Case Study. Highly Available, Fault Tolerant Cloud Solution & AWS Managed Support. Case Study. A Telehealthcare Company

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1 Highly Available, Fault Tolerant Cloud Solution & AWS Managed Support A Telehealthcare Company Compunnel Software Group

2 Highly Available, Fault Tolerant Cloud Solution & AWS Managed Support Ensuring High Availability to Critical Patient Care Information & Extremely Reliable Cloud System Performance Our customer is a telehealthcare company based in Phoenix, Arizona. The company has over a decade of experience in delivering software solutions for clinical needs, such as telestroke, online urgent care, ED throughput, store and forward referrals, patient discharge, and patient communities. The company simplifies telehealth with a suite of online collaboration tools that make it easy to provide specialty services anytime, anywhere. These tools work together to provide the full continuum of care. The company was founded by practicing physicians. It has a board of directors and a clinical advisory team with extensive healthcare industry experience. The workflow around patient care is complex, involving numerous interconnected parts. Any single episode of care can involve multiple specialists, span across departments and require patient encounters in various locations. The company offers solutions that bring people, processes and technology together to efficiently deliver remote care across the continuum from admission to discharge, follow-up clinics and into the home. - The customer has over a decade of experience in delivering clinical software solutions, including telestroke, online urgent care, ED throughput, store and forward referrals, patient discharge, and patient communities. - The company has a suite of approximately 15 applications, which were developed using Microsoft.Net 4.5 and SQL Server The company s telehealth solutions are workflow-aware, cloud-based and device-agnostic; enabling remote care delivery to anyone, anywhere, at any time. The company has a suite of approximately 15 applications, which were developed using Microsoft.Net 4.5 and SQL Server The company sought help from 0-Downtime Cloud Solutions by Compunnel s expert team to make these applications highly available and fault tolerant on the Amazon Web Services (AWS) platform. Backed by years of experience in successful cloud implementation with customers across numerous industries, 0-Downtime provides an extensive range of highly tailored cloud solutions and managed services. Compunnel was selected to help the customer achieve its cloud system and application objectives with the following custom technology services and processes: Strategy, design and deployment plan for the applications on the Amazon Web Services (AWS) platform Deploy Microsoft Windows Server Failover Clustering and Microsoft SQL Server AlwaysOn availability groups in the AWS cloud Ongoing support and maintenance of applications on the cloud to ensure high availability and reliable performance. The Customer s Business Challenges The company had already done its own proof-of-concept and tested applications on the AWS cloud. It had also deployed applications on the cloud, using a homegrown AWS architecture. However, the company was facing the following issues, because it lacked the right cloud and technical expertise inhouse to solve them. They faced a constant downtime issue, which was causing an availability problem at the time of need when people were trying to access existing databases and reporting services. To complete successful migration from the current infrastructure and cloud adoption, the company needed stronger cloud expertise than what the team had in-house. When maintenance was required, the system had to be stopped. This resulted in a negative impact on the business and potential revenue losses. Existing databases also lacked encryption, making database security a matter of great concern for the customer Compunnel Software Group

3 Approach & Compunnel s Customized Solutions Our Approach For applications to be migrated to the Amazon AWS platform, the company required high availability. To prevent any service downtime, the company also needed to implement SQL Server AlwaysOn Availability Groups. Working with the company, 0-Downtime s Cloud Experts took a deep look at the applications to be deployed on the cloud and helped customers define and document the strategy and roadmap for the AWS deployment. Based on the discussions and information provided, the 0- Downtime Cloud Experts recommended the following approach to address the company s requirements: Identify the critical and non-critical applications Identify the downtime Service Level Agreement (SLA), recovery time objective and recovery point objective for the critical and non-critical applications Identify the potential implications with the cloud transition and analyze alignment with distributing the applications using multi-az architecture Identify the potential implications and analyze alignment for distributing the applications using multi-region architecture Analyze alignment with using AWS inherent fault tolerant building blocks in the application architecture. Then, categorize the recommendations in terms of priority and roadmaps. Recommend specific best practices to be addressed in architecting the required solutions: o Leverage AWS high availability features o Use AWS inherently fault tolerant building blocks o Apply design for failure principles Present the benefits of introducing AWS high availability best practices into the overall system architecture - The 0-Downtime Team engaged its Amazon AWS Architects to recommend and define a customized, best practice-based architecture to deploy the company s applications on the AWS platform. - The company s requirements for the 0-Downtime Cloud Solutions involved the following approach: -Leverage the high availability features with the AWS platform -Use AWS inherent fault tolerant building blocks -Apply design for failure principles to optimize availability and performance 0-Downtime Cloud Solutions by Compunnel Based on the discussions and requirements defined in the discovery phase, the 0-Downtime AWS Architects recommended a customized, best practice-based architecture for the customer s applications. Initially, mockup designs that explained the stipulated workflow of the registration process, were created and shared with key personnel to get a buy-in and ensure alignment. The 0-Downtime Cloud Expert Team helped the company define the design and architecture needed to deploy the applications in AWS. Based on the challenges faced, the primary deliverables included enhancements for: Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) Subnets Security Groups Microsoft Active Directory Services Setup Cluster Witness Setup SQL Server Nodes The 0-Downtime team implemented Microsoft Server Failover Clustering (WSFC) and SQL Server 2012 AlwaysOn Availability Groups in the AWS cloud. The solutions also delivered: An AlwaysOn database with required encryption SQL Server reporting services with high availability To ensure continuous uptime post-deployment, the 0-Downtime team is now supporting the company s AWS cloud infrastructure on an ongoing basis, 24/ Compunnel Software Group

