Content Management in Windows AzureThom Robbins, Chief Evangelist, Kentico CMS

Kentico CMS Today..

Kentico CMS is one of the most comprehensive content management systems on the planet. With over 12,000 active web sites in 84 countries, 34 modules, and a partner network of over 1,200 it is used for everything from simple web sites to complex applications. Kentico CMS is easy to install, simple to manage, scalable and reliable.

For Developers..Delivered as a Visual Studio project

826,152 lines of code 2,000 specifically for Azure

What is a Content Management System (CMS)?

Content Editor

• Productivity!• Freedom from IT• Website Management• Creative control

IT• Multithreaded, highly

scalable Web Farms• development platform• Immediate scale

up/out• Guaranteed storage

and retrieval• Files, Files ..

everywhere

Management

• First contact with customers

• Content is cost• Gateway to changing

web experiences

Overloaded terms?• CMS• WCM• DM• ??

CMS is Your Website Expectations

What does the cloud mean for your CMS?

Moving an application to the cloud simply means running the app “somewhere” on the internet other than your own servers.

As content consumption patterns shift from traditional web pages to a more multi-channel content ecosystem (mobile, website, tablets, widgets, game consoles, kiosks, etc), the demand for highly scalable and near real-time CMS will be needed. The movement to a real-time web will exponential increase resource requirements of CMS solutions as they try to manage more content in a shorter time frame.

An industry perspective..

Source: www.cmsoutlook.com

Why move CMS to the cloud?

Agility•The cloud model keeps your business more agile over the lifetime of your CMS•Creating self service points reduces friction (IT no longer needs to specify, receive, install and configure each instance)

•Automatic load leveling•Quicker iteration cycles

Focus•Deploying your CMS to the cloud let you focus on higher value activities•Like having top tier developers who can differentiate applications

Cost•Reducing cost through economies of scale (Not a people discussion)•Cloud service providers offer focused expertise, standardized components, best practices and massive scalability at a lower cost than a company can achieve

•Pay for what you use (no need to over-provision and sink capital into compute capacity)

It’s a business choice….

Common CMS/Cloud questions

• The cloud has no file system?• Isn’t developer debugging difficult?• Isn’t performance poor?

Scenario – Pure Cloud

Content Editors

Site visitorsWhat is it?• Complete application in the

cloud

Advantages• Quickest for new CMS • Consistent platform• Infrastructure reduction

(not people!)

Disadvantages• Existing CMS migration • It’s scary!

Scenario - Expansion

Content Editors

Site visitors

Corporate Firewall

What is it?• Leveraging cloud for Front

end/Back end services

Advantages• Maintain asset security• Leverage existing assets

Disadvantages• Infrastructure change

Scenario – On-Demand Marketing

Content Editors

Site visitors

Corporate Firewall

Content Editors

What is it?• Leveraging cloud for short

duration activities

Advantages• Reduce on-site IT resources

(not people!)• Brand expansion

Disadvantages• Provisioning required

Customer lessons

• Don’t Hurry – Think about things

• Understand how it works– Little details matter – especially with Azure– Be careful with 3rd party components

• Learn Azure– Keep up with news

• Azure is stateless– Complex Web applications aren’t stateless– Azure goes against current web architecture

Q&A

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Thank you!E-mail: thomasr@kentico.comTwitter: trobbinsBlog: http://devnet.kentico.com/Blogs/thomas-robbins.aspx

Business Perspective

• 30+ total sites running in Windows Azure, using SQL Azure

• Stacked instances (3, each hosting 5+ sites)• Over 3/4 of production sites currently migrated to

Windows Azure• Review of key applications

– Mydentity Custom Drum Kit– Postage Ink – Emerald Coast Autism Center– RDF Associates– CED Technical