is the name of the Stored procedure, SP_parameters is the list of parameters expected by the stored procedure in key-value format with some delimiter separating the parameters like:

param1=value1#param2=value2

And to achieve this we need to define the following types of service contract and service implementation:

Contract:

[WebGet(UriTemplate="/SP/{ SP_name }/{ SP_parameters }")]

SomeObject ExecuteSP(string SP_name, string SP_parameters);

Where SomeObject is some object (DataContract) to keep the return data.

Implementation:

public SomeObject ExecuteSP(string SP_name, string SP_parameters)

{

SomeObject returnData = new SomeObject ();

string[] parameterPairs = SP_parameters.Split('#');

string connectionString = the connection string to connect the intended SQL server database

using (var conn = new SqlConnection(connectionString))

{

using (var command = new SqlCommand("SP_name", conn))

{

command.CommandType = System.Data.CommandType.StoredProcedure;

foreach (string paramPair in parameterPairs)

{

string[] param = paramPair.Split('=');

string paramName = param[0];

string paramValue = param[1];

command.Parameters.Add(new SqlParameter("@" + paramName, param[1]));

}

int rowsAffect = command.ExecuteNonQuery();

//assign the return of stored procedure execution to some property of SomeObject

//e.g. "data' of type"object" for handling any return data type

}

return returnData;

}

The code can be also enhanced to even handle the scenario where some data is returned back by the stored procedure either by modifying this interface or adding a new interface.

Enterprise Cloud Adoption Strategic Roadmap

2012-01-09T13:49:02Z

Adoption of Cloud in an enterprise is more of a strategic decision than an operational or tactical. Cloud adoption needs to be seen more from enterprise architecture strategy perspective rather than an isolated application architecture specific strategy for the simple reason that it has several short and long term implications on enterprise strategy which may be beyond the specific application's business or technology footprint.

]]> So far many enterprises have experimented and played around with Cloud, done successful pilots and learnt their lessons but when it comes to cloud adoption as an enterprise strategy, they are still in a Go, No Go kind of state. The reasons could be several from where to start, what to move first, what are the risks, etc.

The following figure depicts how an enterprise can approach adoption of cloud, which areas can be addressed first and where adoption can happen slightly delayed.

Source: Infosys Research

To broadly look at this, the above figure depicts various segments as segment 0 to segment 5, each specifying what the segment indicates,

Segment 0 "Support Services"
In this, early adopting enterprise can look at leveraging cloud to capture low hanging fruits such as hosting applications as is on cloud, migrating applications which are easy to migrate(less complex and easy to fit in cloud architecture), or could be for tasks as simple as just for storing data backups.

Segment 1 "On-Premise to Off Premise Integration"
Leverage cloud for having part of your application on cloud for example only database or for building integration kind of scenarios such as partner integration. These scenarios need establishing data/application connectivity between on-premise and off-premise components.

Segment 2 "Offload to Cloud"
This is an offshoot of Segment 1, in this approach you offload compute or data intensive operations of an application on the cloud as against the complete application.
e.g. NY Times converted more than 130 years' worth of articles (11 million articles in TIFF format) into PDFs using Hadoop and Amazon EC2 thus improving compliance and saving substantial costs in a very short time.
e.g. Harvard's Laboratory is using Cloud to simulate various genome analysis testing models to expedite their experiments in research laboratory.

Segment 3 "Multi Channel Scenarios (Smart Phone, Kiosk, Web, etc.)"
Building multi-channel applications that are available across various form factors such as Desktops, Web, Kiosk, smartphone, etc. and provide value added services such as rich reporting, dashboards, context exchange, etc.
e.g. Nike+ Cloud based multi-channel applications to improve customer engagement by providing value added services.
Apple iCloud based apps. is another example.

Segment 4 "Social, Elasticity on demand Apps"
Building applications for which the user base is not pre-determined or profiles identified. Architecting such applications needs significant different approach than traditional ones to take care of counter spikes in usage like product launch or social apps, providing federated authentication, etc.
e.g. Nike+ is using Cloud based multi-channel applications to improve customer engagement by providing value added services.

Segment 5 "Specialized Services"
When enterprise wants to provide a specific functionality as an end service to its users or customers such as HPC, mobility or Analytics as a Service where users can upload their datasets and run these services falls under this segment. This is different from what is mentioned in Segment 2 in the sense that these services are abstracted at the same time specialized to highest extent and meant for providing ".....as a Service" as against running only a specific component in cloud.

