1. Microsoft 2016
11/11/2018 3:24 PM
BRK2235
How Wintellect built the WintellectNOW training service on Azure: A Case Study
Todd Fine Jeffrey Richter
CEO Co-Founder
© 2016 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.

2. Todd Fine CEO of Wintellect, Microsoft Regional Director - Atlanta
11/11/2018 3:24 PM
Todd Fine CEO of Wintellect, Microsoft Regional Director - Atlanta
@toddfine
© 2014 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.

3. 11/11/2018 3:24 PM
Jeffrey Richter Microsoft Software Engineer, Wintellect Co-Founder, & Author
@JeffRichter
© 2014 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.

4. Agenda A bit of history Architecture presentation (key pieces)
11/11/2018 3:24 PM
Agenda
A bit of history
Why and how we came to build WintellectNOW
Quick product demo
Architecture presentation (key pieces)
Interactive discussion and Q&A
© 2014 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.

5. A bit of history… (How we got here)
11/11/2018 3:24 PM
A bit of history… (How we got here)
© 2014 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.

6. Wintellect Core Services
11/11/2018 3:24 PM
Wintellect Core Services
Consulting
Custom software application development and architecture
Instructor Led Training
Microsoft’s #1 training vendor for over a decade
On-Demand Training
World class, subscription based online training
© 2014 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.

7. Quick timeline Wintellect to WintellectNOW
11/11/2018 3:24 PM
Quick timeline Wintellect to WintellectNOW
Founded in 2000 by three industry luminaries
Initially a top tier ILT (Instructor-Led Training) company providing hard core developer training
Added Consulting (AppDev and related) in 2005
Added WintellectNOW in 2013
© 2014 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.

8. Industry influencers in the training arena
11/11/2018 3:24 PM
Industry influencers in the training arena
Became Microsoft’s #1 dev training vendor worldwide
35,000 to 50,000 MS developers through our training
Highest ratings of any training vendor each year
Required curriculum for subset of MS developers
In 2012, Microsoft asked us if we could create an online version of our training for higher scale (and market was moving that way as well)
© 2014 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.

9. 11/11/2018 3:24 PM
What is WintellectNOW
A worldwide, video-based, developer training service also available via Microsoft's Visual Studio Dev Essentials program. Designed to be highly scalable and fault-tolerant, it’s built on top of various Microsoft Azure services and architected from the start to be extremely memory and storage performant.
The session discusses how the WintellectNOW application is architected with an emphasis on a highly optimized use of Azure storage, for maximum performance and efficiency. We also focus on techniques used to reduce costs of running the service.
© 2014 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.

10. Want to try it out? Go to www.WintellectNOW.com
11/11/2018 3:24 PM
Want to try it out?
Go to
Use Promo Code: IGNITE2016
© 2014 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.

11. Business and Technical Goals
11/11/2018 3:24 PM
Business and Technical Goals
Build a state of the art platform
Latest technology stack
Build on the cloud
Highly cost optimized
Designed to the bit level to be the lowest cost platform
Highly scalable (performant)
Scale to millions of users
© 2014 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.

12. WintellectNOW “value prop”
11/11/2018 3:24 PM
WintellectNOW “value prop”
World class on-demand developer training
Access the same training Microsoft’s worldwide developers enjoy
Best Value Pricing: Committed to highest quality content at best value price
20-50% lower pricing than our closest competitor
More than training, a true on-line reference system
Learn at your own speed at any time
Available on multiple devices (PC, Tablets, phones)
User bookmarks, personalized user queue’s, and advanced search and sort features
Easy to use business management functions
Downloadable sample code and supplements at no additional costs
Over 280courses available NOW, 500 by the end of 4
© 2014 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.

13. 11/11/2018 3:24 PM
Demo WintellectNOW Library, Promo codes, user info (watched video history, bookmarks, user queue), account payment info, a graph showing watched history
© 2014 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.

14. Architecture Jeffrey Richter
11/11/2018 3:24 PM
Architecture Jeffrey Richter
© 2014 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.

15. WintellectNOW Architecture Key Points
11/11/2018 3:24 PM
WintellectNOW Architecture Key Points
VideoLibrary.xml
Read at VM boot
Reread 5 minutes
Update w/new videos
Client downloadable
User
Login
Account info
Watched Videos
Bookmarks
Queue blob
Ongoing Logs
Promo code usage
Account management ops
Periodic Logs w/GC
Errors (daily)
Account user watching (monthly)
IpToCountry.csv
Read at VM boot
Reread daily
Seldom updated
External services
Video/CDN
Payment
User support
Forums
PromoCode
Lookup when user registers
Account
VideoStats
Tracks watched videos for author royalties
© 2014 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.