4 Amazon AWS Cloud Architecture Compunnel Software Group

5 Benefits & Outcomes Amazon Web Services Advantages in the Cloud The Amazon Web Services cloud platform offers a complete set of infrastructure and application services that enable you to run virtually everything in the cloud -from enterprise applications and big data projects to social games and mobile apps. The Amazon Web Services platform gave the customer the following infrastructure advantages: Elasticity: EC2 instances can be added or removed based on load patterns. Adding or removing instances is a very quick process and it can be done at the click of a button. High Availability: Instances can be distributed across multiple Availability Zones (AZs) for high availability within a region. Fault Tolerance: Inherently fault tolerant building blocks, like S3, EBS, CloudWatch, SQS, SNS, and SES, can be used for storage, monitoring, and messaging Security: VPC, security groups, IAM policies, MFA, and secure access through keys can be leveraged to ensure maximum security Business Benefits 0-Downtime Cloud Solutions helped the company achieve its high availability and fault-tolerant business goals for its cloud system and applications. The cloud solution also helped the business achieve the following: -0-Downtime is an Advanced AWS Consulting Partner. -The Amazon Web Services cloud platform offers a complete set of infrastructure and application services that enable you to run virtually everything in the cloud from enterprise applications and big data projects to social games and mobile apps. -With AWS, you have access to the same reliable, secure technology platform that is used to power Amazon.com s global web properties Unlike before, maintenance could be provided without affecting other business applications or impacting the business and potential revenue. When a part of the system fails, the new fault-tolerant feature enables the system to continue operating, at a reduced level, instead of failing completely as it would have previously done. Now, periodic server maintenance on the company s databases can be initiated and processed while running normal business applications. Weekly status reports were created and shared to track the work done by their offshore team. For instance, time tracking processes required developers to clock-in when working on specific tasks and then clock-out when the task is completed. This process allowed the company to accurately document and track the work done. 0-Downtime also performed regular internal efficiency audits. To ensure that operations are running efficiently, 0-Downtime s internal management team audited performance on a weekly basis for the company s team Compunnel Software Group

6 The Compunnel Difference 0-Downtime Cloud Solutions The Right Choice 0-Downtime Cloud Solutions provides extensive cloud technology expertise and a proven track record to help businesses address a wide range of cloud deployment and cloud maturity needs. We provide exceptional project management based on processes perfected over almost 20 years of delivering business technology services and successful customer outcomes. Compunnel provides consultative advice on the most effective approaches and ways to save on costs. We explain how we will ensure that each project is primed for success. We provide roadmap assessments and consultative guidance, discovery, design, building, deployment and operational support. We understand that for an effective transition to the cloud, an integrated approach is necessary to realize the full business value of cloud computing. We will walk you through every step to achieve a successful outcome and provide unparalleled support where you need it, short-term and long-term. We provide highly specialized and cost-effective teams drawing from our expert IT resources of 1,000+ worldwide. The 0-Downtime Team of deep cloud experts with years of experience in cloud consulting helped the customer develop an integrated solution to address its business challenges. 0-Downtime is a leading, Advanced AWS Consulting Partner, helping customers leverage AWS Web Service s secure, highly preferred on-demand cloud infrastructure. Through the use of Amazon Web Services infrastructure and application services and effective cloud implementations, 0- Downtime Cloud Solutions helps customers unleash tremendous flexibility and cost optimization along with performance, scalability and responsiveness improvements. For more information about 0-Downtime Cloud Solutions, visit call (800) or us at contactus@compunnel.com Compunnel Software Group is a leading global business technology services company. Recognized for our comprehensive portfolio of technology services and outsourcing solutions, we combine extensive industry knowledge with highly tailored application development and information management services. Application Development Cloud Solutions Business Intelligence Learning Solutions IT Staffing Compunnel Software Group