MODIFYING TRADITIONAL APPLICATIONS FOR MORE COST EFFECTIVE DEPLOYMENT

Transcription

1 MODIFYING TRADITIONAL APPLICATIONS FOR MORE COST EFFECTIVE DEPLOYMENT Eric H. Nielsen Ph.D. VP SaaS Platform Architecture CA Technologies ieee.org IEEE Software Technology Conference STC 2014, Long Beach, CA USA April 2, 2014

2 abstract Traditional business applications will not compete with green field multi-tenant SaaS applications in terms of cost or usability. Still, service providers can provide value in deploying these traditional business applications in the cloud if the application is modified to be more cloud-friendly. In order to make a significant impact on the cost of operation, the application must be tuned to allow use of simpler scalable SaaS-oriented automation for management and operations. The most significant operational improvement for a traditional application is gained through the physical separation of its configuration and persistent user data from its execution resources. Traditionally applications have assumed installation in a single location for their lifetime. This allows persistent data and configuration to be intertwined in and databases, and leads to idiosyncratic maintenance. Decoupling application code, application configuration, and user data typically requires resolving a laundry list of details. Once complete, the application configuration is recreated fresh on every startup, and then remarried to its persistent data. This level of statelessness enables operational maintenance procedures to become simpler and more uniform, and occur with less downtime. This results in reduced cost of ownership, as well as enhanced security. This presentation will describe the experiences, patterns and outcomes of successfully modifying three applications. One application is a large composite providing a multi-tenant service; the second is a complex high performance single tenant application; and the third is an open source multi-tenant application that provides generic UI and community services.

3 What if your App was simpler? Your ApP Your App VMs Your App Transient DB network log log archived User data User data Persisted source content How much faster would you be if

4 Modern PaaS separates user data, execution and configuration I Web Load Balancer responsive App APIs Container App ContainerApp Container async workers Worker Container shared in memory cache PaaS Containers data accelerator local private network Structured Data Persist. Object Store svc task queue log svc svc orchestra tion svc authn svc PaaS Services source content

5 I Your App on a Modern PaaS Web Load Balancer responsive Your App APIs Container code Your App Container code Your App Container code async workers Your Worker code Your Worker code private network shared in memory cache PaaS Containers (no persistence) data accelerator Data user Persist. data Service user & Object app Store objects svc task queue log svc svc orchestra tion svc authn svc orchestration source content PaaS Services (persistence)

6 I What if? orchestration your App was more like a PaaS app! Web Load Balancer source content Your ApP Base VM Your App VMs Your App log log Transient DB private network User data User data Persistent orchestra tion svc Ad Hoc Integration How much simpler, cheaper, better would it be if

7 Once upon a time our App looked like this: Fat Client MS Office plugin?net Web browser Analytics tool client WSDL over http HTML over http proprietary over vpn J2EE admin BG multicast J2EE J2EE BG Analytics tool (3 rd pty) LDAP LDAP Oracle Oracle + diverse installers for many OS & app servers

8 Container Example: Rev. 1 (2011) Unique File Systems Templatized Operational Wrapper Application Specific Hosts Read only host images 8 Copyright 2011 CA Technologies

9 job #1 is: separate execution, user data and config Instance A Common Data App. App. Binarie Binaries s App. Config User Data User Config LOGS Sitespecific Config Resource Config SAME NEW Transient New Instance B

10 Reversing Traditional Assumptions Desire super-flexible install o Manual, diverse installation & upgrade o Idiosyncratic replication & recovery Presume in-place upgrade o Resources, connectivity are static o OS version, other elements out of control o Owns Filesystem & network ports o Tight integrations o Intertwined with third party upgrades o DR? Scaling? Automation to fix the problem Create more complex software to fix software complexity!

11 Functional goals to improves TCO? Backup and restore scenario Consistent backup User-level Restoration in a new instance Flash-cut upgrade Disaster Recovery Lockdown of executable and its configuration Reducing manual steps and complexity together improves TCO, TTV, quality, and incrementally moves toward PaaS architecture.

12 Launch vehicle for job #1 Launch vehicle for Job #1 Stage 1: upgrade by rip and replace J2EE apps with off-line database upgrade (extract local config from local ) Stage 2: upgrade by rip and replace whole maachines. Off-line database upgrade (local config via boundary values, user data on database) Stage 3: orchestrated deployment based on templates with configuration data

13 Web App Tier issues Logs distributed in executable volumes. Config stored in.properties (.war) and other. Options determined by presence/config of plug-ins Distinct UI/component for setting/syncing config. No API. User and deployment config stored mixed. Multicast complexity Good news: User config as data in database Same J2EE code in all components. J2EE J2EE admin BG multicast BG J2EE

14 Design Decision Containers: Baked vrs Built Desirable : Automate/centralize logs, manage disk size for logs separate Make execution disk (mostly) read-only ZDT Upgrade: in place versus replace? Malware detection Vulnerable software App patching

15 Container Example: Rev. 1 (2011) Unique File Systems Templatized Operational Wrapper Application Specific Hosts Read only host images 15 Copyright 2011 CA Technologies

16 Evolving our complex multitenant App?! SAML IDP AD I Web browser Analytics tool client ssh, ldif, etc. HTML SAML https IDentity IDentity SAML SAML FedMgr FedMgr SSO SSO Policy Policy SSO SSO Agent Agent LDAP LDAP log mgr log mgr Oracle Oracle db per tenant

17 Next Gen Steps In general, AuthN should be pulled out of every app, externalized. API for base provisioning Automation Frameworks SDN Network Isolation Eradicate backend admin access for config

18 Process and Cultural Issues Establish new end delivery goals first, Resulting process/culture will be discovered given the right goals. End goals defined in terms of delivery requirements End goals enforced in terms of concrete acceptance tests New disciplines will emerge that are inherently in line with cloud development and a devops mindset.

19 The cloud is getting more flexible Your App is becoming more friendly and someday they will meet, and they will have a fruitful life together.