Microservices, Microsoft, Microsoft Azure, Software Development Insights, Technical

Microsoft LEAP: Design for Performance and Scalability

I’m at Microsoft for LEAP and we just wrapped up another day of interesting discussions. If you missed my update regarding day 1, make sure to have a look at it here.

Today’s theme was Design for Performance and Scalability. Many legacy applications are being replaced because they are not performance-oriented and scalable at their core. This is something that has to be introduced right from the design stage. Today’s speakers covered many of the core areas which need to be optimized to enable both performance and scalability.

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Vamshidhar Kommineni took us right from breakfast to using Azure storage for the data storage needs of Azure applications and how it can be used to enhance performance. Vamshidhar spoke about the innovations in the storage services layer made in the year 2019. He also shared briefly that plans for 2020. 

Corey Newton-Smith was next and focused on IoT applications. Corry has been with Microsoft since 2003 and currently functions as the Principal Group PM for IoT Central. She shared the current state of IoT and Microsoft’s plans for the near future highlighting their vision.

Corey explains that Azure IoT represented a new era of digitization amongst industries. It was an innovation that allowed brands the ability to do so much more. The objective behind the production of this platform is enabling a digital feedback loop. She discussed that Microsoft had done so much to make the IoT better. Now, it was capable of bidirectional communication, can be scaled to suit enterprise of any size and provides end-to-end security. Microsoft was planning an improvement that would allow it to support scenarios that are not currently cloud feasible. What’s more? Everything can be tailored specifically to the exact solutions that you need.

The next session began after some light mingling during the coffee break. It was back to business with Jose Contreras and his keynote on decomposing Monoliths into Microservices.

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Enterprise applications have made a gradual transition from being monolithic to being Microservice based. Jose explained strategies that can help with this process focussing on Memory, Computing, and Schema. He then discussed migrating existing monolith applications into Microservices without affecting ongoing operations. He focussed on the design, execution, and DevOps aspects.

Jose spoke on a number of factors to really prove the usefulness of transforming monolith to microservices. As part of his talk, he highlighted the factors to consider in making use of this service, differences between private and shared cache and considerations for using cache.

Interestingly, he moved on and started talking about Azure Compute. He listed all of their available services and gave detailed information on its hosting models, DevOps Criteria, Scalability criteria, and other criteria.

Clemens Vasters’s keynote focussed on how messaging is shaping enterprise applications. Importantly, he spoke on how Microsoft Azure could make all of it better.
He is a Product Architect at Microsoft and highlighted how open standards and messaging can be used to move applications to the cloud. Some of the areas he touched on were Event Hubs, Service Bus, Event Grid, and CNCF Cloud Events, and Relay with web sockets.

According to him, users can use a series of options to connect a range of devices. Ease of connectivity is guaranteed by the use of intelligent edge or intelligent cloud. Basically, it can be applied to varying scales and still work well with Telco 4G/5G. Despite all of this, cloud services can be applied to create automotive and smart cities, support industrial automation and speed up processes.

Clemens continued by clearing the air on the standards which the cloud service operated on. Everything is built according to standards and designed to be secure. Such was the level of quality in display.

After a quick lunch break, an alternative session was conducted for those who were already familiar with the campus. This session on Messaging Guidance was conducted by Francis Cheung and was related to session 4. However, Francis focused more on how we could assess if some of those tools were a good fit for our projects. He also touched on managing and versioning message schemas.

Next was David Barkol’s session focusing on Designing an Event-driven Architecture on Azure through a workshop approach. He challenged attendees to solve problems related to messaging in a group setting. As a Principal Technical Specialist for Azure, David used his vast experience to reinforce the existing knowledge of attendees about Azure messaging services. He really had a lot of interesting things to say.

Using a few simple statements, he was able to highlight the problems of the customer, identify their needs and how to solve them with the use of event-driven architecture. As a platform, the event-driven architecture will eliminate any bottlenecks and allow for easier transmission of information. Azure messaging services will solve all of the demands identified by the consumer. He also mentioned that Event Hubs GeoDR will also provide a backup or secondary region.

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Derek Li conducted his keynote next. He focussed on Serverless platforms based on Azure Functions and Logic Apps. Derek is a Senior Program Manager. His keynote focused on how serverless technologies have impacted how applications are built. He also spoke on how Azure Functions and Logic Apps can be used to speed up delivery.

The last session was after a very welcome Cola Zero break. It refreshed us for Rahul Kalaya’s keynote on deriving insights from IoT Data with Azure Time Series Insights.
Rahul spoke about design choices, principles and lessons learned with regards to maintaining the highest possible uptime of cloud databases and servers. Many stories from his experiences with Azure SQL made the keynote even more interesting.
And that was it. The completion of a day of meaningful sessions.