As depicted, the architecture complexity and associated risk gradually increases from segment 0 to segment 5 and hence it is recommended that enterprise should take a phased, step by step approach while weaving cloud in an enterprise architecture strategy.
While the above segments are for guidance, depending on enterprise risk appetite, process and technology maturity, an enterprise can also directly start from segment 2 or 3 as deem fit.

What is basically cloud computing? How is it different from the traditional application hosting?

2011-11-28T10:48:11Z

What is basically cloud computing? How is it different from the traditional application hosting?

Though I have been working in the different cloud-computing engagements but yet when coming to explaining it to someone who is new or for example who is not from a IT or software back ground then it becomes a little difficult.

]]> I have explored quite a few internet sites in quest of the same. Through this blog am trying to put it in as simple as possible.

From the internet based application or service end users' perspective there is no difference. The major difference is the way application is hosted and the way the application consumes the different resources needed for its sustainability.

There are many definitions and let me try to put it in simple sentences.

Cloud computing is a general term for anything that involves delivering hosted services, be it compute or storage over the Internet. Cloud computing is the delivery of computing and storage as a service rather than a product, like a utility (for example water, electricity) over a network which is the Internet (here).

As I believe, the mere notion of the word cloud comes from the traditional block diagrams where any internet based resources are represented by cloud like symbol. The cloud computing services can primarily be classified as Software as a Service (SaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS) and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS).

The primary distinctive factors which differentiate cloud computing from the traditional approach of hosting are:

1. The resources which are exposed as services are provided on demand

2. The infrastructure is elastic i.e. any time the service usage can be increased or decreased on need basis.

3. The infrastructure is maintained by the provider.

Cloud again may be further classified as private or public. Public cloud provides services to anyone having the Internet access. Private cloud provides services or resources to a limited number of users for example people within an organization.

Enterprise Cloud trends - "Cloud First" strategy

2011-11-07T09:25:49Z

While we were working on the Cloud strategy for Infosys a year back we had lengthy debates on how an enterprise of the future looks like with their cloud vision in the coming years. Most of our forecasts on this are coming factual. My recent interactions with clients and partners clearly reveal that the Cloud adoption by enterprises is faster than what was being perceived by a larger community.

"Cloud first" strategy is being adopted by some of our leading clients and few of them have a very clear approach for their Infrastructure and application stack. Hybrid is the most common trend and Private Cloud plans are in place for the new and old gears. IaaS consumption from Public Cloud seems to be a short term strategy and PaaS is becoming more prominent for application development even though there is still some fear of vendor lock-in. This to me is the right strategy as more innovations are to happen in the PaaS space and applications can leverage the power of Cloud in terms of scalability, global availability, design for failures etc. more with platform as a service. Application portability gaps across platforms and on-premise setup will gradually diminish with parity amongst on-premise server operating systems and Cloud platforms being addressed with every new version release. Those who consider that an application developed for windows server is a platform "lock-in" may not agree with me on this view.

One of our clients who has adopted O365 has outlined the future strategy for portals with first choice as SharePoint Online and anything on-premise will be an exception (feature parity, data privacy etc). This shows that "Cloud first" strategy is becoming the norm within enterprises with clear directions for non-standard applications and short living workloads. This works well across organizations and industries for especially self-contained application workloads which have least dependency on data residing on premise. Additionally, these organizations could have security and compliance concerns in their data being exposed to the Public Cloud.

Next wave is around mobility and analytics. Will discuss this in my next post.

The era of 2C

2011-10-17T08:20:15Z

Guest post by

Richy Yati Mishra, Associate Consultant, Infosys

We witnessed the era of outsourcing and are now possibly seeing another era open up. Global enterprises which benefitted immensely from the "outsourcing" phenomenon are now welcoming another era, the era of crowdsourcing. Crowdsourcing is in very early stage of large scale adaptation. Jobs/tasks are posted on websites and people independent of their location and based on their competency bids for work and complete it. Benefits are:

· People works on tasks round the clock. People of every time zone will be working and effectively job is running round the clock.

· Best people from the world are working on such tasks.

However, the question comes to what complexity level/extent work can be crowd sourced? Do each resource have required or adequate software, platform and necessary infrastructure to work on?

