Table of Contents: 2010 ICS Solutions Ltd, all rights reserved.

Transcription

1 Table of Contents: Page 1 Page 2-3 Page 4-5 Page 6-7 Page 8-9 Page Page 12 ICS Solutions Windows Azure Assessment &Migration Package ICS Solutions Windows Azure Assessment &Migration Service Overview & Stage 1 Computer Nodes & Azure Storage, SQL Azure, Access Control, Service Bus & Data Transfer Code Analysis & Breaking changes, Non-Breaking changes Overall Summary & Database Analysis Stage 2 Triage & Stage 3 Business Case & Microsoft Solutions Framework Stage 4 Migration planning & implementation

2 ICS Solutions Windows Azure Assessment & Migration Package The key barriers to migrating an application to Windows Azure are: 1. Understanding which parts of your application will and will not run in Windows Azure. 2. Understanding the time, cost and complexity of changing the non-compliant elements to run in Windows Azure. 3. Understanding the application running costs on Windows Azure. The ICS Solutions Windows Azure Assessment and Migration Package has been developed to address these barriers in a predictable and cost effective manner. The package is a combination of the following services, tools and processes: ICS Solutions Professional Services workshops, consulting, processes and management. ICS Solutions Azure running costs Calculation Tool provides a Windows Azure running cost estimate based on identifiable parameters. ICS Solutions Code Scanning Tool scanning managed code to identify, categorise and report non-compliant for Windows Azure. Languages include: VB.NET, C#, J#, F#, Managed C++. SQL Server Scanning Tool scanning the SQL Server database to identify non-compliant elements for Windows Azure. The combination of services and tools based automation achieves in hours, what would normally take days or weeks to perform manually. This lowers the costs of investigating migration to realistic levels, and allows investment to be focused on the new platform rather than discovery of the old.

3 ICS Solutions Azure Assessment & Migration Package Overview Phase 1 Phase 2 Phase 3 Phase 4 Overview Code Analysis Database Analysis Triage Business Case Envision Consult Tool Tool Consult Consult Understand Assess Document Analyse Categorise Analyse Categorise Assess Scale Prioritise High Level Estimates Build Costs Running Costs ROI Plan Develop Stabilise Deploy The Windows Azure Assessment and Migration Package has been designed to help ISV and Corporate customers to understand and estimate costs of moving applications to Windows Azure. The Service is broken down into 4 phases. Options Phase 1 is a 3 day fixed engagement charged at 2,900 Phase 2-4 are all optional and are based upon the complexity of the application

4 Stage 1 Overview Understand The process begins with a discussion of the application and its function and an understanding of its overall design. Architectural design considerations will be discovered at this stage and these will provide an early insight into the critical migration tasks and challenges. Technical details such as third party components, unsupported technologies and integration requirements will be identified. The discussion will then set these technical aspects in the context of the key business drivers for migration to the Cloud - including timescales, user expectations, and budget constraints. During the Assess stage The feasibility of the migration is assessed and the scope and scale of the migration is determined. Items for consideration include: Architecture Design Scalability Performance Business Drivers Timescales Personnel Skills Third Party Components Integration Requirements Azure running cost estimates Key personnel and skill requirements are assessed to develop an understanding of the resources available within the customer organisation, and any additional resource they may require.

5 Compute Nodes A Compute Node is any device connected to a computer network. Nodes can be computers, personal digital assistants (PDAs), mobile phones, or various other network appliances. On an IP network, a node is any device with an IP address. Compute Nodes can be estimated by examining an existing installation and matching the Compute Nodes with their physical counterparts. There are larger instance sizes available, but often a large number of small instances are preferred to a smaller number of large instances. To meet availability requirements, there should always be at least 2 Nodes. In more complex applications, there will be web front end instances (Web Roles), and background processing instances (Worker Roles) and this increases the number of Compute Nodes even further.

6 Windows Azure Storage Windows Azure storage consists of Blobs, which correspond to files such as images, videos, Office documents and Windows Azure Tables which store semi-structured data. Files may already be stored on disk by the application, so these correspond directly to Blobs. In other scenarios, files may be in a SQL database and there are cost benefits in taking these out and putting them into Windows Azure storage at lower cost. To measure the cost of accessing Windows Azure storage, estimates of the applications access to the file system can be measured using Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI). SQL Azure In a standard database application, the existing database is the best guide for sizing the storage requirements. Room for expansion needs to be considered, as SQL Azure databases are provided in a set of standard sizes. A database close to the boundary of a standard size specification may need to consider using the next largest size. Access Control This is the number of authentication operations in a minute. This would be instrumented using WMI. Service Bus The Service Bus is priced on the number of connected systems. This could be the accounting system and scheduling system, corresponding to 2 devices, or it could be every partner organisation in a dealership network, potentially running into hundreds of connections. Packs of connections are the most cost effective way of buying connections. Data Transfer This is amount of data entering and leaving the data centre. This includes web pages and graphics users are viewing, the data in forms being submitted back. It also includes files downloaded, uploaded and videos watched. This can also be measured using WMI and Internet Information Server (IIS) logs in an existing application.

