Serving media content from the closest client location - azure

I'm developing and application which allows users to upload and download media content: songs, videos...
My concern is that if my servers are located let's say in the Europe region for customer from America the application will feel very slow.
I was thinking to have something similar to Amazon S3 buckets created in different regions, then a client located in the Europe region will upload, download from the Europe region, a client from the Asia region will upload, download from the Asia region and so on.
Then in some how find the way to synchronize all this buckets.
Is it possible?
Any better solution?
Thanks for your help

Sounds like a problem to consider using a CDN to solve. I'm familiar with Azure but I'd assume the competitors have similar offerings.

Google offers multiple regions and zones to host your app:
General overview:
https://cloud.google.com/about/locations/
Specific to cloud storage (which would probably host your content)
https://cloud.google.com/storage/docs/bucket-locations
And finally the info for Google CDN is at https://cloud.google.com/cdn/

Related

Replicating azure websites across different availability zones (file system)

We are currently running an Azure website within the West Europe region. Ideally we would like to create a copy running in a different region to fall back to in case the current region goes down. Is there a simple way to enable replication of the site data built into Azure (or a known service, code etc.)?
Thanks in advance
Scott Hanselman just blogged about exactly this. You can find it on his blog here: http://www.hanselman.com/blog/CloudPowerHowToScaleAzureWebsitesGloballyWithTrafficManager.aspx

Change cloud service region

Is it possible to change a Cloud Service region (i.e: move from East US to West US)?
I don't see an option from the management console to do it or maybe I did not dig deep enough.
I would like to do it since I have my database in one region different to my application's and I guess it could decrease performance.
Thanks,
No, there is no way to change Cloud Service region. You have to create new Cloud Service in desired region and redeploy there. It becomes more complicated when you also have Storage accounts with data which you have to move. For this you could probably use Red Gate's Cloud Services or other mature product.
And you are right about Database and performance. It is not only performance, but also costs savings. When your Database is in different geographic region all data that comes out of your database is basically Outbound (Egress) traffic, which is being charged per GB!
You can make your own script using Powershell that is a powerful tool and can help you a lot, including copying the data between regions directly (not passing by your computer). I am going to do that know.

How data transfer will cost on my Azure project setup

I have built one utility (startup task) for end user Azure application.
That start-up task is going to post some of data from that webrole application (hosted on any region as per end user choice) to database (Hosted on East Asia) through REST API (Hosted on East Asia).
So if end user has hosted their application on same region (East Asia) then Azure doesn't cost anything for data transfer to me as well as for end user (correct me if I understood wrong).
In another case if end user has hosted their application on another region then it will cost to end user to transfer data to REST API that is on another region.
What I have done to reduce this cost, I have set up REST API in all of regions and in startup task tell user to set path of specific REST API according to region where they are going to deploy their application. Now in this case end user doesn't cost anything for data transfer But My REST API (hosted in different region ) will transfer data to database (hosted on East Asia) so it will cost me for that as well as for to host REST API on all regions to reduce end user cost.
In the case above is there a way to reduce cost using shared database and removing multiple REST API hosted on all region? Also please suggest if a better solution exists to reduce cost to me as well as for end user.
Interesting scenario: You basically have your end-user deploying the app for themselves, to the region of choice? What is the purpose of the database upload via REST API: Backup, or for live data?
One thing I'm not understanding is the question about a shared database. From your description, there's already a shared database, as each user is pushing data through a REST API to a single database in East Asia. Is this not correct?
Based on the information you provided, where all data goes to one datacenter, I see 3 options, two that you already pointed out:
User hosts app in any of 8 datacenters, you host REST API in one datacenter. In this case, user gets best local app performance between on-prem and app, user pays for egress to your API, and user possibly sees latency when transferring data across datacenters.
User hosts app in any of 8 datacenters. You host REST API in all datacenters. User's data transfer is free to local REST API, and very fast. However, you then transfer data to East Asia database, which will cost you egress bandwidth if the user is not hosted in East Asia. Also you now have cost of many additional REST API instances.
User host ONLY in East Asia, along with your REST API and database. All datacenter bandwidth is free and fast. User may see latency connecting from on-prem to app, depending on where they're located.
In each case, you have the user deploying their own hosted service, which then talks to yours. Is it possible to optimize user cost by having them all access the same hosted service, but with different credentials?
For your cost, hosting a REST API in every datacenter seems like a large expense, considering you need at least 2 instances running in each datacenter to obtain Windows Azure's uptime SLA. But... again, I don't exactly understand your app's scenario.
Base on my understanding, it seems the scenario is a bit strange. If you’re providing a package that end users can host using their own Windows Azure account, why let them use their own database as well? Or do you mean the you’re providing end users the source code of your project as a sample? In any case, I think it is better to ask end users to provide their own database account. If you want to design a REST API for yourself, then host it in your own Windows Azure service. Please do not distribute the package to your end users. In addition, for more information about billing, you can also contact our customer support on https://support.microsoft.com/oas/default.aspx?prid=14234&st=1&wfxredirect=1&sd=gn.
Best Regards,
Ming Xu.
I think in this case, it is better to ask the customers to provide their own database. If you need to use your own database, it is hard to save cost on your side. You can use multiple databases hosted in different data centers. But obviously that requires more cost. You can also use a single database, but then it is inevitable that some users will transfer data from another data center. However, you can ask the users to pay for the cost by increasing the price of your product. But looks like better to ask the user to provide their own database (they can even choose on-premises databases if they like). This also helps to increase security, since users' data would not be shared.
Best Regards,
Ming Xu.