Now it is time to introduce the most disruptive force in IT at this point: cloud computing. In cloud computing - software, platform and infrastructure - are located in a server in some part of the world. What is needed is just to connect to that server and use software-as-a-service (SaaS) or platform-as-a-service (PaaS) or infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) and just pay for the usage. This allows using resources without owning it, like we consume electricity and pay as per our consumption without owning it.

Keeping the above things in mind let's go through the present scenario at the marketplace:

· Few countries in Europe and the USA are struggling on the economy front.

· Growth rate of countries, industries etc. have been stagnant which resulted in miniscule job growth in US and many part of the world.

This time many of the governments may not have anything to provide as stimulus to bring their economies back on track. In my personal opinion, a county's growth has to be self-sustainable. Economy should grow and create opportunities/ jobs for the people. If people are getting jobs then they will create opportunities for other workers (like constructor, carpenter etc.).

After having all the competency and education if a person is sitting idle then it is very depressing and not a healthy sign for any economy. The only solution in this type of situation is self-employment.

I think a model is required which can create self-employment at the same time sustain a profitable business. In my opinion we should adopt crowdsourcing leveraging cloud computing (2C), to address this problem.

Benefits for the companies:

· Companies do not need to outsource huge work and simultaneously do not need to invest heavily. Based on need and budget work will be crowd sourced in small quantity.

· Lowest bid and best quality work can be selected.

· Work can be broken in to pieces and can be distributed in such a manner that throughout the clock people will be working.

· No need to open physical offices in different part of the world.

· Companies can work with negligible CAPEX and low OPEX model.

· Can provide software, platform and infrastructure as service.

Benefits from a worker perspective:

· No need to own any asset and can use any software, platform and infrastructure.

· Pay for usage saves lots of expenses.

· Allows broadening learning and skill sets.

· Work based on comfort time zone and from any place.

· Creates employment.

Of course, there are few limitations like:

· Security Issues - Can't outsource financial/defense/ IP related work.

· In the age of global terrorism, there will be not many means to put a check on who is contributing to our work.

· We have to check whether this model is sustainable in large scale.

· Employee motivation and drive is totally based on individuals as there will always be a virtual team.

But I believe with time we can address these limitations and create another era: The Era of 2C - Cloud computing + Crowdsourcing.

Cloud - The Platform for the Enterprise Intrapreneur

2011-10-04T04:41:55Z

Cloud promises multitude of benefits as is evident in it's inherent value proposition outlined by leading analyst firms, product vendors, services vendors as well as NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology, US department of Commerce). The challenge organizations are facing today is in figuring out how to make this adoption seamless and enterprise relevant. The questions facing CIO's are: Is the IT organization game enough to issue a promissory note to the business for their IT needs? Well, they know Cloud presents the perfect opportunity for IT to be more relevant to the business as well as make business more accountable for consumption of IT resources. If all of this is crystal clear why is the pace of adoption not accelerated enough...?

Cloud adoption is basically a thought process which needs to be imbibed and digested by both business and IT stakeholders alike to unleash it's true potential. The need is to identify Cloud Champions in both organizations who act as change agents or evangelists to awaken the workforce to the benefits the Cloud model has to offer.

For the Business intrapreneur, Cloud presents a perfect think pad to look beyond the traditional business growth models and identify opportunities to maximize enterprise assets, best practices through innovative IT leverage models e.g. SaaS and offer Cloud based business service delivery.

For the IT intrapreneur, Cloud is the platform for effecting a transformational change for IT resources planning, procurement, provisioning and management thus making business more accountable for IT resources consumption while also providing the business required agility in consuming IT resources on tap through Cloud Service Delivery models such as IaaS and PaaS.

Enterprises need to look inward for accelerating their cloud adoption journey and also identify a Cloud services partner who has subject matter expertise in Cloud, who can advise and partner with the enterprise intrapreneurs for making a smoother transition to Cloud.

Virtualization - Get Started on your Cloud Journey

2011-10-03T11:53:04Z

Virtualization is causing a paradigm shift in IT Operations with far-reaching implications. This concept is becoming so universal, it's a theme in every organization's effort to streamline, optimize and to revitalize its enterprise strategy. As virtualization impacts all aspects of the enterprise - from business applications to networks - it's now seen as a key enabler of IT effectiveness initiatives which are balanced across applications, delivery and infrastructure.

