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Lessons Learned: Building Multitenant Applications with the Windows Azure Platform

SVC33. Lessons Learned: Building Multitenant Applications with the Windows Azure Platform. Ben Riga benriga@microsoft.com. Phil Calvin CTO Sitemasher Corporation. Stephan Friedl Chief Architect Quark, Inc. A Definition. For our purposes:

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Lessons Learned: Building Multitenant Applications with the Windows Azure Platform

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  1. SVC33 Lessons Learned: Building Multitenant Applications with the Windows Azure Platform Ben Riga benriga@microsoft.com Phil Calvin CTO Sitemasher Corporation Stephan Friedl Chief Architect Quark, Inc.

  2. A Definition • For our purposes: • Multitenancy refers to a principle in software architecture where a single instance of the software runs on a server, serving multiple client organizations(tenants). • Multitenancy is contrasted with a multi-instance architecture where separate software instances (or hardware systems) are set up for different client organizations. • Different Approaches to Data Isolation • Separate/Shared DBs, Separate/Shared Schemas Source: Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multitenancy

  3. Sitemasher www.sitemasher.com Phil Calvin CTO Sitemasher Corporation

  4. Sitemasher website platform • Website Infrastructure platform built on ASP.NET in C# • Initial Development began late 2006 • Running live on private cloud since 2008 • ASP.NET 3.5SP1, Server 2008, SQL 2008 • Launching Azure version at PDC • “Shared Everything” multitenancy model • 2 Axis – Service Providers and Individual Sites • Try it: http://www.sitemasheronazure.com

  5. Multitenant Model

  6. Request/Response General Model Browser Application (Azure Web Role) Caching (Worker Role) • Same model for all request types • AJAX Requests in Development • Page Requests in Production • Asset Requests within Pages SQL Azure Database Servers

  7. Request/Response Lifecycle Application (Azure Web Role) • Determine Current Site and Service Provider • Determine SQL Connections • Content • Membership Provider • Check Access • Process Request

  8. Web front end architecture • Key design requirement – eliminate any per-web-server configuration. • No service-provider specific features or UI • No site specific features or UI • Built the notion of “Pageless” webservers • ASP.NET and markup built dynamically from component model • Web Services used to create design studio • Any request for any site – automatically • Caching architecture critical for performance

  9. Sitemasher Component Architecture • Self-similar component architecture for sites • Sites, URLs • Pages, Page Items, Stylesheets, Style Items • Actions and Events • Database Tables, Columns, Queries • External Data Sources • Lots of small independent blobs that can be manipulated independently

  10. Display Published Page • Code walk through – page request • Request – (http://www.sitename.com/page) • Code walk through – asset request • Request – http://www.sitename.com/image.jpg) • Code walk-through – development studio • Browser - WebService - Component -Returned JSON • Code walk-through • membership providers

  11. Common Themes • In all three of these cases there is a pattern that is worth explaining – because it is fairly core to our system • Minimal component access – not normally an issue on traditional website deployments because they are page based • For Sitemasher, we need to demand load components of a page as required • Caching and SQL Access critical • PROFILE with remote database often to expose bottlenecks

  12. Lessons Learned • HttpRuntime.Cache an enemy • Not distributed – leads to invalid state • Don’t develop against local SQL Servers • Put network distance between application code and database – quick way to locate bottlenecks • Test and debug extensively under freely load balanced local environments • Upgrading your system – that means you are upgrading every one of your customers.

  13. Quark Promote http://quarkpromote.quark.com/ Stephan Friedl Chief Architect Quark, Inc.

  14. Quark, Inc. • Primary Product: Quark XPress • Defined Desktop Publishing Market • Also Has Line of Enterprise Products • Quark Publishing System (QPS) • Quark XPress Server • XML Author • MS Word Plug-In for editing XML

  15. Quark Promote • New Service for SMB Market • Allows users to create high quality marketing collateral from professionally designed templates • Professional printing provided by mail –or- through a network of neighborhood print partners • Composed of 4 Principal Components • Content: Hundreds of professionally designed templates • Website: Allows browsing of template content • Lightweight Design Tool: .NET Application for Template customization • Back Office Services: Catalog mgmt, billing, fulfillment

