agile blackboard
TRANSCRIPT
Agile Blackboard
Chris Dyche
Senior Systems Engineer
Liverpool John Moores University
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Agile Blackboard
• Why?
• How?
• Microsoft Azure
• Automation
• Future
• But first…..
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Agile Blackboard
• Why?
• How?
• Microsoft Azure
• Automation
• Future
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• Blackboard application is complex– Half yearly releases– Cumulative Updates– Patches– Building Blocks
• Blackboard has strategic importance– Blackboard is no longer just a repository for lecture notes– Several stakeholders
• Pro Vice-Chancellor for Education• Learning Technologists• IT Department• Developers• Academics• Students
• Required 24/7 365 days a year
• IT Staff resourcing shared with other software
Why do we need to be Agile?
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Agile Blackboard
• Why ?
• How?
• Microsoft Azure
• Automation
• Future
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Reconfigure web servers and databases to new instance
Restore the databases
Build new database, file and web servers
Take a copy of an application server
Take database backups
Take a copy of content files
Cloning Blackboard – LJMU typical method
• Development, Test and Live environments are all on the same network
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Cloning Blackboard using Microsoft Azure
Start servers
Place identical copies of servers into sandbox
Build a sandbox private network
• Each environment in it’s own private virtual network• Supports multiple environments using the same server configuration
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Example Cloning
• Access to environment via endpoints e.g. http or remote desktop
• All other network traffic is contained to the virtual private network
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Agile Blackboard
• Why ?
• How?
• Microsoft Azure
• Automation
• Future
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Microsoft Azure
• Built on the top of existing global Microsoft datacentres providing services such as Bing and Xbox Live
• A platform for numerous services including– Web sites– SQL Databases– Media Encoding– Mobile application services– Recovery services– Virtual Machines– Virtual Networks
• Persistent virtual machines were first introduced in 2012
• Evolving all the time with new services
• LJMU utilise MSDN benefit to have £95 of credit per month
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Costs
• In a sandboxed environment, there are 2 main factors to consider– Storage– Compute
• Storage costs are in the region of £xx
• Compute costs are for pre-defined performance ranging from Basic A0 (1 core, 0.75GB memory) to D14 (16 cores 112GB memory)
• Example costs are A0 costs per £0.011 per hour, A3 costs £0.18 and D14 costs £1.449 per hour
• Typical cost to run this Blackboard Environment for 8 hours is £6.15
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Basic Compute Costs
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D Series Compute Costs
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Agile Blackboard
• Why ?
• How?
• Microsoft Azure
• Automation
• Future
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• Azure Portals are great for managing your environment but slow for repeatable tasks
• A Blackboard clone is repeatable and a prime candidate for scripting
• Scripting frees staff to look after other Blackboard tasks
• There are third party and other Microsoft tools available
• PowerShell is free
Automation – Part 1
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Creating the Blackboard Builder Script
• What are the requirements?– Create a new unique private virtual network– Take a copy of our server VHDs from source container– Create Azure disks for new virtual machines– Create a new cloud service– Create new virtual machines on the virtual private network– Poll Blackboard application health check page and indicate when
complete
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• Azure provides an automation service
• Allows you to schedule scripts within the environment
• Can schedule virtual machines to start up and shut down in office hours
Automation – Part 2
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Agile Blackboard
• Why ?
• How?
• Microsoft Azure
• Automation
• Future
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Future Opportunities
• Create a private cloud and clone existing production system
• Agile scale-out of production machines flexing into cloud
• Self service for the Learning Technologist
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Conclusion
• Blackboard is strategically important
• Blackboard application is constantly evolving
• Possible to clone a working environment in under 30 minutes
• Create a build – test – destroy model
Thank you