By our own estimates about 55%-60% of medium to large enterprises have either started or currently engaged in some type of virtualization activity. And in majority of these initiatives, the primary objective is to drive down costs by consolidating existing infrastructure assets. But this is just one of the benefits of virtualization. An effective virtualization strategy can be transformational and deliver capabilities to enterprises and create an agile, highly available and scalable enterprise ready to meet any organizational needs. As virtualization enables CIOs to be more responsive in providing targeted solutions, it is driving more profound changes in the structures and processes throughout the business, forcing a better management processes.

The advent of this game-changing cloud paradigm has only given virtualization an increased impetus. Virtualization provides the foundation for cloud computing, thus making it the building block of today's agile infrastructure and an integral part of the CIO's cloud strategy and roadmap.

First in the series on virtualization and its impacts on the enterprise.

]]>

Infosys LOB application migrated to Cloud presented at Microsoft TechEd 2011

2011-09-30T16:50:50Z

Early this year I and a colleague of mine, Pankaj, had the opportunity to co-present a session on "Migrating LOB Applications to Cloud" along with Microsoft architects at Microsoft Teched India 2011. In the session we have shared our experiences in moving one of our LOB applications to Windows Azure. The presentation and session videos have now been uploaded to the Microsoft TechEd 2011 India site available here

The content is located under the Architects track on Day 3 under the session titled "Architectural Considerations for Moving LOB Applications to Cloud" (3:00 pm to 4:00 pm).

Abstract from the presentation
Most enterprise customers are looking for ways to leverage Cloud Computing, including moving or migrating existing Line of Business (LoB) applications to the Cloud. This session will outline various scenarios on whether a certain set of LoB apps would be a good fit (or not a fit) for Cloud Computing. We will focus our discussion on key architectural considerations such as business drivers, costs/benefits analysis, information architecture, application architecture and SOA, migration, performance/scalability, deployment and operations. We will then discuss a case study, i.e., how to apply these architectural considerations to a real-world project.

Hope you find the session useful.

]]>

Cloud computing security, is your seatbelt on?

2011-09-15T13:13:37Z

Cloud computing is now-a-days the buzzword in the Techworld. Every techie wants to know about it and work on it. Every CEO wants it be on their strategic business plan. The Techworld out there is researching, exploring and working on how and what to create, market, and sell.

Every Industry at small, medium and big scale are embracing cloud in big or small way, some are already on cloud and reaping the benefits it has got to offer. Some are in the process of getting on to the Cloud bandwagon, while some are following the wait and watch approach. There is intense competition of who gets their first.

Some of the Top cloud computing providers are Amazon, Verizon, IBM, Salesforce, CSC, Rackspace, Google, Bluelock, Microsoft & Joyent. With some of the biggest names out there it has already generated the necessary interest and captured the imagination of the techworld.

Cloud computing has been identified as one the top strategic technology which is going to re-shape the world in this decade. http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=1454221

According to the survey by Global Industry Analysts & Gartner's, cloud computing is one of the fastest growing markets, the market size is forecast to touch $222.5 billion by 2015.

Cloud computing is going to change the way the world is today, the way pervasive devices store, communicate, connect and operate today, going to change the way tomorrow's products are going to be designed and developed. It is going to change the way business is conducted as on today. Many of existing technologies would be converging into cloud. Today the storage occupies biggest space in all of the connected and disconnected electronic devices. For every device which is connected to net, the storage is going to diminish and at some point there is not going any storage on these devices, they are going to be using cloud and devices would become much smaller, thinner and sleeker. More and more devices would get connected to cloud, changing the way we talk, we function & the way we work.

Now that we have set the context about how Cloud computing is going to be way of life, let's discuss about what are the issues that may hold back or slow down the progress, what are the issues that are causing worry lines and making the consumers think...

One of the biggest concerns that the consumers around the world have is of security.

When our data, business process, applications are deployed to Cloud, how secure are our data, business process & applications going to be. This is one of the top most questions by the customers. What are security solutions that are provided by cloud service provider, what are the security solutions that can be built into products, Business applications, and Enterprise applications by different IT vendors?

"Cloud security market is forecasted to touch $1.5bn by 2015" according to a Forrester report.

