Cloud Architecture Patterns

If your team is investigating ways to design applications for the cloud, this concise book introduces 11 architecture patterns that can help you take advantage of cloud-platform services. You’ll learn how each of these platform-agnostic patterns work, when they might be useful in the cloud, and what impact they’ll have on your application architecture. You’ll also see an example of each pattern applied to an application built with Windows Azure.

The patterns are organized into four major topics, such as scalability and handling failure, and primer chapters provide background on each topic. With the information in this book, you’ll be able to make informed decisions for designing effective cloud-native applications that maximize the value of cloud services, while also paying attention to user experience and operational efficiency.

Learn about architectural patterns for:

• Scalability. Discover the advantages of horizontal scaling. Patterns covered include Horizontally Scaling Compute, Queue-Centric Workflow, and Auto-Scaling.
• Big data. Learn how to handle large amounts of data across a distributed system. Eventual consistency is explained, along with the MapReduce and Database Sharding patterns.
• Handling failure. Understand how multitenant cloud services and commodity hardware influence your applications. Patterns covered include Busy Signal and Node Failure.
• Distributed users. Learn how to overcome delays due to network latency when building applications for a geographically distributed user base. Patterns covered include Colocation, Valet Key, CDN, and Multi-Site Deployment.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1. Scalability Primer

Chapter 2. Horizontally Scaling Compute Pattern

Chapter 3. Queue-Centric Workflow Pattern

Chapter 4. Auto-Scaling Pattern

Chapter 5. Eventual Consistency Primer

Chapter 6. MapReduce Pattern

Chapter 7. Database Sharding Pattern

Chapter 8. Multitenancy and Commodity Hardware Primer

Chapter 9. Busy Signal Pattern

Chapter 10. Node Failure Pattern

Chapter 11. Network Latency Primer

Chapter 12. Colocate Pattern

Chapter 13. Valet Key Pattern

Chapter 14. CDN Pattern

Chapter 15. Multisite Deployment Pattern

Appendix A. Further Reading

About the Author

Bill Wilder is a hands-on architect, developer, trainer, speaker, author, and community leader focused on helping companies and individuals succeed with the cloud using the Windows Azure Platform. Bill began working with Windows Azure when it was unveiled at the Microsoft PDC in 2008 and subsequently founded the Boston Azure user group (www.bostonazure.org), the first Windows Azure user group in the world, in October 2009. Bill is recognized by Microsoft as a Windows Azure MVP and is the author of the book Cloud Architecture Patterns (published by O’Reilly). Bill is Principal Consultant at Development Partners Software (www.devpartners.com), can be found blogging at blog.codingoutloud.com, and is on Twitter at @codingoutloud.