Windows AzureCustomer Solution Case Study

Firm Uses Cloud to Speed Up Development by 50 Percent, Reduce Costs by 60 Percent

OverviewCountry or Region: GermanyIndustry: Professional services—IT services

Customer ProfileT-Systems Multimedia Solutions develops Internet-based solutions for large and midsize companies. It is based in Dresden, Germany, and employs 1,000 people.

Business SituationT-Systems Multimedia Solutions wanted to create an application that would help home and business owners reduce energy use. It needed to get to market quickly, keep personal data safe, and scale the underlying infrastructure quickly and cost-effectively.

SolutionT-Systems Multimedia Solutions used the Windows Azure cloud computing platform to develop, run, and store data for its new application, called STROMBOXX.

Benefits Lower energy costs for customers Fifty percent faster time-to-market Scalability to handle growth Infrastructure costs 60 percent lower Consistent application performance

“With STROMBOXX, consumers can pinpoint energy waste and get specific ideas for how they can cut back. Because the application is running on Windows Azure, they can access STROMBOXX from anywhere.”

Sandor Modsching, Head of Cloud Computing and Collaboration, T-Systems Multimedia Solutions

T-Systems Multimedia Solutions is a major web solutions agency in Germany. In February 2011, T-Systems Multimedia Solutions launched the pilot version of STROMBOXX, an application that lets consumers and businesses remotely monitor and control energy consumption using a web-based portal that they access through their PCs, phones, or televisions. By running STROMBOXX on the Windows Azure cloud operating system and by storing data in a Microsoft SQL Azure database, T-Systems Multimedia Solutions was able to reduce time-to-market by 50 percent and infrastructure costs by 60 percent, while gaining vast scalability and the ability to deliver consistent performance from anywhere in the world. With this success, T-Systems Multimedia Solutions is moving forward with additional cloud-based applications.

SituationT-Systems affiliate Multimedia Solutions develops Internet-based solutions for large corporations and midsize companies. The company's approximately 1,000 employees serve customers in all industries by translating web innovations into services for the digital business and social ecosystem. These include solutions for e-commerce, intranet and Internet portals, and web IT management. T-Systems itself is the corporate customer division of Germany’s biggest telecommunications company, Deutsche Telekom.

As global energy prices have risen over the last few years, T-Systems Multimedia Solutions saw an opportunity. It wanted to create an easy-to-use application that home and business owners could use to monitor and reduce their energy usage. T-Systems Multimedia Solutions developers knew that consumers could not make intelligent energy consumption decisions without data on their current energy use.

“Our goal was to create an application that people could access from their smartphones, computers, or TVs to manage their energy consumption from anywhere in the world,” says Sandor Modsching, Head of Cloud Computing and Collaboration at T-Systems Multimedia Solutions. “If you are on winter vacation and left a window open, the application could alert you that one room of the house was consuming too much energy so you could turn off the heat. Furthermore, we wanted to advise customers on smarter energy use, such as running the dishwasher at another time of the day.”

In late 2009, as T-Systems Multimedia Solutions began thinking more seriously about the application, it realized that it needed a way to very quickly transfer enormous amounts of data between millions of homes and personal devices such as smartphones. It also needed a highly scalable and cost-effective technology infrastructure for hosting the application and storing the data—and it needed to keep all personal data, such as customer names and addresses, safe. It needed to get to market quickly as well, because other companies were also working on so-called “smart metering” applications.

“To launch such an application, we needed to determine where the application would run and predict the number of servers required, which is difficult,” Modsching says. “It isn’t easy to determine the underlying infrastructure needs for a brand new service without knowing how many people would sign up. With an on-premises data center, you have to pay for significant computing and storage resources that are not needed at the beginning but are needed to be able to scale quickly if necessary.”

SolutionCloud computing—using groups of servers and scalable resources to provide a computing platform, applications, or both, over the Internet—was a perfect way to meet all these needs. Because T-Systems Multimedia Solutions has strong experiences using Microsoft software to create and run Internet solutions, it chose the Windows Azure platform as its cloud computing and storage environment. Windows Azure is a a cloud services

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“Our goal was to create an application that people could access from their smartphones, computers, or TVs to manage their energy consumption from anywhere in the world.”

Sandor Modsching, Head of Cloud Computing and Collaboration, T-Systems

Multimedia Solutions

platform that provides on-demand compute, storage, bandwidth, content delivery, middleware, and marketplace capabilities to build, host, and scale web applications through Microsoft data centers.

“By using Windows Azure, we could start with a small customer base and small up-front investment and scale the solution quickly and cost-effectively,” says Raik Dittrich, Technical Lead for Cloud Services at T-Systems Multimedia Solutions.

