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Building High Performance Web Applications with the Windows Azure Platform

Building High Performance Web Applications with the Windows Azure Platform. Wade Wegner Technical Evangelist Microsoft Corporation. High Performance Web Applications. What do I mean? Global user base, snappy response times Scale out to handle many concurrent requests

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Building High Performance Web Applications with the Windows Azure Platform

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  1. Building High Performance Web Applications with the Windows Azure Platform Wade Wegner Technical Evangelist Microsoft Corporation

  2. High Performance Web Applications • What do I mean? • Global user base, snappy response times • Scale out to handle many concurrent requests • Heavy transaction load & bandwidth requirements • How does this apply to the cloud? • Windows Azure applications are mostly like on-premises applications… • … but some things are different (and even easier) in the cloud. • I will assume you already know the basics of Windows Azure • Agenda • Asynchronous design patterns • Managing data access • Tuning application performance

  3. Synchronous Design Pattern • Handle one request at a time for each thread • Block on “the work” done for each request, then respond & repeat • Thread stacks are the data structures used to track client requests • Threads spend most of their time blocking • Increase thread count for greater throughput – heavyweight approach SQL Azure Web App Front End Client Request #1 “The Work” #1 Middle Tier Client Response #1 WA Storage Thread Thread Response #1 blocks Client Request #2 Waiting… Time passes…

  4. Asynchronous Design Pattern • Handle one request at a time for each thread • Queue “the work”, then handle the next request or post back results • Client requests tracked explicitly in app’s data structures • Local state is not durable • External state operations must be idempotent or transactional • Threads block less so fewer threads provide greater throughput • Throughput gated primarily on duration of “The Work” SQL Azure Web App Front End Client Request #1 “The Work” #1 Middle Tier Client Response #1 WA Storage Response #1 Thread Thread Client Request #2 “The Work” #2 Context Client Response #2 Response #2

  5. Asynchronous Cloud Apps • Async design applies to both on-premise and cloud apps equally • Windows Azure Storage Queues are useful for async communication between role instances • Built-in load balancing • Handles loss of individual role instances gracefully • SQL Azure and Windows Azure Storage both support asynchronous calls • ADO.NET Entity Framework • WCF Data Services • LINQ to SQL • Plain old ADO.NET

  6. Managing Data Access • How to transfer data efficiently to and from clients? • There are different kinds of data; each has its own tricks • Trick #1: Get out of the way when you can • Send clients directly to blob storage for static content • Media (e.g. images, video) • Binaries (e.g. XAP, MSI, ZIP) • Data files (e.g. XML) Blob Storage Hosted Compute Hosted Compute

  7. Shared Access Signatures • Trick #2: Shared access signatures provide direct access to ACLed content • Can be time-bound or revoked on demand • Also works for write access (e.g. user-generated content) • http://blog.smarx.com/posts/shared-access-signatures-are-easy-these-days 2. Service prepares a Shared Access Signature (SAS) to X using the securely stored storage account key 1. “I am Bob & I want X” Hosted Compute Stg Key 3. Service returns SAS (signed HTTPS URL) Blob Storage 4. Bob uses SAS to access X directly from Blob Storage for reduced latency & compute load Non-public blob (e.g. paid or ad-funded content) X

  8. Serve Blobs from the Edge • Trick #3: Serve public blobs from the edge with the Windows Azure CDN • Reduces latency and central storage load • Use the CDN when you expect multiple accesses before content expiration Possibly many hops or slow/lossy links Few hops CDN Blob Storage Closest Point of Presence Public container X X Blob header determines time-to-live at the edge DNS name resolves to closest POP

  9. Windows Azure Content Delivery Network • >20 global locations with 99.95% availability • Enabling CDN access for your Windows Azure storage account • Enable the CDN in the dev portal • It will generate a new URL for CDN-based access to your account • Same content, 2 URLs with different access patterns • CDN URL: http://azXXXX.vo.msecnd.net/images/myimage.png • WA Storage URL: http://myacct.blob.core.windows.net/images/myimage.png • CNAME mappings to CDN URLs • http://blog.smarx.com/posts/using-the-new-windows-azure-cdn-with-a-custom-domain • Adaptive Streaming can be made to work with the CDN too • http://blog.smarx.com/posts/smooth-streaming-with-windows-azure-blobs-and-cdn • Will not require cleverness soon

  10. Managing CDN Content Expiration • Default behavior is to fetch once and cache for up to 72 hrs • Modify max-age cache control blob header to control the TTL • x-ms-blob-cache-control: public, max-age=<value in seconds> • Think hours, days or weeks • Higher numbers reduce cost and latency via CDN, proxy & browser caches • Use versioned URLs to expire content on-demand • Enables easy rollback and A/B testing HTML Served by App CDN Blob Storage … <imgsrc="http://azXXXX.vo.msecnd.net/images/logo.2010-08-01.png" />… … <imgsrc="http://azXXXX.vo.msecnd.net/images/logo.2010-10-29.png" />… logo.2010-08-01.png logo.2010-08-01.png logo.2010-10-29.png logo.2010-10-29.png

  11. In-Memory Caching • Trick #4: Cache hot data in memory to avoid slower data-tier access • Session state (e.g. shopping cart) & immutable reference data (e.g. product catalog entries) • Caching tier will help you reduce latency and cost • Lower latency/higher throughput than data tier, especially under load In-Memory Caching SQL Azure SQL Azure Hosted Compute Table Storage Table Storage

