High Availability Business Scenarios (Applications)
Four high availability business scenarios have been hand selected based on their clear need for some type of high availability solution. A short summary of these business scenarios will be described within this section; however, a much more in depth description will follow as each business scenario is identified and matched to a particular high availability solution. This will also include a complete software and system stack depiction, along with the specification of the high availability primary variables (gauge). Your company may have business scenarios similar to these and, at the very least, you should be able to correlate these high availability solutions to ones that will fit your application's high availability needs. All of the business scenarios are Microsoft-based applications with various high availability/fault tolerant hardware configurations in place. Okay, now let's describe these top four business scenarios.
Application Service Provider
The first business scenario/application centers on a very real application service provider (ASP) and their operating model. This ASP houses (and develops) numerous global, web-based online order entry systems for several major beauty and health product companies in the world. Their customer base is truly global (as the earth turns, the user base accessing the system shifts with it). They are headquartered in California (Silicon Valley—where else?) and this ASP guarantees 99.00% uptime to their customers. In this case, the customers are sales associates and their sales managers. If the ASP achieves these guarantees, they get significant bonuses. If they fall below certain thresholds, they are liable for specific penalties. The processing mix of activity is approximately 65% online order entry and approximately 35% reporting.
Availability:
24 hours per day
7 days per week
365 days per year
Planned Downtime" .25% (less than 1%)
Unplanned Downtime" .25% (less than 1%) will be tolerable
Availability Possible Category" Extreme Availability
The downtime costs and other variables will be fully described as we pick up this business scenario in Chapter 3, “Choosing High Availability” and try to match it with the appropriate high availability solution.
Worldwide Sales and Marketing—Brand Promotion
A major chip manufacturer created a highly successful promotion and branding program that results in billions of dollars in advertising being rebated back to their worldwide sales channel partners. These sales channel partners must enter their complete advertisement copy (whether it is for newspaper, radio, TV, or other media) and be measured against ad compliance and logo usage and placements. If a sales channel partner is in compliance, they will receive up to 50% of the cost of their advertisement back from this chip manufacturer. The dollars being exchanged on a minute-by-minute basis are enormous. There are three major advertising regions: Far East, Europe, and North America. Any other advertisements outside of these first three are lumped into an “Other Regions” bucket. Each region produces a huge daily load of new advertisement information that is processed instantaneously for compliance. Each major region only deals with that region's advertisements, but receives the compliance rules and compliance judgment from the chip manufacturer's headquarters. Application mix is approximately 75% online entry of advertisement events and 25% management and compliance reporting.
Availability:
24 hours per day
7 days a week
365 days a year
Planned Downtime: 3%
Unplanned Downtime: 2% will be tolerable
Investment Portfolio Management
This investment portfolio management application will be housed in a major server farm in the heart of the world's financial center: New York City, NY. Serving North American customers only, this application provides the ability to do full trading of stocks and options in all financial markets (U.S. and international) along with full portfolio holdings assessment, historical performance, and holdings valuation. Primary users are investment managers for their large customers. Stock purchasing/selling comprise 90% of the daytime activity with massive assessment, historical performance, and valuation reporting done after the markets have closed. Three major peaks occur each weekday that are driven by the three major trading markets of the world (U.S., Europe, and the Far East). The weekends are filled with the long-range planning reporting and front-loading stock trades for the coming week.
Availability:
20 hours per day
7 days per week
365 days per year
Planned Downtime: 4%
Unplanned Downtime: 1% will be tolerable
Call Before You Dig
This is a Tri-State Underground Construction Call Center. This application will determine within six inches the likelihood of hitting any underground gas mains, water mains, electrical wiring, phone lines, or cables that might be present on a proposed dig site for construction. Law requires that a call be placed to this center to determine whether it is safe to dig, and to identify the exact location of any underground hazard BEFORE any digging has started. This is a “life at risk”-classified application and must be available near 100% of the time during common construction workdays (Monday through Saturday). Each year more than 25 people are killed nationwide digging into unknown underground hazards. Application mix is 95% query only with 5% devoted to updating images, geo-spatial values, and various pipe and cable location information provided by the regional utility companies.
Availability:
15 hours per day (5:00am–8:00pm)
6 days per week (closed on Sunday)
312 days per year
Planned Downtime: 0%
Unplanned Downtime: .5% (less than 1%) will be tolerable
Availability Possible Category: Extreme Availability
Several other business scenarios were considered, but these four will demonstrate how you can take a business scenario's requirements and drive this all the way to the proper high availability solution.