Cloud Computing Competence Centre 

Since the year’s halfway point, a new Competency Centre has been under way at Aventia whose purpose is to increase the sale of services and solutions based on Cloud Computing. Its creation arose from the change brought by this new technological trend and what it means for companies in the way applications are developed, implemented, distributed or maintained.

In 2011 the Competency Centre has focused its efforts on deploying its services and solutions in Aventia offices in Madrid, Barcelona and London, taking on the Lisbon and Sao Paulo offices in 2012.

Regarding the technology environment, the initial focus has been on the public cloud, Microsoft Windows Azure, the solidest PaaS-type (Platform Ace To Service) available on the market, at present having the following titles and certifications:

• Microsoft MVP in Windows Azure
• Microsoft Certified Professional in Windows Azure
• Windows Azure Circle
• Windows Azure Cloud Club
• Microsoft Partner Evidence Program for SQL Azure Federation
• Microsoft Windows Azure Enterprise Agreement
• Microsoft Cloud Essentials
• Microsoft Cloud Accelerate

Services offered

The services and solutions offered at present by the Competency Centre include the following:

1. Migration and Optimization Audits

Study of the possibilities of migrating an On Premise application to Windows Azure. At the end of the audit, the client is given a concept test of their application executed in Windows Azure, as well as documentation that includes, among others, a detailed list of modifications made to the application, a migration schedule, an ROI study, or a good practices document.

In the year 2011, the following audits have been carried out:

• SAGE – Migration audit and prototype development of a scalable storage data system in SQL Azure to be accessible thorough SAGE applications that the client has installed in any geographic location. http://www.sage.com/
• DocOnYou – Complete migration to Windows Azure of an electronic invoicing tool with a social network philosophy. http://doconyoubeta.cloudapp.net
• Unit4 – complete migration of a business management application (ERP, CRM, etc…) oriented towards SMEs. http://www.unit4.com/
• Booking Land – complete migration of a hotel accommodation search and booking application. http://www.bookingland.com
• Maatg – complete migration of a PERL platform that acts as an application server. http://www.maatg.com/
• Visure Solutions – complete migration of a management tool for software development requirements. http://www.visuresolutions.com
• CitasOnNet – – complete migration of an appointments booking application for hospitals and private clinics. http://www.citasonnet.com/
• AFI (International Financial Analysts) –complete migration of a risks analysis tool for financial operations. http://www.afi.es/

These types of audits can also be carried out in order to determine what improvements could be applied to an application that is presently executed in Windows Azure so as to optimize performance and the use of resources, thus making its use of Windows Azure more effective and affordable.

2.Windows Azure Studio

Tools suite lacking in the Windows Azure platform, indispensable for properly managing applications, comprised of the following modules:

• Understanding the architecture
• Code and data analysis
• Prototype scope and view
• Prototype development
• Presentation of results

3. Self-Scaling

Windows Azure allows us to quickly increase or decrease the resource capacity that our application has, but there are no self-scaling services, so a service has been developed to monitor the server performance and increase or even decrease the number of instances or amount of storage space, all based on some simple, previously-defined rules determined by the client of the following kind:

• Business rules. These could include user access to particularly sensitive areas of the application, or one strategic for the company, where optimal fluidity during usage is required. There are plenty of business-definable rules based on application usage policy, company strategy or user type.
• Usage. Depends on the number of concurrent users, processor use or storage space.
• Amount used. Based on the figure from the accountability feature in our application that rises above the amount of Windows Azure consumed, so we can define an increase or decrease in the numbers of instances and storage space reserved.
This scaling can also be scheduled as to time, based on predetermined events that can cause changes to the application consumption needs.

4. Health Monitoring

By means of a simple control panel configured by the user, a numerical and graphic display is provided for the main status indicators of the applications housed on Windows Azure, highlighted by the following:

• CPU Use
• Memory use
• Disk size used
• Space used on the database
• Instances of the application currently executing

5. Backup

Due to not having database backup functionality in SQL Azure, a solution has been implemented capable of making backups and system recoveries. To minimize storage costs, the data from these backups is serialized in blobs of Azure Storage, a service at no additional cost.

A backup can be scheduled periodically or executed manually by means of a web management interface. From this web interface, it is possible to recover both the diagram and the data that has been saved.