We reached a phase in cloud computing, where it is evident that multi-cloud is a reality. Depending on a single cloud is risky and probably doesn't work for most workloads. That said, there are myriad of challenges in architecting applications to run across clouds. So is architecting applications for multi-cloud a myth still? or is it a reality? This talk explores the challenges in multi-cloud application architectures and possible approaches & technology choices.

1. Architecting Multi-cloud Applications
Myth or Reality?
Aravind Ajad Yarra
Lead Architect, Emerging Technologies
Wipro Technologies

2. Agenda
• Why Multi-Cloud Applications?
• Key Considerations & Challenges
• Solution Options

3. How many Cloud Providers are there?
• Long tail of cloud
providers
• Cloudsleuth lists about
100 cloud providers
• 10 major players
providing infrastructure
cloud stacks
• 10 major players
provide platform cloud
stacks
Source: https://cloudsleuth.net/

4. Why Multi-Cloud?

5. Multi-Cloud Enterprises
• Enterprise Applications in Multiple Clouds
• Benchmarking of our clients shows
– A minimum of 3 different cloud platforms
– Average of 5 different cloud platforms
– Not to forget the on-premise non-cloud infrastructures
– Not including the proprietary SaaS and PaaS providers

6. Multi-Cloud by Choice
• 77% of respondents from enterprises had multi-cloud policy
• 47% are pursuing hybrid strategy
• 15% are employing multiple private clouds
• 15% are employing multiple public clouds.
source: Rightscale State of the cloud survey report

7. Why Multi-Cloud?
• Cloud Availability Concerns
– Simultaneous deployment across clouds
• Quality of Service Concerns
– Service levels vary from provider to provider
– Performance Characteristics vary
– Support options vary
• Vendor Lock-In
• Economic Considerations
• Local Availability and Regulations
– Special security needs
– Data privacy needs
• Work load needs
– Workloads that have special infrastructure needs
– Cloud Bursting
– Service / Features are specific to certain clouds
?

8. Key Considerations & Challenges

9. Multi-Cloud Application Considerations
• Cloud API standardization alone won’t help
• Discussion should go beyond Access
– Develop, Deploy and Run
– Application Architecture Considerations
AWS
Azure
Rackspace
Private
Cloud(s)
Develop
Deploy
Run
DEV
OPS
USERS

10. Challenges in the Cloud
• Cloud Interoperability &
Lock-in is a key concern
• Multi-cloud management
and Integration with on-
premise is key challenge
Importance when selecting cloud provider
Challenges when using cloud providers
source: Dzone audience survey

11. Key Challenges
• Differences in platform service capabilities
– Cloud provider specific services
– E.g., Amazon’s SQS, S3 and Windows App Fabric
• Platform Specific Gotchas
– E.g., Handling IP addresses in AWS different to IBM SCE+
• Differences Programming Abstractions
– Differences in programming models
– Subtle issues in accessing environment
Develop

12. Key Challenges
• Different API Interfaces
• Different Abstractions & Options
• Capability Differences in APIs
– Provisioning challenges
– Configuration Challenges
– Application Setup Challenges (for Distributed Applications)
• Multiple Image formats
• Access Management
Deploy

13. Key Challenges
• Multi-cloud Data Synchronization
– Latency
– Two-way Replication
• Application Monitoring & Management
• Multi-Cloud Application Routing
– Global cloud load balancing
– Session Affinity & Management
Run

14. Solution Options

15. Cloud Neutral Services & Abstractions
• Open Source Services for various popular cloud services
– Open-stack implementations of S3, SQS
– ElasticMQ, open source SQS implementation
– Nimbus.io, open source S3 implementation
– and many more
• Loosely coupled integration with Cloud Environment
– Event oriented interactions
– Abstractions for common services

16. Cloud Libraries
• Jclouds
– Java and Clojure based API for multiple
clouds
– Open source
– Supports compute and storage services
– 30 cloud providers and software stacks
including Amazon, Azure, GoGrid,
OpenStack, Rackspace, and vCloud.
• Fog
– The Ruby cloud services library
– Open Source
– Supports compute service
comprehensively across clouds

17. Orchestration - Cloudify
• Cloudify

18. Orchestration
• Apache Whirr
– Cloud neutral way to run services; such as
• Hadoop
• Zookeeper
• Cassandra
– Supports multiple provisioning Options
• Chef, Puppet and Custom Scripting
– Uses Jclouds
• Brooklyn
– Simplifies application deployment and
management
– For deployment, it is designed to tie in with
other tools

19. Cloud Management Platforms
• Scalr
– Manage and deploy their applications across
multiple clouds
– Scalr is open source
• RightScale
– Single windows access management
– RightScale API abstraction
• Enstratius
– Single windows access management
– Enstratius API abstraction
• Cloudsoft
– Based on Brooklyn and Apache Whirr

20. Multi-Cloud Load Balancing
• Using Global Server Load
Balancers
– DNS based load
balancing
– Software / Hardware
based Load balancing
– Balance load across
Clouds
– Intelligent
• Managed Global Load
balancers
– Software as Service
http://dev.bizo.com/
http://dev.bizo.com/

21. Data Synchronization
• Partition Tolerance of Data is a key concern in multi-cloud
setup
– Eventual Consistency
– Data Sharding
• Cassandra Replication
– Dynamic Snitch – Topology aware replication

22. Thank You
@aravindajad
http://www.techspot.co.in/
Aravind Ajad Yarra