I look forward to sharing my next article on Day 3: Designing for Availability and Recoverability.

Cosmos DB, Microservices, Microsoft Azure, Mongo DB, Software Development Insights, Technical

Microsoft LEAP: Designing for the Cloud

The Microsoft LEAP is an event for the developers worldwide who are looking for original training from Microsoft.  It takes place annually in Microsoft headquarters in Redmond, WA. The five-day conference helps the attendees to fully understand how Microsoft products can be used and how they can solve the problems of the companies. This time, the participants learned how to design a cloud in an up-to-date fashion.

 

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The following piece will provide you with a glimpse through the Microsoft Leap program. The sections are the highlights with the greatest impact and effect on the developers’ community.

Deep Dive into Cloud Computing: Azure Strategy

On January 28, Microsoft kicked off the Leap program for software architects and engineers. There were loads of speakers on the agenda. Among them, Scott Guthrie was one of the strongest. Scott is in charge of Microsoft’s cloud infrastructure, servers, CRM and many more tools. He was the leader of the team that created Microsoft Azure. In his keynote, “Designed for Developers”, he discussed cloud computing technology. His aim was to help the developers with a different level of skills to reach one goal, which is sustainable development and use of cloud computing.

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Scott focused on how to develop clouds and maintain them.  The session was concluded with the presentation of Microsoft’s anticipated plan of providing Quantum Computing in their Azure technology.

The Strong Impact of Microservice Architecture

On this issue,  the most memorable was the session featured by Francis Cheung and Masashi Narumoto. They talked about microservices and the strong architecture that they hold. This architecture is considered a paragon in the world of cloud computing as it has raised the bar.

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The speakers mentioned several important features of a strong company that has the potential to succeed. And it was well-established that the success of microservice implementation depends mostly on a well-developed team with a strong strategy (preferable domain-driven).

 

No matter how beneficial microservices could be, it is not necessarily the right choice for your business. You need to be well aware of your products and the level of complexity your business needs. Having extra unrequired tools will set you back rather than take you anywhere.

SQL HyperScale as a Close Based Data Solution

This session was different as it celebrated two decades of Pass and 25 years of SQL technology being used. The speaker, Raghu Ramakrishnan,  has been Microsoft’s CTO since he moved from Yahoo in 2012. With his strong background and experience, Raghu was the best candidate to discuss the use of SQL Hyperscale and how groundbreaking this technology has been.

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The Hyperscale service has become a crucial update to the currently existing services. According to Ramakrishnan, this is the most modern technology of SQL services which has the highest storage with the most computing performance. This precise model has up to 100 TB of the database.

 

This technology is generally used to replace cloud computing database structures as it is more reliable and accessible than other alternatives. Microsoft has added many features to the SQL hyperscale making it the leading databasing solution in the market. With the amazing features discussed in the talk, it was really worth a separate session.

The Commercial Database: Cosmos Database

Deborah Chen, the Cosmos Database program manager at Microsoft, took the time to discuss the most viral commercial form of database out there. Most current implementations use non-relational databases. The Cosmos DB is one of the most widely used sources for databasing.

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As it was mentioned by Deborah, the Cosmos DB is a very volatile and responsive tool. With numerous transactions taking place in a second, response to applications (especially for real-time) is a very sensitive thing. since it is a non-relational database, the retrieving and storing of data is easier and faster. Thus, this is where Cosmos stands out, as it was intentionally created with an architecture aimed at handling such tasks.

 

She also discussed the use of Service Level Agreements (SLA). This agreement helps to provide guarantees, availability, and latency for all users, making Cosmos DB the most viral product out there.

Monitoring Your Procedures Using Azure Monitoring

Rahul Bagaria, a product manager of Azure monitoring, joined later on to talk about the importance of monitoring your work, flow, and operations.  But the monitoring process is not limited to single tasks only but to the connections, workflow, and final output. To monitor all the steps taken through the procedure is important for maintaining efficient delivery and quality assurance as a whole. It is also beneficial to pick out errors and problems in the cycle, may they arise.

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This is where Azure monitoring kicks in, with many strong details like log analytics and application insights. Rahul emphasized the importance of this tool and all the features it provides. His team has worked hard to provide a service that can help with multiple tasks, milestones, and services. This session helped the developers to learn why and how to monitor their work processes.