Security in Cloud computing would need to consider and address following areas. Come up with secure Governance model, Address how the Compliance framework is going to be addressed and managed, now that the application boundary is no more on-premise, it is going to cut across states, countries & international boundaries. In this context how will the state, country, region specific laws & regulations apply? How to establish a trusted environment in which all the stakeholders can operate seamlessly, how to secure the cloud computing architecture, how to operate securely in the multitenant environment, what are the authentication, authorization and access control techniques going to be, how to develop and maintain applications which are cloud secure, how to develop applications which can counter the threats/vulnerabilities, how to achieve secure isolation between the different VMs, Data protection and how to ensure 100% availability.

Let us look at how applications can be created, maintained which are cloud secure. Firstly for the existing applications which are planning to be migrated to cloud, it will first need to go through a security assessment and find out where does it stand on the vulnerability and threat index. Based on the recommendation it will then need to pass through security testing process which includes secure code analysis, threat modeling, security testing to identify all the vulnerabilities. Fix the identified vulnerabilities. Once the applications are verified to have the vulnerabilities fixed, it can then be deployed to Cloud.

Secondly for the new applications which are developed for cloud it has to follow the secure development life cycle model. Security requirements will need to be captured along with project requirements at beginning stage, security features will have to be built into the design, performing threat modeling at the design stage would help to identify the possible threats and help in secure design, perform secure code analysis during the coding stage, plan for security testing during the testing stages. Security will need to be built in at every stage throughout the life cycle of the project. It is always recommended to plan for security at the beginning of the project and throughout the project life cycle rather than trying to fix it at the end of the project. Fixing the vulnerabilities at the end of the project is lot more difficult and will escalate the cost throwing your project budgeting and scheduling off track.

TADM team at Infosys Labs has been working on application security for years now and we are currently focusing on how to develop secure cloud applications. Currently we are in the process of developing the processes, methodology, creating checklists, establishing guidelines, designing solutions, IPs and papers to secure applications for cloud.

Your applications on cloud without having taken security into consideration is like driving a car without wearing your seat belt, it is like flying in a plane without wearing your seat belt. There are chances that you may reach your destination, but there is no guarantee that you will reach in one piece.

Does your applications have the seat belt on, if not it is time to wear one and we at Infosys labs have the resources, solutions to make your seat belt as secure as possible

In my next blogs, I will talk more about different aspects of cloud security, top threats, vulnerabilities, counter measures, secure SDLC process and about our solutions.

Practicing Agile Software Development on the Windows® Azure™ Platform

2011-08-23T11:10:54Z

Over the years, several software development methodologies have evolved to help the IT industry cope with rapidly evolving business requirements. One such methodology is Agile... -an iterative approach to software development. Similarly rapid strides on the technology front are resulting in paradigm shifts towards software development and how IT delivers its services to business. Technologies in the form of virtualization and cloud are offering low entry barriers by making software and hardware infrastructure easily accessible and thus reduce the time to market. These are encouraging signs that help reduce the gap between business and IT.

]]> To articulate this view further we have written a paper thats highlight the effectiveness of Agile practices in unison with cloud based technologies to accelerate software development. This has been explained by applying Agile practices to develop cloud applications and solutions in the context of a real cloud platform. Considering the developer friendly nature of PaaS delivery models, we have opted to apply Agile practices on Windows Azure based cloud applications, as we believe the model stands to present maximum benefits to Agile teams. A read for architects and managers who are looking for ways to accelerate their existing software development practices. Please view the full paper here

Step by step approach to expose on-premise database using Azure infrastructure - Part 2

2011-07-29T22:56:50Z

In the last blog we understood the usage of Azure-connect to expose on-premise SQL database and accordingly the points of concern while doing that and also the benefit. In this blog we will understand another approach using Azure appfabric Service Bus.

]]> Option 2 - Expose the on-premise database to the consumer (WCF service) in the Azure webrole (or any external consumer) and over HTTP(s) using Azure appfabric Service Bus

Later in the post, we will understand the different obligations/benefits that one should take into consideration before making the decision for this approach.

Steps to be followed

1. Install the ADO.NET Entity Framework. Currently the latest is 4.1 and could be installed from here. This will add the required supporting libraries and the Visual Studio templates.