T-Systems Multimedia Solutions also evaluated other cloud platforms but thought that Windows Azure provided a more integrated and complete service set. “Windows Azure provides integrated, feature-rich computing, database, and communications services which can easily be combined with local services,” Modsching says. “Also, our staff was already familiar with the Microsoft development environment, so we had no

learning curve to move to the Windows Azure environment.”

STROMBOXX Energy-Saving ApplicationT-Systems Multimedia Solutions began working on the smart metering service, which it called STROMBOXX, in September 2010 and has created several pilots. The first public version is planned for release in the second half of 2011. Implementing STROMBOXX is simple: Customers purchase a box of wireless home temperature sensors from T-Systems Multimedia Solutions, which they install in their home or business and connect to an Internet router. The temperature sensor and Internet gateway devices used are provided by one of the leading electronic equipment manufacturers in Europe, the EQ-3 AG. They then download the STROMBOXX application to their smartphones or use a browser to access the Windows Azure–based portal where they can view and control their energy usage.

Consumers can create time and temperature profiles for individual rooms in their apartment or home, or department or area of their workplace. Through the STROMBOXX portal, they can turn the wireless thermostats up or down. If a sensor indicates that a window is open, STROMBOXX can automatically switch the heat off.

In the future, STROMBOXX will recommend ways to save energy and remind customers of their energy-saving targets or, for example, of the importance of ventilation to avoid mildew buildup. It might let a homeowner know that his or her refrigerator is old and not very energy efficient, and it can show him how much his

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The STROMBOXX mobile smart metering service lets customers view and change temperatures in their homes or businesses from smartphones and other computers.

energy bill will decrease if he buys a new model and even calculates the return-on-investment period.

T-Systems Multimedia Solutions offers STROMBOXX to individual consumers and business owners and also to home building companies, energy utilities, and government agencies that run public housing units and schools. Parent company Deutsche Telekom offers the application to its 40 million customers. Driving demand is a German government mandate issued in early 2011 that obligates all homes and businesses in the country to have energy management systems installed to monitor energy consumption.

Cloud ArchitectureThe architecture of STROMBOXX takes full advantage of the Windows Azure platform and uses both web and worker roles. A web role is used for the web-based front-end application, while worker roles perform back-end processes such as collecting temperature data, updating device profiles, and calculating statistics.

Data is stored in Microsoft SQL Azure, the database component of the Windows Azure platform, and in Windows Azure Table Storage. SQL Azure is used to hold management data such as user accounts, households, rooms, and profiles, while the large amount of measurement data is stored in Table Storage.

Familiar Development EnvironmentT-Systems Multimedia Solutions found it easy and familiar to develop code in the Windows Azure environment. “At first, using a cloud-based service requires a new way of thinking, taking into account scaling

and session management issues,” Modsching says. “But the basic development methodology is not really different from developing in a classic Microsoft .NET Framework environment, which made it easy to use our standard development environment and processes.”

Dittrich adds, “Our developers were amazed at how easily they could create and implement cloud services. There was no need to change their development behavior. They had only to adopt a new deployment process, but the development tools and processes were the same.”

Because of its strong commitment to Microsoft software, T-Systems Multimedia Solutions targeted Windows Phone as its first smartphone platform. ”Being familiar with Windows development tools, it was easy and very efficient for us to develop the Windows Phone application,” Dittrich says. ”Our STROMBOXX application was one of the first in the Windows Phone 7 marketplace in late 2010. We are just now launching STROMBOXX for iPhone and Android to provide a broad market approach for the solution.”

BenefitsBy using the Windows Azure platform, T-Systems Multimedia Solutions was able to get STROMBOXX to market quickly, reduce infrastructure costs, and gain cost-effective scalability and consistent performance. It is now moving confidently into new cloud ventures.

Lower Energy Costs for CustomersSTROMBOXX is an easy-to-use, smart-metering application that consumers and business owners can use to monitor and

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“Windows Azure really helped us shorten our time-to-market…. We were able to get to market at least 50 percent faster and remain focused on our business vision.”

Sandor Modsching, Head of Cloud Computing and Collaboration, T-Systems

Multimedia Solutions

reduce energy costs. “Energy costs, especially home heating costs, are continuing to rise, and individuals and governments are highly motivated to find ways to cut costs,” Modsching says. “However, you cannot cut back unless you know that you are using too much and where that energy is going. With STROMBOXX, consumers can pinpoint energy waste and get specific ideas for how they can cut back. Because the application is running on Windows Azure, they can access STROMBOXX from anywhere.”

