How We Manage SaaS Infrastructure

Knowledge TrackGadi Yedwab

VP, Product Development

Service-now.com

Aaron Burruss

Sr. Infrastructure Developer

Service-now.com

• SaaS Infrastructure Design Goals

• Product Architecture

• Integration

• Automation

• How we manage SaaS Infrastructure

• Demo

Infrastructure Design Goals

• Keep it simple!• Scale to any number of customers• Easy deployment hosted or on-premise• Great flexibility for the customer

– Dev, Test, and Prod– Decide when to upgrade– Rich integration options

Infrastructure Design Goals

• Easy to manage and support – Manage the infrastructure using our product

• So you can manage yours with our product too

– Manage each instance entirely through the Web UI• Great maintenance and diagnostic tools• Performance monitoring and capacity graphs• Measure response time and get breakdown• View transactions log and slow queries• Status and key metrics of the application and its components• Debugging tools

Very High-LevelProduct Architecture

DatabaseDatabase

Java Web Application Server

Java Web Application Server

MIDServerMID

Server

UIUI

Very High-LevelProduct Architecture

DatabaseDatabase

Java Web Application Server

Java Web Application Server

MIDServerMID

Server

UIUI

Product Architecture

• Everything in the database• Customizations, full-text index• Email queue, logs,

message queue, you name it!• Nothing in the file system• Easy to backup, restore, clone,

and relocate• Cross-platform portability• Storage independence• Clustered nodes (synchronize via the database)• Replication queue in the database

Product Architecture

• Java Web Application Server– JVM – cross platform– Robust execution environment– Portable and self contained– Transaction concurrency

controlled by semaphores– JavaScript scripting (Rhino)

• Scalable– Add clustered nodes as needed – Add MID servers as needed

Product Architecture

• Standard Web 2.0 Interfaces– HTML, JavaScript, AJAX, cookies– No browser plug-ins– Web Services interfaces (SOAP)– E-mail (inbound and outbound)– Mobile interface

Product Architecture

• MID Server– Monitoring, Integration,

and Discovery– Connects to the application

• We don’t connect to you

– gets instructions and sends data– Applications

• CMDB Integration: SCCM, LANDesk, etc.• Discovery: probes and sensors• Runbook: automation

Integration

• Web Services (SOAP)– Any data – inbound and outbound– Synchronous and Asynchronous

(message queuing)

• Email– Inbound and Outbound – fully scriptable

• MID Server• Security (LDAP, SSO)• Import using file, FTP

Automation

• Scripting and scheduled jobs– We use it to check for upgrades, phone home,

update text index, table cleaner, etc.

• Runbook– We use it to manage

the data center– Graphical Workflow

• Standard operation procedures – implement a process that involves people, tasks, automation and approvals

Automation In Practice

• Data Center Migration as an example• Different servers, storage (SAN), and versions of

the OS and JVM – no problem• Move one or more instances at a time

– Move coordinated with each customer

• Use Runbook automation and replication– Minimize downtime for the move– Standardized process for each migration– Process is refined with each migration– Replication allows uptime during the migration

How We Manage SaaS

• Unit of service provisioning – the instance– Java application server + database– Provision, move, promote, clone, configure, manage,

de-provision, start, stop, upgrade– We manage thousands of instances– Automation using the Service-now.com platform, of

course!– Instances can be hosted, on-premise, and in various

data centers (London, Geneva, etc.)

How We Manage SaaS

• No need for specialized hardware

• Easy to scale – just add servers

• Failures are isolated and recovery is quick

• Storage is “partitioned” each customer’s data is separate

• Cost is contained and savings are passed to you!

Roadmap

• Data centers in London and Geneva

• Self-service request of a clone– Ability to schedule a clone

• Runbook automation– Automate your standard procedures– Automate diagnosis and response – Empower your service desk