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Aidmatrix & Cloud TechnologiesAccelerating Humanitarian Relief
About The Aidmatrix Foundation
Aidmatrix is an international nonprofit sponsored by some of the world’s leading corporations
We leverage innovative solutions from industry and apply them to the Nonprofit world
We provide: the Right Aid to the Right People at the Right Time™
Aidmatrix affects more than 65 million people and 40,000 nonprofits
We and our partners orchestrate more than $1.5 Billion in Aid each year over our solutions
Our WorkCloud / Software as a Service Applications for 40,000 Users
• Supply Chain Management– Asset Registry– In-Kind Donations Management– Transportation Donations
Management – Needs Management– Procurement– Online Warehouse – Online Ordering – Online Auction – Fleet Management – Digital Hub
• Other Solutions– Volunteer Management– Fundraising
• Financial Donations Mgt.• Workplace Giving• Virtual Aid Drive®
– Program Mgt & Evaluation– Custom Solutions– Managed Services
• Financial Management• Information Technology• Logistics• Social Media
Our Organization
• About us– 50+ Staff, Headquartered
in Dallas, Texas – Offices in Germany and
India
• Financial Support from several sources– Private Funding and
Foundations – Corporate and Government
Support– Small service fees/co-pay
• Our Impact– World’s Largest
Humanitarian Aid Delivery Platform
– Over $1.5 Billion in Aid delivered each year on 5 continents
– Most of the Corporate Donated food in the USA flows over one or more Aidmatrix systems
– National Disaster Relief Donations Platform: USA, 4 other countries, NATO, UN
Architect
SA– Manish Misri
SA– Sophek Tounn
Team Lead & SA–
Sangeetha Srinavisan
SA– Dana Speranza
Avanade Sol. Engineer (8)-
India
Sr. SA
Experis / Manpower
Product Management and Support / QA
Product Manager – Amir
Tabei
Product Manager – Bob
Good
PT PM & Support - David
Makepeace
- Australia
Quality Assurance - JingJing
P/T QA and Testing –India
P/T QA Support
Manfred - EMEA
Infrastructure Services
Supranet Network
Engineer (3)
Microsoft Azure/SQL DB/BPOS
McNeely Oracle DBA
PC Configuration &
Support
Web Development
Delivery Team Structure
Enabling NGOs, Businesses and Governments and around the globe
Unpacking our Partners’ potential to help those in need and create permanent change
Why does Aidmatrix run Cloud Technology?
• As a small to medium company – it provides us– 100% of our internal business applications
are SaaS– Virtual-Office Flexibility / On-Demand
Collaboration– Continuous Operations /Disaster Readiness
• As a Solutions Provider – it provides our partners:– Low implementation and maintenance costs– Simplification of their IT environment (a PC
with a Internet browser )– Quick deployment times– Automatic technology updates
Why does Aidmatrix run Cloud Technology?
• Supported 400% growth in 5 Years• User Support increases from 10,000 to 40,000+• Internal Users increased from 9 to 50+ • New Offices in Europe, India and Australia
• Reduced Average “IT” Application Cost• Approx $48 Per Person Per Month• Application-release support 98% training• Excludes PC, Voice, Data, Cell
• Continuity Operations / Disaster Recovery Improved • Able to close office for 2 days with no disruption in service or
operations
Why does Aidmatrix run Azure ?
• Aidmatrix decided in 2007 to investigate Cloud options to replace 100% of our data centers, servers, etc.
• Major business drivers:– Disaster workload surge can be 10,000X in a day requiring a
higher capital investment in servers • Linked to Aidmatrix from both Obama and McCain’s website, Today Show, etc
– International Growth requiring new international data centers– 15 to 20% of technology team time spent on infrastructure
planning, implementation and support and not on innovation– Desire to increase innovation by being on a platform with
“automatic” access to new technology releases
Why does Aidmatrix run Azure ?
• Evaluated cloud offerings from all major providers– Production application on Force.com and Rackspace Sites– Development testing on Rackspace Server,– POC on Google App, Two POCs on Azure
• Selection Criteria– Aidmatrix Solutions make extensive use of Microsoft Technologies– Reduces operating costs for our mission / program efforts– Reduces development costs and time– Frees up key team members to focus on innovation – not infrastructure
• Selected Azure in Q2 2010 after second POC with Microsoft– Validated migration cost and technology was production-ready– Run some minor informational websites on Rackspace Clouds due to
cost advantage.
Why does Aidmatrix run Azure ?