  12. Anatomy of A Distributed Cache • Cache footprint or bandwidth requirement may grow beyond a single VM • Distributed caches scale out Multiple role instances may be cache clients Clients access the cache as if it was a single large namespace Unified Cache View Cache layer distributes data across the various cache instances

  13. Windows Azure AppFabric Caching • What is it? • Windows Server AppFabric Cache is an on-premise distributed in-memory cache • AppFabric Caching is a new, hosted in-memory caching service • CTP release at PDC • Roadmap to full parity between on-premise and cloud where it makes sense • Excellent performance • Highly scalable, 64-bit service • Low latency, will be hosted per subregion for app affinity • Highly-available • AuthN/AuthZ integrated with Access Control Service • You may have heard of memcached too • Latest memcached works on Windows Azure with 1.3 SDK • http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/winazurememcached • You manage instances and pay for compute hours

  14. AppFabric Caching Advantages • Simple to administer • No need to manage and host a distributed cache yourself • Integrates easily into existing applications • ASP.NET session state and output cache providers enable no-code integration • Same managed interfaces as Windows Server AppFabric Cache • Caches any serializable managed object • No object size limits • Near cache (client-local) for hot data without serialization costs On-Premises App Windows Azure App Windows Server AppFabric Cache Windows Azure AppFabric Caching Core Logic AppFabric Cache APIs Core Logic AppFabric Cache APIs

  15. AppFabric Caching Security Configuration • <configuration> • <dataCacheClientdeployment="Simple"> • <hosts> • <hostname="<your URI>"cachePort="22233" /> • </hosts> • <securityPropertiesmode="Message"> • <messageSecurityauthorizationInfo="<your authentication token>" /> • </securityProperties> • </dataCacheClient> • </configuration>

  16. AppFabric Caching Session State Provider • <configuration> • <system.web> • <sessionStatemode="Custom"customProvider="DistributedSessionProvider"compressionEnabled="false"> • <providers> • <addname="DistributedSessionProvider"type="Microsoft.Web.DistributedCache.DistributedCacheSessionStateStoreProvider,Microsoft.Web.DistributedCache"cacheName="default"applicationName="Contoso"useBlobMode="false"/> • </providers> • </sessionState> • </system.web> • </configuration>

  17. AppFabric Caching Output Provider • <system.web> • <caching> • <outputCachedefaultProvider="DistributedCache"> • <providers> • <addname="DistributedCache"type="Microsoft.Web.DistributedCache.DistributedCacheOutputCacheProvider,Microsoft.Web.DistributedCache" cacheName="default" applicationName="Contoso" /> • </providers> • </outputCache> • </caching> • </system.web>

  18. AppFabric Caching Code // Use cache configuration from app config DataCacheFactoryCacheFactory= new DataCacheFactory(); // Get cache client for cache DataCachemyCache= CacheFactory.GetDefaultCache(); // Add an object to the cache. myCache.Put(“myKey", myObject); retrievedObject = myCache.Get("myKey"); if (retrievedObject == null) { // Cache miss }

  19. SQL Azure & Sharding • Trick #5: Partition (or shard) your SQL Azure data across databases • Spreads load across multiple database instances • Avoid hitting database size limits • Parallelized queries across more nodes • Improved query performance on commodity hardware • Partitioning scheme varies per data set A-M A-Z Hosted Compute N-Z

  20. Basic Performance Tuning • Tune Windows Azure applications just as you would on-premises applications • Measure • Optimize where it makes a difference • Windows Azure uses Full IIS for web roles starting with the 1.3 SDK • Startup admin tasks using WebPI can install up-to-date extensions as desired • Startup admin tasks using AppCmd can configure IIS as desired • Basic tips • Build in release mode (not debug mode) for production • Do not enable IntelliTrace or Failed Request Tracing in production • Tune role instance counts and consider dynamic scaling

  21. Advanced Performance Tuning • Enable compression for additional dynamic content types • <add mimeType="application/json" enabled="true" /> • <add mimeType="application/json; charset=utf-8" enabled="true" /> • Office document formats • Tune application pool recycling to suit your workload • Modify default schedule to avoid peak times • Measure and eliminate memory leaks if footprint grows over time • New IIS 7.5 module to warm up app upon init at http://www.iis.net/download/ApplicationWarmUp • Move ASP.NET cache to the resource disk for more space • Tune Windows Azure Diagnostics settings

  22. Summary Blob Storage Cache control Versioned URLs CDN • Approach WA apps like you would on-premises apps • Use rich platform features in Windows Azure to tune for the cloud too Public Public Private Asynchronous Hosted Compute AppFabric Caching Synchronous Hosted Compute Shared Access Signatures Table Storage Table Storage Stg Key Tuning SQL Azure SQL Azure SQL Azure Sharding

  23. Session Evaluations Tell us what you think, and you could win! All evaluations submitted are automatically entered into a daily prize draw*  Sign-in to the Schedule Builder at http://europe.msteched.com/topic/list/ * Details of prize draw rules can be obtained from the Information Desk.

  24. © 2010 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Microsoft, Windows, Windows Vista and other product names are or may be registered trademarks and/or trademarks in the U.S. and/or other countries. The information herein is for informational purposes only and represents the current view of Microsoft Corporation as of the date of this presentation. Because Microsoft must respond to changing market conditions, it should not be interpreted to be a commitment on the part of Microsoft, and Microsoft cannot guarantee the accuracy of any information provided after the date of this presentation. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.

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