Data Analytics Meet Up: The Cloud, Microsoft Azure, and The RNC

SEE FARTHER. GO FASTER. 2502 North Rocky Point Dr. Suite 650 | Tampa, FL 33607 | O: 813.968.3238 | www.ccgBI.com

The Cloud, Microsoft Azure,

andthe RNC

Lunch & Learn | September 30, 2016


Agenda

What is the cloud?

Microsoft Azure

RNC’s Azure Migration


Cloud 101IaaS, PaaS, SaaSInfrastructure as a Service

• (near) Total control over the environment• Example: Azure Virtual Machines, Virtual Network infrastructure, Active

Directory/Domains• Think: Environment - Setup

Platform as a Service• Tools used to build something• Example: Azure SQL Database, Azure SQL Data Warehouse, Azure HDInsight

(Hadoop), Azure Machine Learning• Think: Tools - Build

Software as a Service• Specific services or software• Example: Office 365, Salesforce, Azure Portal• Think: Product - Use


But what is it really?Hosted environments using “other people’s hardware”Website and hosting companies have been doing it for years…what’s the difference?A (constantly evolving) hosted suite of infrastructure, platforms, and software that are used to build new applications and environmentsMany products and services geared toward data consumption, reporting, and interconnectivity


Why does it matter?

Cloud providers are growing at an exceptional rate• AWS, Azure, Google all opening new facilities in 2017

IT infrastructure professionals can build environments from a seemingly endless pool of resources

• Quickly• Familiar interfaces (Web Portal, CLI, Powershell, etc.)• Product line continues to evolve

Developers have access to the resources they need and can provision more services as neededOutages and upgrades all managed by provider


Microsoft Azure

Offerings in all three “* as a Service” using many different technologies

• Microsoft technologies• Linux VMs• Oracle Database (12c)• Javascript and various *js extensions• Open Source Big Data technologies like Hadoop, Spark, R, etc.

Geographic redundancy spanning the globeVery high uptime SLA, 99.95% (if configured to spec)


https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/cansql/2015/06/03/microsoft-data-platform-overview/


Major players in cloud technologies

Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for IAAS providersAmazon is estimated to have 10x the amount of capacity of the next 14 cloud competitors

https://www.gartner.com/doc/reprints?id=1-2G2O5FC&ct=150519


Cloud Cons

No physical control over environmentMonthly costs

• VM Size• SQL Server Licensing• Disk sizes (HDD vs SSD)

Charged monthly and/or by usage• Virtual machines charged by uptime• Event hub 2.8₵ per million events



Question…

How quickly can you acquire and begin working on a machine with the following specifications?

• 20 CPU Cores• 140 GB RAM• 1 TB of storage• Windows Server 2016• SQL Server 2016 Enterprise

Have you considered:• Necessary software licenses?• Network infrastructure capacity?• Physical space to put this new server?


Demo


Resource Group

Storage AccountVirtual Network

Virtual MachineVHD – OS Disk VHD – Data Disk


The Republican National CommitteeHistory

• CCG’s First engagement in 2012 election cycle• Assisted in creating a new reporting environment

Problems1. Outdated and failing on premise infrastructure

• Costly and time consuming to maintain and fix• Outages and failures disrupting daily processes

2. Data...everywhere• Different processing endpoints used for different types of reporting

Goals1. Migrate to Azure infrastructure

• Move out of the basement and into the cloud before election cycle really heats up2. Re-platform RNC data warehouse(s) and reporting environment

• Consolidate processes into a single dimensional data stores and unified presentation layer

• Single touch-point for getting data for internal and external consumers


Challenges

Time• 10-20 TB of data across ~300 databases• Outbound network speed limited to 10 MB/s• 10 TB @ 10 MB/s = 291 hours or 12 days of 24 hour uploads• Frequent network “blips” causing file transfer failures

USPS National Change of Address (NCOA) License migration• Difficulty with Postmaster ‘OK’-ing the migration to a new machine

Linked Servers...everywhere• Linked Servers were a common solution to server/database

interconnectivity


RNC On Premise MachinesWashington, DC

Co-located MachinesTennessee

RNC On Premise Infrastructure


What did we (CCG) do?

Successfully migrated infrastructure, databases, and processes to Azure Virtual Machines

• AZCopy to move data over the wire from on premise to Azure• Large databases (>1TB) were moved using Azure Import Job

Lots of machine and disk sizing exercisesAzure SQL Data Warehouse POC


RNC Azure Infrastructure

RNC On Premise MachinesWashington, DC

Co-located MachinesTennessee

RNC Azure MachinesUS East 2


Recap

Different types of cloud services (IaaS, PaaS, SaaS)Fundamental Azure knowledgeVirtual Machine provisioning demoRNC Azure migration


What’s next?

Learn something!• Azure Learning Paths

Sign up for an Azure account• $200 credit for new accounts• Lots of free service tiers for Azure

offerings

I want YOU to learn Microsoft Azure

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/learning-paths/


https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/cansql/2015/06/03/microsoft-data-platform-overview/


Questions?

Technology

Data Analytics Meet Up: The Cloud, Microsoft Azure, and The RNC