Data sovereignty vs Azure hosting options

I'm just learning about Azure so forgive me for my naivety. I work for a federal government that would be very hesitant to have their applications and data hosted in another country. Could a local company offer "Azure" services? i.e. could software developers in a government department build their applications and deploy them to the Azure cloud, ensuring that their data stays within the country? Or would they have to look at a non-Microsoft cloud provider?
Data and Compute will reside in the datacenter you specify. Blobs, Tables and Queues are also backed up automatically to a paired data center:
San Antonio <--> Chicago
Dublin <--> Amsterdam
Hong Kong <--> Singapore
You can opt-out of cross-datacenter data backup if data sovereignty becomes an issue. Once opted-out, data would only be in the specified data center, and you'd need to handle DR on your own (by possibly backing up data to on-premises storage).
Aside from those 6 datacenters, Fujitsu runs a Windows Azure data center in Japan. See this press release for more info.
Yes, when you create your Azure service you can specify what region (of the country) it runs in.
I'm not sure if you know this, but the Federal CIO (Vivek Kundra) is really pushing hard for Agencies to move to the cloud. You might want to check out Info.Apps.Gov for guidelines on the Federal Cloud initiative and resources for what you can and can't do.
To answer your immediate question: No. Only MS hosts Azure to my knowledge. I do know that Amazon is bending over backwards however to accommodate Government clients and you can control which datacenters are used on that service. MS appears to have a similar capability per the other answer to this question.
As far as I can tell, these are the only locations:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azure_Services_Platform#Datacenters
If they're that concerned about data security though, they should deal directly with Microsoft, not buy Azure services that same way a client usually would. Microsoft may be able to arrange something depending on budget (but probably not).
Edit: What I'm basically saying is, Microsoft is not going to arbitrarily do special licensing. Meaning you either need a large enough budget to convince MS to build a data center in your country, or you need some other way of convincing MS to allow Azure services hosted in your country. Also, I hate to sound paranoid, but if you're worried about America seeing your data, you likely should avoid Ameican companies.
If there isn't a Windows Azure Data Centre in the relevant country, but you still want to use Azure, you'll need to look at a hybrid cloud model where data remains resident in a private cloud. However, in-flight data can still present complications for some organisations and Azure may not be the right answer in all cases.
If you like, I can talk about it some more using Chat. The company I work for specialises in just these cases and has the only production Windows Azure data centre that isn't owned by Microsoft (and isn't in the US). Probably best not go into further specifics here, though, for fear of my answer looking like pure spam!

Using Windows Azure In Europe and the middel East

I've built my application in .net and SQL Server 2008.
Having looking for a hosting solution I stumbled upon windows azure.
I saw that currently its only available in the US.
Can I use the service if I live outside of the US?
If I upload my website up there and people try entering, will people from outside of the US be blocked?
Sorry for posting an unrelated program question. I am not receiving an answer anywhere else, and I can see that there are several questions regarding azure which are not program related here.
Windows Azure has a data center hosted in northern europe. Your users won't be blocked no matter where it is hosted. See this link for status and locations.
We have an Azure hosted application in the US. One of our developers is in Pakistan. He has no issues developing against our Azure Table Storage there or using the application. Also, he is impressed with the overall speed of the application compared to other web applications he uses which are hosted locally and in the US.
Obviously an app hosted in the same region would be quicker all things being equal. However, we have been really happy with the "quality" of the service from Azure and overall it probably offers better performance even outside the region than a poorly managed shared hosting environment. Also, you can change the region where your Azure app is hosted. So, over time, as new regions are added you can migrate your app to that region.
Nope it won't be blocked. But, it would be more sluggish due to latency compared to the locally hosted applications. Also, if you are in EU you might want to check the data protection act. It is illegal to store some private data concerning EU citizens on the US based servers.

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