cloudreach voices - the cloud: what does it mean for your current applications

Copyright ©2015 Cloudreach limitedNot if. When

Cloudreach Voices Cloudy Issues Explored Our take on Cloud Technology

http://www.cloudreach.com/gb-en/cloudreach/

Copyright ©2015 Cloudreach limited

Cloudreach Voices: The Cloud and What it means for your Enterprise Applications

Copyright ©2016 Cloudreach Limited

The Cloud: What does

it mean for your

current applications?

Andrew Philp, DevOps Lead, Cloudreach Edinburgh

February 2016


Copyright ©2015 Cloudreach limitedCopyright ©2016 Cloudreach Limited

You may be running applications like SharePoint, Exchange, SQL Server if you look after a Windows environment, or MySQL, Tomcat, Apache and MongoDB if you’re looking after a Linux environment.

Let’s use Microsoft SQL Server as an example. In the on-premise world, you’d perform a capacity plan, finding out how much resource you need to dedicate to each database and any special requirements. You’d then place an order for a server, or ask your team to create you a VM with the required amount of IOPS, CPU, bandwidth and so on.

How does this differ in the Cloud?


What are you running?



The real answer is it doesn’t. You still need to plan, implement and

maintain the same way you would on-premise. The real magic happens when you want to adjust the amount of resources dedicated to one database.

On-premise, you’re most likely going to over-provision your resources to ensure there’s never a surge that exceeds your available capacity. In the

Cloud, you can provision towards how much capacity you’ll need most often, rather than over-provisioning.


The Cloud:

A magic pill for the enterprise?



One great service that can help you do this is Elastic Database Pools in Microsoft Azure SQL.

This service allows you to specify a number of DTUs or “Database Throughput Units” which give you the ability to cover surges in capacity, then scale the performance back to where you need it once the surge is

over.

It also means you can start developing an application using a low price tier of Azure SQL, then move it up to a Standard or Premium tier with no

customer downtime.


Cloud Services that can

make this happen



Another service that can help achieve this is Amazon Relational Database Service, or “RDS” for short.

Although lacking the granular ability to scale performance like Azure SQL, you are still able to resize according to demand.

Using the best practice Multi-AZ option, downtime is reduced to a matter of minutes.


Cloud Services that can

make this happen



In the Cloud, you have to remember that these “magic” solutions carry a cost benefit when used correctly.

Rather than over-provisioning and paying for the extra capacity all the time, you can closely follow your demand and scale

accordingly.

This means when the database is least used, you pay less and when you need more performance you only pay for that extra performance

when required - usually on an hourly basis.


Cost Implications for these services



Even if you need a Microsoft SQL Server with SQL Server Agent available, this is an option in the Cloud.

You can easily run it on a VM or EC2 instance (major Cloud providers actually give you an image with SQL installed which is

charged at a higher hourly rate to cover the licensing costs) with the same amount of control over settings that you would have on-premise.


I really need “full fat” Microsoft

SQL Server!



to build clusters, AlwaysOn Availability Groups or even use good old fashioned mirroring or log shipping.

Running SQL Server on a VM also means you can have more architectural choice over where files are stored, for example a best practice Cloudreach follow in Amazon EC2 is to:

Ensure tempdb is on ephemeral storage for best performance, there is no need to ensure this data is retained after a reboot as SQL Server rebuilds it as required

Ensure the Transaction Log is on the fastest storage available, usually Provisioned IOPS

Ensure that the data files are on quick storage, usually General Purpose SSD


This allows you...



All these great solutions make it easier than ever

to get exceptional performance

to save money

to work effectively in the Cloud


Magic still needs a DBA



with hosted database engines in the Cloud, such as Amazon RDS or Azure SQL, is that the fundamental job of a DBA still exists.

DBAs must ensure they perform the same steps that they would in an on-premise environment in terms of sizing Transaction Logs appropriately, ensuring tables have the correct indexes and making sure not to overload a database instance with too many heavily used databases.


The most important thing to remember



Oh, and don’t

forget backups!



Copyright ©2014 Cloudreach limited

Liked this Deck?

Follow our Twitter, LinkedIn and Blog below

Copyright ©2016 Cloudreach Limited


https://twitter.com/Cloudreach

https://www.linkedin.com/company/522308?trk=tyah&trkInfo=clickedVertical%3Acompany%2CclickedEntityId%3A522308%2Cidx%3A1-1-1%2CtarId%3A1452617534271%2Ctas%3Acloudreac

http://www.cloudreach.com