 

All in all, the first day at Microsoft LEAP 2019 was very on-topic and interesting. I look forward to the next sessions. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me at bjorn.nostdahl@gunnebo.com

DevOps, Microservices, Operations, Software Development Insights, Technical

Microsoft LEAP: Accelerating Business Value

This is my third article from Microsoft LEAP and todays’ focus is the use of microservices and Kubernetes.

Containers Are Crucial For the More Essential Microservices

A very important topic that was discussed throughout the agenda of the conference was the use of Microservices and how essential they are for most applications for the business sectors. With different approaches and angles to this topic, Brendand Buns, one of Kubernetes co-founder, gave a session which focused on the use of containers for microservices. He focused on his product, Kubernetes, which is one of the best and most recommended open-source services for the use containers with the use of policies. Microservices are important due to their ability of being agile and their sophisticated architecture which helps in a faster digital offering.

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However, currently found microservices are used on physical services which leads to many problems. This is why the use of containers is a breakthrough which gives the user a light runtime environment. It can also be used on physical or virtual servers which is a huge development compare to older technologies.

The use of containers will also help in providing better isolation, due to the use of many executions on only one operating system. Such an opportunity will aid developers in minimizing the use of many different VMs. Brendand discussed the use of Domain driven developments against using test driven developments; in terms the more relatable for businesses and how to pick the right method. Overall, the final conclusion was to reflect the scaling levels that could be reached through using Kubernetes as a service to provide containers while using microservices for your business.

The Use of Service Fabric Mesh

One popular session in the program was by Mark Fussell and Vaclav Turecek. This talk discussed the introduction of the anticipated future product called Service Fabric Mesh, with a full comparison with the currently used cloud service. Many different points have been discussed to describe the service fabric fully. However, the audience got more excited when they heard the different benefits that are met while using this new service.

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Mark spoke about the time taken to create instances of VMs and the hassle in the whole process. This is where service fabric shines as it creates the VMs only once, allowing it to be used through the platform. More packages can be added to the cluster further on without any time consumptions. The second point tackled by Vaclav was the hosting opportunities with service fabric which is described as high-density. Which explains why the cost is lower for service fabrics, as the applications are not connected to the VMs in particular, giving a space to connect more than one application to a single VM.

Last but not least, they both discussed the flexibility of the service fabric mesh to be used with different servers or any different environments, disregarding the current existing infrastructure. They added the fact that service fabric helps in controlling the machine lifecycle. Developers were more educated on the differences between cloud technologies and whether to transfer or not.

The Touch Point: ACI and AKS

When it comes to the use of Azure Container Instances(ACI), Justin Luk, the product manager for Azure and Kuberentes, was the best pick for such content. Developers were glad to know that containers by AKS can be used with their ACIs. The containers can be quickly used when needed without any preps, saving time and effort. Instances will also be easily deleted directly after the needed work is done. AKS is used in these on-demand moments to monitor the work and control the creation and deletion process. This can help developers provide new severs instantly when needed without any hassle. When a certain problem or demand is asked for, AKS are used to reach the needed output without any extra services or products.

An Environment of AKS: Best Practices

Another session that stood out from all the Kubernetes sessions was the one conducted by Saurya Das, another product manager in Azure. This session was to reflect the success stories by some of the developers out there that used AKS in their platforms. Developers were happy to know about the multi-tenancy when using the cluster isolation. In addition, was the different network designs that could be used with their new service. These networks can also be implemented using policies, that help make the development easier and more secure. Overall, everyone in the session was satisfied to know about the scaling opportunities to expect and the strong control for monitoring and handling it possesses.

Monitoring Your Procedures Using Azure Monitoring

On the other hand, Ralph Squillace, gave a wider image and a better understanding on multi-tenancy and their use with AKS. He discussed how it is commonly mistakenly used through the AKS products itself, whereas it is actually recommended to be used in the application directly. Ralph emphasized on such points, by relating to some best practices which were mainly of SaaS products. He gave a few tips and tricks on how your service should be in terms of security, designs, policies and much more in order to be able to integrate and handle the multi-tenancy directly and easily through the application.

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Kubernetes: Guide for its Tools

The end of this section of containers being used was bent towards introducing the different operating tools that will assess developers while using kubernetes services. Bridget Kromhout was able to introduce the developers to new tools as Terraform, Helm, Draft, Brigade, Kashti and many others. These different tools were discussed thoroughly on how to use them in terms of configurations and app development. They were also helpful in scripting for event-driven operations and to manage the app fully. Developers were happy to learn how to efficiently use Kubernetes and containers for their currently existing architectures and structures.

All in all, a very on-topic and interesting day at Micrososft LEAP 2019. I look forward to the next sessions. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me at bjorn.nostdahl@nostdahl.com