16. WintellectNOW Storage Architecture (1)
11/11/2018 3:24 PM
WintellectNOW Storage Architecture (1)
Types
is lowercase string
AccountId & UserId are GUIDs
Stable IDs; user can change
Relationships
User is admin of 0+ accounts
User is grantee of 0+ accounts
Payment Props
Properties for payment types:
User Table PK RK
UserId
AdminOf
GranteeOf “”
AccountId[]
Account Table PK RK
Admins
Grantees
Payment Props…
AccountId “” [] …
abstract class Account { /* Common properties */ }
sealed class CreditCardAccount : Account { /* Credit card props */ }
sealed class DirectDebitAccount : Account { /* Direct debit prop */ }
sealed class PurchaseOrderAccount : Account { /* PO props */ }
© 2014 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.

17. Adding/Removing Account Administrator/Grantee
11/11/2018 3:24 PM
Adding/Removing Account Administrator/Grantee
Cardinal rule: An account never trusts a user
Whenever user tries to access an account, account always validates user
Admin adds/removes user to account
Update account & send notification to user (URL embeds the AccountID)
Admin can resend , if necessary
User clicks link
If user doesn’t exists, register first
If account knows user, add account to user; else remove account from user (idempotent)
Solves all these problems:
User never clicks (maybe they never get it)
User clicks multiple times (idempotent)
User clicks (after) another admin removes permission
Malicious user changes URL to account not granting access (treated as above)
© 2014 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.

18. WintellectNOW Storage Architecture (2)
11/11/2018 3:24 PM
WintellectNOW Storage Architecture (2)
Grouped by user
Easy to update a specific video
Can filter to last # days
Clients sort by video, time, etc.
Watched Video Table PK RK
Timestamp
Offset
MinutesWatched
UserId
VideoId
DateTime
Int32
Bookmark Table PK RK
Timestamp
Bookmarks
UserId
VideoId
DateTime
OffsetAndNote[]
Grouped by user/video
Easy to lookup a specific video
Can filter to last # of days
Queued items are manipulated all together: adding (to end), removing (from middle), showing and ordering
User Video Queue Container (Blob name=UserId)
© 2014 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.

19. Logging Infrastructure
11/11/2018 3:24 PM
Logging Infrastructure
Uses blobs not tables:
Cheaper, faster
Easily downloadable for tools (ex: Excel)
Best effort (entries could be lost if VM recycles)
Done asynchronously allowing quicker user response
Two kinds of logs:
Ongoing (keeps last 50,000 entries)
Promo code usage/registrations
Account management operations (user grants/revokes)
Periodic (daily, weekly, monthly quarterly, or yearly) with GC cleanup
Errors: Unhandled exceptions [daily]
Account’s user transcript (user video watching history) [monthly – billing cycle]
© 2014 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.

20. Jeffrey Richter's Guide to Working with Azure Storage Tables
11/11/2018 3:24 PM
Jeffrey Richter's Guide to Working with Azure Storage Tables
Endorsed by Microsoft’s Azure Storage team
Download from:
Guide’s purpose:
Improve developers mental model with respect to Tables
Discuss good and bad parts of Microsoft's Azure storage library
Show good patterns and practices related to Tables
Introduce Jeffrey/Wintellect's (free) Azure Storage .NET client library
Blob features: Logging, periodic elector
Table features: Backup/restore, optimistic concurrency, easy filter construction, simple segmented result processing, property replacer/changer, pattern for extensible entity schemas, collection ↔ property serializer
Download from:
© 2014 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.

21. Free IT Pro resources To advance your career in cloud technology
Microsoft Ignite 2016
11/11/2018 3:24 PM
Free IT Pro resources To advance your career in cloud technology
Plan your career path
Microsoft IT Pro Career Center
Cloud role mapping
Expert advice on skills needed
Self-paced curriculum by cloud role
$300 Azure credits and extended trials
Pluralsight 3 month subscription (10 courses)
Phone support incident
Weekly short videos and insights from Microsoft’s leaders and engineers
Connect with community of peers and Microsoft experts
Get started with Azure
Microsoft IT Pro Cloud Essentials
Demos and how-to videos
Microsoft Mechanics
Connect with peers and experts
Microsoft Tech Community
© 2016 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.

22. Please evaluate this session
11/11/2018 3:24 PM
Please evaluate this session
Your feedback is important to us!
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© 2014 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.

23. Questions and discussion
11/11/2018 3:24 PM
Questions and discussion
© 2014 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.

24. 11/11/2018 3:24 PM
© 2014 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.