Fifty Percent Faster Time-to-Market The use of Windows Azure also helped T-Systems Multimedia Solutions get to market faster. “Windows Azure really helped us shorten our time-to-market,” Modsching says. “We were able to focus on developing our idea rather than worrying about setting up development, test, and production infrastructures. We were able to get to market at least 50 percent faster and remain focused on our business vision—not to mention offering worldwide access from day one.”

Also, the T-Systems Multimedia Solutions team was able to use a single set of development tools for creating the server, web, and mobile parts of the application. “We were able to use the same developer skills for the whole application,” Dittrich says. “At any time of the development cycle, from pilot to testing to production, we could expand our development team as needed without paying for expensive external consultants. Staffing needs change over the life cycle of a project, and we were able to easily meet those needs with our Microsoft-trained staff.”

Scalability to Handle Rapid GrowthAs T-Systems Multimedia Solutions adds new STROMBOXX customers, it can easily scale the cloud compute and storage infrastructure to meet the need. “We will start in 2011 with 20,000 households, including 140,000 heating devices, in a pilot program and are gradually increasing our customer base,” Modsching says. “We are expecting to expand the service to a significant part of the 26 million residential units in Germany. Windows Azure gives us all the compute power and storage space we need at any stage of our growth.”

Infrastructure Costs 60 Percent LowerCompared to a traditional on-premises hosting model, Windows Azure provides significant infrastructure savings for T-Systems Multimedia Solutions. “Windows Azure has reduced the infrastructure and management costs for our customers by up to 60 percent,” Dittrich says. “We don’t have to start with a huge number of servers so that we’re ready for growth; we can start with 10 and grow as needed.” Consistent Application PerformanceBecause T-Systems Multimedia Solutions essentially has infinite processing scalability on tap, it can deliver lightning-fast responsiveness to STROMBOXX users. “As our customer base grows, we won’t be able to predict how many customers will be using STROMBOXX at any given time,” Dittrich says. “With Windows Azure, we can flexibly and automatically assign as much compute power as needed to deliver consistently excellent performance at any time of the day, from anywhere in the world.”

Foundation for New Cloud Ventures

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“Being familiar with Windows development tools, it was easy and very efficient for us to develop the Windows Phone application. Our STROMBOXX application was one of the first in the Windows Phone 7 marketplace in late 2010.”

Raik Dittrich, Technical Lead for Cloud Services, T-Systems Multimedia Solutions

Thanks to the positive experience it has had in developing STROMBOXX, T-Systems Multimedia Solutions is confidently moving forward with additional cloud-based applications. “The cloud is now key to our business model, and we’ve gained valuable experience that will enable us to move even faster on our next venture,” Modsching says. “We feel that partnering with Microsoft gives us a big competitive advantage. Compared to its competitors and other big players, Microsoft understands the language of business and how to work with partners. Microsoft also has a strong hybrid story; it understands that customers will still have some on-premises elements, and it provides easy connections between its cloud and customer-premises systems. Hybrid computing is just much easier with Microsoft.”

Windows Azure PlatformThe Windows Azure platform provides developers the functionality to build applications that span from consumer to enterprise scenarios. The key components of the Windows Azure platform are:

Windows Azure. Windows Azure is the development, service hosting, and service management environment for the Windows Azure platform. It provides developers with on-demand compute, storage, bandwidth, content delivery, middleware, and marketplace capabilities to build, host, and scale web applications through Microsoft data centers.

Microsoft SQL Azure. Microsoft SQL Azure is a self-managed, multitenant relational cloud database service built on Microsoft SQL Server technologies. It provides built-in high availability, fault tolerance, and scale-out database capabilities, as well as cloud-based data synchronization and reporting, to build custom enterprise and web applications and extend the reach of data assets.

To learn more, visit: www.windowsazure.com www.sqlazure.com

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For More InformationFor more information about Microsoft products and services, call the Microsoft Sales Information Center at (800) 426-9400. In Canada, call the Microsoft Canada Information Centre at (877) 568-2495. Customers in the United States and Canada who are deaf or hard-of-hearing can reach Microsoft text telephone (TTY/TDD) services at (800) 892-5234. Outside the 50 United States and Canada, please contact your local Microsoft subsidiary. To access information using the World Wide Web, go to:www.microsoft.com

For more information about T-Systems Multimedia Solutions products and services, call (49) 351 2820 0 or visit the website at: www.t-systems-mms.com

This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.

Document published July 2011

Software and Services Windows Azure Platform− Windows Azure− Microsoft SQL Azure− Windows Azure Table Storage

Windows Phone Solutions− Software-plus-services