• Production Workload – 2 production deployment in 2010– 3 production deployments in 2011
• Next one to occur in December or January– 10+ production deployments planned in 2012
• 33% of migration effort done
• Cost Savings– 20% reduction in datacenter costs for migrated applications– 50% reduction costs when deploying to new international data
center– 20% reduction in staffing overhead
The Details
• Applications Migrated– Project Monitoring and Evaluations
• Client Data Collection and Reporting
– Integration Hub• Azure SQL and On-Premises .Net integration code to share data between
applications
– Monitoring and Backup “Framework”• Used to monitor Azure applications and run backups
– Online Warehouse• Warehouse Management application used by Disaster Response Teams • Track donations movements in warehouses and provide enterprise visibility
– Information and Communication Portal• Deployed in Hong Kong Data Center for Japan Tsunami Response• Enables information sharing between partners
Azure Services Leveraged
SQL Azure
Azure Storage
Web Role (2)Internet
Azure Storage
Web Role (2)
Email Alerts
SQL Azure for Backups
Lessons Learned
• Functionality Differences– Make sure to research the support on Azure as there are differences
• Support for ADO.net Excel driver – We had to re-write the upload logic
• ADO.net connection retry logic– We wrote a tool to automate this effort
• Data persistence on the Web Roles– We developed strategies to manage content files in local storage to balance
cost versus return– Quarterly Change - Deploy in package – Weekly Change – Azure Drive (aka X-Drive) Support with a service to detect
changes and remount, Changes done via Admin that access read/write version– Hourly Changes – Blob Storage– New application in Blob or Azure SQL
Lessons Learned
• Data Backup strategy– Backup is not “easy”– Developed a tool set to automate online-copy of Azure SQL– Deploy application packages to Azure Storage to provide online copy
for re-deploy– Manual backup of Azure Storage– Red-Gate Backup for cost-effective offline backup of Azure
• Recovery– Recovery is “easy” once the backup is available– Web-Role only outage – deploy to a new Azure data-center and
connect to storage and SQL at remote data center– Full-Outage deploy the application, SQL and content to new Azure site
Lessons Learned
• Blob Storage Access Error / Network is blocking 304 http” – In particular, the “If Modified Since” cache parameter was not being set
as needed.
– Solutions Identified:• Use the Blob API to assign the If Modified Since cache parameter• Use java script to preload the images from the blob• Cache blog images to server
– While testing this option, determined that if we access the blobs via https prevents the error
• Cold Fusion– Blue Dragon Toolset– Latency accessing blob storage required re-write of Flash objects to
handle pre-loading
Lessons Learned
• SQL Azure database
- Database migration – its easier to migrate the entire database that do an incremental updates
- Login and database roles set up is through sql commands• User account expiration in RDP• Setting up SSL on Azure• Windows service in Azure
– Custom logic to verify the current running instance of the server to handle email notifications.
Lessons Learned
• ASP Provider can introduce overhead when rendering image folders– http://blogs.msdn.com/b/windowsazureappfabric/archive/2011/04/28/wi
ndows-azure-appfabric-caching-service-released.aspx - use AppFabric Caching (if you're not using ReportViewerControl)
– http://nuget.org/List/Packages/System.Web.Providers - replacement to ASPProvider to avoid the overhead
– If the use of ASPProvider can't be avoided, host images to a separate site where Session state is disabled (site that doesn't require session state)
Lessons Learned
• Support– Must define New Processes for engaging with Azure Support– Be certain to include escalation processes and billing– Performance and Resource monitoring must be done
• Agile– Ability to ramp-up/ramp-down environment matches sprints nicely– No environmental issues when move from integration to staging to
sandbox to production
• New Data Center Ramp-Up time dramatically simplified– Contracting already in-place– Billing already in place– Skills consistent
Recommended Resources
• Subscribe to the Azure blog– Keep abreast of the new bits coming out
• Check out Cloud Cover on Channel 9– Ex: Scaling Counting with Table Storage
• Check out PDC09 and BUILD conference videos– Ex: Deep dive into Table Storage– Ex: Building global and highly-available services using
Windows Azure
• Retry Logic– http
://code.msdn.microsoft.com/windowsazure/Transient-Fault-Handling-b209151f
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/agile/archive/2011/12/02/announcing-the-enterprise-library-integration-pack-for-windows-azure-with-autoscaling-transient-fault-handling-and-more.aspx
Thank You
Sangeetha SrinivasanSenior Solution Architect / Team Lead
Aidmatrix
Michael RossVice President
Aidmatrix