  16. Quark Promote demo Stephan Friedl Chief Architect Quark, Inc.

  17. Initial Promote Architecture

  18. Business Opportunity: Multi-Tenancy • During discussions with print partners, a number expressed great interest in white labeling Promote for their business • Engineering challenge to support business development with a Multi-Tenant solution • Extensive branding • Solid data partitioning • Cost-effective development , QA and hosting • We examined a number of cloud platforms and Azure was the obvious business enabler

  19. Multi-Tenancy Model • ‘Hybrid’ Multi-Tenant model • Single-Instance, shared Core Services • Utilize Azure compute elasticity to manage loading • DB Partitioned along tenant boundaries • Utilize separate SQL Azure instances per tenant • Logical separation of all tenant transactional data • Separate ASP .NET web site per tenant • Maximal branding and customization per tenant • Combination of divide-the-cloud and grow-in-the-cloud multi-tenancy models

  20. Architectural Considerations • Why this model? • Primarily Cost Driven in Several Dimensions • Ongoing development/QA/management cost containment • Single-instance core services; multi-instance DB • No changes required to DB schema • Minor changes to Core Services • No changes to any SQL statements or ORM bindings • ‘Defensive Design’ - risk of accidental disclosure of one tenant’s data to a second is minimized • Minimizes scope of testing for coupling between tenants • Multi-instance tenant websites permit ‘gratuitous flexibility’ in branding and integration to tenant’s IT • Changes to one tenant website will not impact others • Modifications to carved-off deployments could be handled by SIs or a partner’s IT staff

  21. Implementation • Speed to market without impacting main-line development was critical • Design choice was to use a custom SOAP header to transmit tenant ID • Inject an tenant ID into custom SOAP header • Extract tenant ID in services, store in TSS • DB connection factory returns tenant specific SQL Azure connection • Required about 1 engineer week

  22. Slide for Developer’s Software Code • Show Thread-Local Request Context Object • Show WCF Override for Org ID Injection custom HTTP/SOAP Header • Show WCF Override to Get Org ID from Header • Show DB Connection Factory

  23. Multi-Tenant Promote on Azure

  24. Multi-Tenant Quark Promote demo Stephan Friedl Chief Architect Quark, Inc.

  25. Next Steps • Replace ASP .NET Membership with .NET Services Access Control • Refactor some database code to reduce number of SQL selects issued • Create a solution specific monitoring and management console • Utilize Azure Service Management API and monitoring APIs

  26. Lessons Learned • Designing and implementing with cutting-edge .NET frameworks pays big dividends • Makes transition to Azure very, very smooth • Start using WCF now to avoid headaches later • Be prepared for some SQL Azure tuning • Existing schema support is very good, but not complete • SQL Azure is a shared, hosted DB environment • Slightly different performance profile than standard SQL Server • Expect slightly higher latency per DB operation • SQL Azure ‘Slowness’ could be many small queries in code • Tooling is still maturing • Expect to have a lot of trace logging in your app

  27. Conclusion • Azure is an excellent fit, economically and operationally for Quark’s new service • High availability is baked into the platform • Our initial port to the Azure environment required only 8 engineer-weeks • Platform and tooling maturity will drive this effort down • Azure Platform is a key enabler for multi-tenancy in our application • Inexpensive, easily provisioned DB instances • Elastic compute services consumption • Easily deployed web roles for isolated tenant web sites

  28. YOUR FEEDBACK IS IMPORTANT TO US! Please fill out session evaluation forms online at MicrosoftPDC.com

  29. Learn More On Channel 9 • Expand your PDC experience through Channel 9 • Explore videos, hands-on labs, sample code and demos through the new Channel 9 training courses channel9.msdn.com/learn Built by Developers for Developers….

  30. SVC33 Questions? Ben Riga benriga@microsoft.com Phil Calvin CTO Sitemasher Corporation Stephan Friedl Chief Architect Quark, Inc.

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