Design considerations for hybrid applications - Placement
This article was authored by AzureCAT Marc van Eijk. It was edited by Bruce Hamilton and reviewed by Damir Bersinic, Gavin Kemp, Daniel Neumann, and Emmanuel Sache.
Table of Contents:
- Overview
- Placement - This article
- Scalability
- Availability
- Resiliency
- Manageability
- Security
- Summary & Learn more
Placement
A hybrid application inherently has a placement consideration, such as for the datacenter.
Placement is the important task of positioning components so that they can best service a hybrid application. By definition, hybrid applications span locations, such as from on-premises to the cloud and among different clouds. You can place components of the application on clouds in two ways:
- Vertical hybrid applications. Application components are distributed across locations. Each individual component can have multiple instances located only in a single location.
- Horizontal hybrid applications. Application components are distributed across locations. Each individual component can have multiple instances spanning multiple locations.
Some components can be aware of their location while others do not have any knowledge of their location and placement. This virtuousness can be achieved with an abstraction layer. This layer, with a modern application framework like microservices, can define how the application is serviced by the placement of application components operating on nodes across clouds.
Placement checklist
Verify required locations. Make sure the application or any of its components are required to operate in, or require certification for, a specific cloud. This can include sovereignty requirements from your company or dictated by law. Also, determine if any on-premises operations are required for a particular location or locale.
Ascertain connectivity dependencies. Required locations and other factors can dictate the connectivity dependencies among your components. As you place the components, determine the optimal connectivity and security for communication among them. Choices include VPN, ExpressRoute, and Hybrid Connections.
Evaluate platform capabilities. For each application component, see if the required resource provider for the application component is available on the cloud and if the bandwidth can accommodate the expected throughput and latency requirements.
Plan for portability. Use modern application frameworks, like containers or microservices, to plan for moving operations and to prevent service dependencies.
Determine data sovereignty requirements. Hybrid applications are geared for accommodating data isolation, such as on a local datacenter. Review the placement of your resources to optimize the success for accommodating this requirement.
Plan for latency. Inter-cloud operations can introduce physical distance between the application components. Ascertain the requirements to accommodate any latency.
Control traffic flows. Handle peak usage and the appropriate and secured communications for personal identifiable information (PII) data when accessed by the front-end in a public cloud.
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