Presentation on how Infopark AG uses AWS. AWS Tech Summit, Berlin, May 2011

1. Lessons Learned from
Converting a Web Application
to Multitenancy and Deploying it to
Amazon Web Services
using Scalarium
AWS Tech Summit for Developers and Architects
Berlin, 2011-05-16

2. Thomas Witt
@thomas_witt
http://twitter.com/thomas_witt

4. Since 1997 …
Director Product & Business Development
http://www.infopark.de/

5. Great Websites run Infopark
Founded in 1994 in Berlin
CMS, CRM and Online Marketing Software
Large Websites for Enterprises

6. References
http://www.infopark.de/references

7. References
infopark.de/references
http://www.infopark.de/references

8. What are we going to learn …
Why did Infopark move to
«The Cloud»™?
How did we do it?
What did we learn from it?

9. Why?
(You will be cloudified. Resistance is futile.)

11. Enterprise Software
Installation sucks.

12. http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/cortalconsors.de

13. http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/bundestag.de

14. http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/munich-airport.de

15. Modern Web-Sites
have to be cloud
based.

16. Our partner
http://aws.amazon.com/

17. Multitenancy
(Yes, we scale!)

18. “
Multitenancy refers to a principle
in software architecture where a
single instance of the software
runs on a server, serving multiple
client organizations (tenants).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multitenancy

19. Enabling Multitenancy
Create a "shared nothing"
architecture
Move all configuration into
the database
Extract background tasks
Choose database tenantwise

20. Implementing DB switching is easy
tenant = request.host.split('.').first
begin
@@db ||= CouchRest.database(tenant)
rescue
raise "tenant name '#{tenant}' doesn't exist"
end

21. System Architecture Fiona on SaaS
SaaS Cluster
Scalarium SES:
E-Mail
AZ 1 AZ 2 AZ 3
EC2: EC2: EC2: EC2: EC2: EC2: S3: DB
Fiona, OMC, Fiona, OMC, Fiona, OMC, Fiona, OMC, Fiona, OMC, Fiona, OMC, Assets Backup
DB, Search DB, Search DB, Search DB, Search DB, Search DB, Search (Blobs) Server
Redis/
Elastic Load Balancing: *.saas.infopark.net Resque
Customer
AZ 1 AZ 2
EC2: EC2: GitHub
S3
Rails, Rails,
DB Replica DB Replica +
Hoptoad
Cloud
Front
Elastic Load Balancing: CDN
customer.com New Relic

22. Use multiple
Availability Zones!
http://broadcast.oreilly.com/2011/04/the-aws-outage-the-clouds-shining-moment.html

23. Database
(Choose wisely)

24. Problems with SQL databases in the cloud
Bottleneck
Doesn‘t scale
Single point of failure
Adding new Replicas
Consistent backups
Recovery times after crashes

25. SQL databases are
not built for the
cloud.

26. NoSQL databases
ARE built for the
cloud.
… by trading off consistency for partition tolerance
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAP_theorem

27. Database backend
Advantages
Simple handling
Better replication
Stability and reliability
Schemaless
Lots of flavours
CouchDB/BigCouch,
SimpleDB, MongoDB, …
We have chosen BigCouch.
http://couchdb.apache.org/

28. Automatize!
(Scalarium is your friend)

30. Your server – à la carte
http://www.opscode.com/chef/

31. Auto Healing (and scaling)

32. Automatize using Scalarium
Automated Machine Installs
No hassle with AMI Images
Always install from scratch
Using Chef Recipes
Monitoring and Scaling
Auto Healing
Time Based Scaling
Load Based Scaling
http://www.scalarium.com/

33. Security
(… there's lots of interesting data in the cloud)

34. Have multiple AWS accounts
https://aws-portal.amazon.com/gp/aws/developer/account/

35. IAM

37. Use MFA Devices
http://aws.amazon.com/mfa/

39. Security is important!
Have multiple AWS accounts
Use IAM
• Rotate your keys
• Use an MFA Device
• Lock up your master account
Clear concept how to handle
policies, accounts, groups
Have lots of Account/Key
Pairs with restricted access
Automatize everything
• Security Groups
• Regular Firewall checks
• Account creation / deletion

40. People
(The Human Factor)

42. “I don't «own» my
data anymore.

43. “What about data
privacy?

44. “Is your security good
enough?
How can I trust you?

45. “My job went to SaaS!

46. Have good answers
to these questions.
(Try to rationalize the discussion)

47. Disadvantages?
What‘s missing?

48. Disadvantages? What‘s missing?
Amazon
Automated creation of
multiple accounts with
separate billing
API for Billing
Scalarium
Access Rights
Security Groups
MFA Support

49. Conclusion
Have a scalable multitenancy architecture
Automatize everything
Don‘t forget The Human Factor

51. That's a wrap!
Twitter: @infopark
facebook.com/infopark
Thank you!
Thomas Witt
Director Product & Business Development
thomas.witt@infopark.de
+49-151-140690-23
Twitter: @thomas_witt
Infopark AG • Kitzingstraße 15 • D-12277 Berlin • www.infopark.de • info@infopark.de