2. Create a WCF Service Application project and make sure to set the target framework to 3.5 or higher. To the newly created project add a new ADO.NET Entity Data Model project item:

3. In the Entity Data Model wizard, choose "Generate from database" and click "Next":

4. In the next screen, click on Connection and in the pop-up provide the Server Name, Authentication details and then select the concerned database:

And once connection to the SQL server database is established successfully, on click of OK, the connection details are shown:

5. Select the table(s) of concern and click on Finish to show the resultant entity model details:

6. Once the data model is created for the concerned tables, these tables need to be exposed as OData RESTful interfaces, and for this add a new WCF Data Service project item to the project:

7. In the newly added service code behind file (e.g. WcfDataService1.svc.cs), there is a placeholder for the database entities created earlier in step 4 & 5:

Substitute with the correct object defined in the data model code behind (e.g. Model1.edmx à Model1.Designer.cs inherited from ObjectContext):

As:

8. To define the rules for the different entities for their availability for operations like readable, updatable, etc, config.SetEntitySetAccessRule could be used. For example to allow all operations on all entities:

config.SetEntitySetAccessRule("*", EntitySetRights.All);

9. Now it is required to expose the so-formed service endpoint to the client outside the corporate network (firewall) using Azure appfabric service bus. For this it is needed to explicitly add a service with end point binding -" webHttpRelayBinding" to the project configuration file:

service>

services>

binding>

webHttpRelayBinding>

bindings>

Where:

a. services-bus-namespace- the appfabric service bus namespace created in the Azure account subscription though which the service will be exposed

b. webhttpSharedSecretClientCredentials- the service endpoint behavior having the credentials to be used by the service to authenticate and authorize itself to use the Azure service bus:

clientCredentials>

transportClientEndpointBehavior>

<webHttp />

behavior>

endpointBehaviors>

Issuer-name and secret-key are like user-name and password generated during the creation of the service bus namespace to authorize a service or client for service, to expose service through service bus or call a service endpoint exposed through the service bus respectively. webHttp is to support RESTful WCF service.

c. System.Data.Services.IRequestHandler- the contract for the WCF service to be exposed as OData WCF Data Service.

10. Makes sure to comment:

multipleSiteBindingsEnabled="true" aspNetCompatibilityEnabled="true" />

Because Azure service bus currently doesn't support multiple IIS bindings per site.

11. Once the above configurations are done, try to browse the WcfDataService1.svc

e.g. http://localhost:20918/WcfDataService1.svc/ .

This will list all the database tables set to be exposed through the data service (in accordance with the step- 5 above). This operation will also register the service to the service-bus with the configured end point address. E.g.:

http://services-bus-namespace.servicebus.windows.net/ExposeOnPremiseSQL/WcfDataService1.svc/ (will also list the table(s) available to be browsed)

Now giving any table name try to view its contents as:

http://services-bus-namespace.servicebus.windows.net/ExposeOnPremiseSQL/WcfDataService1.svc/table-name

12. While hosting the so-formed service in IIS, make sure to enable auto-start for the service.

Points to be considered

The below few paragraphs will try to highlight some points that may be considered while making the right decision:

1. Since the WCF data service is bound to the table schema, in case there is any change in the table schema in future, the new entity data model in liaison with the new schema needs to be updated explicitly in the WCF data service otherwise the response may not be as expected.

2. Since the RESTful WCF service is exposed through Azure appfabric service bus as the intermediate layer, message mode security will be more applicable than the transport mode based security.

3. Once the service is deployed in the on-premise IIS, make sure to enable auto-start for the service. When any wcf service is hosted in IIS, the service is ignited /started and made to be consumable only when the first request is received. But in this case, service in concern needs to be started before even any request for the service is made. This is because only once the service is started, the service is registered to the service bus and a public URL is exposed which a client in the public (internet) may refer to while making a service request. To achieve this we need to enable the auto-start for the service i.e. the moment the hosting service is started (i.e. IIS), the service hosted also gets started.

4. When we are exposing an on-premise service through Azure appfabric service bus there is no concept of load balancing even at the service-bus end, as there will be only one instance running to respond. And more over in this scenario, multiple IIS bindings per site is also not allowed currently.

Benefits

1. Without making any changes to the on-premise machine having the SQL server, the entire data can be exposed and consumed from outside firewall, i.e. even the physical access to the said machine is not required.

2. Since now windows integrated authentication can be used to connect to the SQL server instance in concern from the on-premise service, proper access control can be put in place.