7 Code Analysis Analyse Code analysis will be applied to the projects that comprise the application, and this will produce a baseline of issues requiring attention. Issues can be attributed at the assembly level, and these are generally associated with choices of technology.

8 Individual issues are associated at the method level, and these are centred on specific coding techniques which may require alternatives to be designed. Categorise Issues are classified as breaking and non-breaking. Breaking issues are usually those that require a code change, or which employ techniques or technologies that are not currently supported. Nonbreaking issues will generally be those that require configuration changes. Breaking Change Non-Breaking Change

9 Overall Summary

10 Database Analysis Analyse On premise SQL Server databases will be analysed to identify unsupported features. This testing will identify individual use of keywords and technologies that will prevent the database from moving. Databases from other vendors will require a separate migration path, requiring a translation of database schema and database logic to SQL Server. The results of this migration will then be checked using the same database analysis tools. Finally, the database capacity and growth expectations will be considered to assess the most suitable database container size to hold the database. In very large databases, database sharding techniques may be needed to hold the database across several database containers. Database sharding entails a significant redesign of the database and application. Categorise Breaking issues include unsupported technologies such as reporting services, CLR, backup and file system related operations. Non-breaking issues include keywords such as SELECT INTO.

11 Stage 2 Triage Assess The code analysis and database analysis phases generate two forms of output, the first being an XML document, the other being a text document listing all issues. The two documents are consolidated into a spread sheet where times scales can be assigned. Scale The issues are assessed for their importance in conjunction with the client, and estimates are made on how long they will take to be implemented. Options can be considered at this stage to modify, redesign or drop features which will produce a range of costs and timescales. Priorities Priorities are assigned to the issues and this may form the basis of staged delivery of versions and features over time. At the end of this stage, a range of migration costs will be determined, reflecting different features and options to be converted. Stage 3 - Business Case Build Costs The triage stage will produce costs and timescales for individual technical issues and from design considerations noted during the Overview stage. For complex applications, it is likely that a number of options may present themselves, where certain features are not migrated, or parts of the application require substantial redesign. This will result in a spectrum of costs and timescales, depending on the level of change or migration. Running Costs Operational costs on Windows Azure can be difficult to assess, but capacity costs such as database storage, number of web and worker role instances, number of messages and access control requests will be considered to estimate the likely operational costs of the new Cloud application. Like the build costs, these may vary depending on the type of migration planned. Return on Investment Return on Investment will be assessed based on the expected build and running costs, and on comparisons with current running costs and expected opportunities of the cloud platform.

12 Microsoft Solutions Framework The MSF Process Model describes a high-level sequence of activities for building and deploying IT solutions, and is flexible enough to accommodate with a broad range of IT projects. The MSF model consists of 5 phases: Envision Phase: The envisioning phase identifies the vision and scope of the project by preparing a vision and scope document. During this phase, goals for the project are formed and a vision statement is created that defines the entire project. This shared vision helps the team to work towards a common objective. Plan Phase: During this phase, the existing environment is assessed to form a solution design. The main activity of this phase is to do a detailed planning to ensure success of the project. In this phase, a master project plan deliverable is created that consists of all sub-plans, such as the test plan, and development plan. Develop Phase: During this phase, the application components undergo transformation based on the development plans. Stabilise Phase: During this phase, all the components are tested collectively to ensure that the entire solution operates properly. The testing criteria include achieving the desired functionality, security, and performance requirements. To ensure this, both white box and black box testing are performed. The tested database and components form the deliverables of this stage. Deploy Phase: In this phase, the team deploys the solution and ensures that it is stable and can be used. The tested solution is moved into production and transferred to operations.

13 Stage 4 Migration Planning A project plan is created to implement changes to the application. Where a staged delivery of functionality over several iterations is required, there will be project plans within the main plan for each release. At this stage, consideration can also be given to whether the application architecture will be adapted to work with Windows Azure Web and Worker roles, and the provision of queues to allow them to communicate. This kind of change will require a separate design exercise. Skills transfer tasks are identified where necessary, as a prelude to the beginning of migration. Implementation Development environments are updated to include the local Windows Azure development fabric and code analysis tools. An instance of SQL Server 2008R2 is setup to host any relational databases required by the application. Tasks are entered into Team Foundation Server (if available) where they can be tracked and monitored. ICS Solutions Azure Accelerator Campaign ICS Solutions have created an Azure Accelerator campaign to assist organisations who are considering moving their application to Azure. Requiring a Business Case and the answers to the following questions this could take a lot of time and money: 1) What will it cost to move my application to Azure 2) What will it cost me to run when its on Azure 3) Without the ICS Solutions Windows Azure Assessment and Migration tool answering these questions is likely to be very expensive and time consuming. Training would need to take place, to a standard where they would be confident making estimates, this in itself has taken ICS Solutions 6 months. Then the customer would need to use Azure to manually look at every line of existing source code to assess what would need to change, which could take weeks. This process would cost up to 50K, when the ICS Solutions Windows Azure Assessment and Migration Package can provide the answers to the two key questions for around 3K and in just 3 days.

14 Contacting us For further information about ICS Solutions and how they can benefit your business, us at or call (01256) (0)