Digital Learnings in Sitecore & Cloud

In my previous posts in this series, I looked at options for automated deployment of Sitecore in the cloud to deliver high availability and how to use the features of AWS and Azure to auto-scale your environments.  In this third post we take a look at how we can use the global reach and deployment automation capabilities of the cloud to provide Sitecore installations that support users located at various points around the globe without compromising on the analytics and personalisation capabilities of the Sitecore platform. Other posts in this series Cloud hosting Sitecore - High Availability Cloud hosting Sitecore - Scaling for peak loads Cloud hosting Sitecore - Disaster recovery Cloud hosting Sitecore - Cloud development patterns Pattern 3: Serving global audiences Many organisations, even those that do not themselves have a global footprint, need to serve a global audience.   One of the key issues servicing users coming from multiple places across the glob...

In my first post in this series, I looked at options for automated deployment of Sitecore in the cloud to deliver high availability.  In this second post we take a look at how we can auto-scale these environments in and out to address different load scenarios. Other posts in this series Cloud hosting Sitecore - High Availability Cloud hosting Sitecore - Serving global audiences Cloud hosting Sitecore - Disaster recovery Cloud hosting Sitecore - Cloud development patterns Pattern 2: Scaling for peak loads One of the key benefits of cloud platforms is their ability to scale horizontally by adding new instances of application nodes.  In the case of a web site like those served by Sitecore this generally means adding additional content delivery nodes to the web farm. Sometimes you know when peak loads occur.  This could be a regular peak such as Monday morning or a planned occasion such as an event or even a large newsletter broadcast.   Other times you d...

The approach to hosting web facing systems has changed significantly over the last few years, with virtual machines almost completely replacing physical infrastructure.  These private cloud virtual server farms allowed server instances to be built and run on consolidated hardware, simplifying purchasing for IT departments.  This cloud computing pattern is generally known as Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), and it simplified the way that physical hardware was purchased, whilst supporting the same approach to building and deploying applications that had been used before.  Public cloud hosted IaaS platforms remove the purchasing requirements, whilst providing a high degree of flexibility in how services are hosted, however IT teams still had to install and configure operating systems and other system software like content management and database systems the same way as with traditional environments.   Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure are currently the two...