3. Defining proper service endpoints, both internal and external (to corporate firewall) clients for the service could be handled independently. For example over scheme "http" for internal and "https" for external clients.

4. With this approach, while defining the entity data model, even the access to the database could be restricted in terms of type of accessibility. For example only "read" access to the clients outside of corporate firewall.

5. One can easily consume these OData services by making a service reference in the .net client application. This is will create proxy having container for each of the database tables and using simple LINQ query like the below we can fetch the data

var result = from entity_name in new service_proxy.dataEntityModelNameContainer(new Uri(serviceUrl)).table_name

where entity_name.property_name ==

select entity_name;

Big Data and Cloud Computing

2011-07-29T09:03:59Z

It is well known that leveraging the Cloud for high computing work loads for a short span of time is a good business case.

Getting Business insights from Big Data is becoming main stream. Cloud is becoming an ideal choice for that.

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What is Big Data?

With the advent of Web 2.0, Social Networking, Mobile Computing, Location Based services, Sensor Networks etc. there is huge amount of data explosion.

These new breed of data which are typically un-structured or semi structured with huge volume and complexity to handle are termed as "Big Data"

Why analyze Big Data?

Across industries it is becoming important to make sense out of this data and gain competitive advantage. Below are the few use cases of Big Data:

· In the Telecom industry, Operators generate 5 to 10 TB of call record day every day. These Big Data can be mined for marketing campaign, network optimization.

· In the Retail Industry, pricing is a very important attribute. Big Data helps to compare pricing across retailers and product categories and set the optimum price.

Why Cloud Computing for Big Data?

Traditional data management and business intelligence Infrastructure and Tools are good in handling structured and semi-structured limited volume data. But, they are inadequate to handle the "Big Data".

Cloud infrastructure and a new breed of software ecosystem are powering this Big Data capturing, managing and analyzing challenge.

One common solution is to use Apache Hadoop software stack deployed in the Amazon AWS Cloud EC2 and S3 environment. Hadoop is based on Google's open-license Map Reduce programming model.

Also, Microsoft has recently launched Azure Cloud Big Data service code named Project Daytona.

Some of the challenges which need to be addressed in such a solution are huge data transfer to the Cloud environment, ensuring confidentiality of the data.

Does your enterprise have a plan to get business insights by using Big Data and Cloud?

Step by step approach to expose on-premise database using Azure infrastructure

2011-07-19T19:29:34Z

With the advancement of Azure cloud infrastructure, there arise many heterogeneous requirements which are of type of system(s) having combination of on-cloud and on-premise components. Specially from the on-premise database point of view for certain scenario, this blog series is intended to explain the options, steps, concerns and benefits of different approaches.

]]> Overview

Lets us consider an existing on-premise scenario where there is a system consisting of database(s) server(s) and few WCF services in application server(s). And the requirement is to move these services to the Azure infrastructure (probably also to support some prospective external service consumer and side by side to leverage the benefits of cloud infrastructure like low cost of ownership, low cost of maintenance, etc) and keep the database(s) on-premise (i.e. within corporate firewall may be because of some constraint/policy of the company) and expose it to the said WCF services which are in Azure deployed as web role. The option may not be the only one but certainly the among the quick-to-adopt and the best ones with some benefits.

Later in the post, we will understand the different obligations/benefit that one should take into consideration before making the decision for this approach.

Option 1- Expose the on-premise database to the consumer (WCF service) in the Azure webrole and over TDS using Azure-connect.

Steps to be followed

To keep the backend database on-premise and expose it over "TDS" protocol so that once the concerned WCF services are moved to Azure webroles, the code logic to access the database is not required to be changed (i.e. using SQL client API), we need to create a kind of "local virtual network" with IP-sec protected connections between computers (on-premise database server) and virtual machines (hosting the WCF Azure web role). For this to achieve, Azure-connect could be leveraged.

