About me and my business

My name is Andrew Middleton, a developer from Guelph Ontario and I do most of my dev work for my family business.  I've been into computers for a long time, had a couple of different sites through the years and about 13 years ago helped our business move online in the days of ASP scripting.

Since then we've experienced a lot of growth and the challenges that go with that.  Our website is critical to our business as we run our storefront and our backend through asp.net platforms.  We've had to learn how to build fault tolerance into our apps, speed and to do this while keeping our code clean and organized.

We are not at the point of looking at moving out the cloud and it's an exciting proposition.  At the moment we run a bunch of servers on site as well as in a co-located datacenter.   Some of the technologies that we implement includes log shipping, SQL failover mirroring, customer services, load balancing, custom caching, customer portals and multiple site hosting in our system.  Needless to say most of our traffic is generated by our own staff during peak periods (3000 req/hour) and involves a fair bit of compute resources.  We serve well over 10,000 customers each year and pump millions through our site so having the a reliable environment is not just a luxury but a necessity.

Moving to the cloud is about being able to put our multiple databases and sites close to each other and to have more control over the flow of data through our system.  Another added benefit is knowing that there is good hardware to hold the data itself and keep it safe.  When running an onsite solution you have to do regular backups, it consumes bandwidth, takes time and sometimes backups fail.  With the cloud you still should do backups, BUT you have the advantage of almost unlimited storage space, a fast network and redundancy.  To achieve this in your office will be expensive.

Keeping costs down and the service reliable is a balancing act.  I want costs down because in reality that’s money that I don’t take home, but service is really important as well.  I want the most reliable solution I can get for my dollars.  That means a quick system to cut down on staff time and a reliable system so that we don’t have service outages for them or our customers.

You environment may be different but let me assure you that the principles are the same.  Whether small or large you will want to have the same sort of features that I do because they let you have confidence in the technical architecture that undergirds your business and productivity.  Moving to the cloud can be cheaper in some cases and more costly in others.

Keeping costs down means having the right services and features.  Please keep in mind as I share my frustrations and solutions that I like the concept of Azure but it’s still young and maturing.  There is a lot that needs to be added and you need to be aware of that before getting too excited for it.