1© 2012 Alteryx, Inc. Confidential.
Building the Next Analytic App Platform in the Cloud
George K. MathewPresident & Chief Operating Officer,Alteryx
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Conversation is shifting from Infrastructure to Outcomes…
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Social Media
ClickStreams/ Log Files
Device Generated Data Cloud Applications
…And For Good Reason:New Sources of Relevant Information
Analytic Platform
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77% agree more employees with big data insight = informed decisions
74% say more data shared = more effective decisions
More employees need Big Data Insight
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Data Integration & Analytic Workflow
Integrate any data source
Inte
gra
te
Un-Structured Content Rapid design of
predictive analytics
Analyze
App &
Data
All Relevant Data
Enrich
Packaged Market &
Customer Data
Step 1:
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Create & Share Analytic Apps in Cloud
Asse
mble
App
Private or Public Cloud
Publish
Run
Step 2:
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Alteryx Strategic Analytics 8.0First Cloud for Strategic Analytics
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1. Relevant and Useful2. Scalable and Elastic3. Public/Private Deployment4. Fault-Tolerant
Attributes of Next-Gen Analytic Cloud Service
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Trends
Make it useful…
• JSON vs. XML (SOAP): JSON is the clear winner.• Web Tier: WCF• Focus on standards-based approach (i.e. HTTP for inter-
process communication vs. proprietary communication protocols)
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JSON RESTful Service• A completely stateless web service
tier built on WCF.• No need for session stickiness –
initially.• Plan for security and versioning at the
service operation level.• Have no other hosting dependencies
(like IIS).
Implication: Web service tier is completely elastic. A simple start with plenty of options moving forward – including more advanced traffic routing and versioned APIs.
Yes, but how did we do it?
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Don’t figure out the scaling alone. Great options are available:
• Persistence• Out of the box maintenance, monitoring, replication• Strong developer support, multiple language drivers
• Scalability/Elasticity Framework• Web-based• Automation API• Monitoring• Multiple IaaS provider support (private/hybrid options)
• IaaS• Global, API-driven, Windows & Linux support
Make it scalable…
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Automate Deployment and Scalability
• Use automation and configuration APIs of RightScale and AWS to fully instrument deployment of nodes in the web, persistence and analytic processing tiers.
• Monitor and management tools for nodes via programmatic APIs.
Implication: 1 FTE to the ProdOps for the Alteryx Gallery to monitor and manage our entire cloud deployment.
Yes, but how did we do it?
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Not all organizations want a public cloud service.
• Designed the Gallery architecture to be a hybrid
• Near seamless transition from public to private contexts
• Mixed-context execution: Cloud execution environment with private data (DRO)
Make it deployable…
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Analytic Application Processing• Stateless controller/worker topology
allowing for rapid expansion/contraction of analytic processing capacity.
• Compressed and encrypted data streams over traditional HTTP.
• Generic persistence interfaces to allow both relational and non-relational data stores (SQL vs. No-SQL)
• Customizable throttles to limit app execution in a cloud environment.
Implication: Analytic processing in the cloud can scale to meet the needs of 10’s to 1000’s of users in a secure and flexible way with the appropriate limits to protect both the user and the execution environment.
Yes, but how did you do it?
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• Implemented a completely stateless architecture for analytic processing.
• Use real-time compression and encryption to move data and analytic processes over HTTP.
• Design for future Data Residency Options (DRO).
• Create analytic processing arrays that are isolated processes and self-recoverable.
Make it fault-tolerant…
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Initial testing indicates that even heavy-weight analytic processing (spatial, non-spatial, predictive and reporting) is uniformly distributed.
• Web Tier• Analytic Workers• Node MongoDB
replicated cluster
~= 50 OPS
Implication: Performance is just a “scale-out” operation, as opposed to “scale-up” - with tremendous cost savings benefits.
Plenty of room to grow…
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Enhance Data,Add
Context
Analytic Apps, Data Loading
Access and Integrate Big Data
Humanizing Big Data: Single Platform to Deliver Big Data Insight & Foresight
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Alteryx Strategic Analytics 8.0First Cloud for Strategic Analytics
http://gallery.alteryx.com
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Key Terms
• Alteryx• Analytics Gallery• Analytic Apps• Analytics in Cloud• Cloud Apps• Big Data Analytics• Strategic Analytics• Predictive Analytics• Unstructured data• Humanizing Big Data• Analytics Platform• Data Analysts• Data Scientist
• RESTful• JSON services• Public/Private
Deployment• Fault-Tolerant• JSON vs. XML (SOAP)• Mongo DB• Amazon Web Services• IAAS• RightScale• George Mathew, Alteryx• Strata 2012• O'Reilly Strata
Conference• Strata Conf, New York• Strata, Oct 2012