1.      Login to the Azure management portal

      2. Select "Connect" icon from the top panel:

3.      Select the subscription under which the said virtual network is to be created and where the WCF Azure web role will be deployed:

4.      Click the "Install Local Endpoint" icon from the top and then copy the URL provided from the pop-up:

5.    Now go to the physical machine where the database is present, try browsing this URL and install the Azure-connect local end point:

6.      Once the end point is installed in the machine, in the task tray one icon will be shown but with message "limited connectivity" because the virtual network is yet not created

7.      Now in the same SQL server machine, in the firewall open, the TCP port 1433 for inbound request to be allowed:

8.      For the SQL instance in concern, allow remote connection:

9.      Now we have to configure the webrole to be used to host the WCF service to connect to the same virtual network under the concerned subscription. To do this in the Azure management portal, select the "Get Activation Token" from the top panel and the copy the token provided:

10.      In the Visual studio open the solution having the WCF project and add a blank Azure Cloud project (make sure to install the Azure tools for visual studio):

11.      In the newly added blank project go to the "Roles", right click on it, select "Add" and select "Web Role Project in solution..." menu:

12.      This will list the WCF project, select it and click "OK". This will add a role entry in the initially added blank Azure cloud project.

13.      Right click on the newly added entry in the "Roles" folder select properties menu to be shown. Then go to the "Virtual Network" tab, check the "Activate windows Azure connect" and provide the activation token copied in the step-9 above:

14.      In the WCF project, modify the database connection string to include the user name and password for SQL authentication as windows integrated authentication will not work in Azure-connect network. So make sure to enable mixed-mode authentication in the SQL instance in concern.

15.      Build the cloud project and deploy it to Azure. Once the role instance(s) is (are) started, in the Azure management portal (for Azure connect), for the concerned subscription, select "Activated endpoints". It will list the recently deployed web role (s) and the machine(s) name in which the local end point is installed (step- 5):

16.      Now we need to create a group and then only the interconnection between the different role instances and machines can be established. Select the "Groups and Roles" menu and click on the "Create Group" icon from the top panel:

17.   In the "Create a New Endpoint Group" window "Add" the different machines (having the end point installed) from the first section and the web roles from the second section:

18.   Once the group is created successfully, in the machine(s) having the Azure-connect end point installed, in the task tray, the azure-connect icon will change to:

In case status is not shown as connected, right click on it and select to refresh the policy:

19.      Once the connection is successfully established try consuming the WCF service deployed in any client and make the required service operation call.

20.      Inter-connection could also be verified by enabling remote connection in the web roles VM as well as the on-premise machine having the database and trying to "ping" each other. Make sure to run the following command (in the elevated command prompt) in each of the machines (om-premise machine having the SQL server and VM having the WCF web role) before trying to ping:

netsh advfirewall firewall add rule name="ICMPv6" dir=in action=allow enable=yes protocol=icmpv6

Points to be considered

The below few paragraphs will try to highlight some points that may be considered while making the right decision:

1.      We need to have the admin right and direct access to the physical machine(s) where the database(s) is(are) residing (third party or internal) to install Azure connect end point which is needed so that these machines could be linked in the virtual network which is also having the VM hosting the wcf web-role.

2.      Need to open the TCP port 1433 for inbound requests in the firewall of the machines having the databases. For this also we need to have the admin right and direct access to the physical machine(s).

3.      The connection string being used by the wcf service (in the azure web role) to connect to the on-premise database needs to have user name and password defined as windows integrated authentication will not be supported. Hence need to encrypt the concerned connection string properly.

4.      Since the database is on-premise and the consumer of the database i.e. wcf service is in azure role, the data is sent over the wire and hence it needs to be encrypted or setup needs to be in place to avoid illegitimate data access/purging.

5.      An extra latency will be incorporated now as the database server and the app-server hosting the wcf service are not on the same physical network.

6.      If the service to be moved depends upon on-premise resources other than database like Active-Directory, SMTP server, etc then we need to look for the corresponding substitute (or needed to enable these as well to connect to Azure-connect virtual network) which could then be accessible from azure web role.

Benefit

One may use/retain (in case of existing set-up) the simple SQL client API based database access code logic to connect to the on-premise SQL server from consumer outside the corporate firewall.

Next post in the series

Option 2 - Expose the on-premise database to the consumer (WCF service) in the Azure webrole (or any external consumer) and over HTTP(s) using Azure appfabric Service Bus...

For the complete next post, please refer to this.

Consumer Cloud

2011-06-29T17:06:32Z

With the Apple iCloud announcements, the consumer cloud market is once again set on fire. In the context of delivering "contextual unified integrated services", the article looks at leading vendor landscape and tries to plot co-relation and comparison with their respective product offerings for consumer cloud.

The journal featuring this article can be downloaded from here