Windows Azure
Customer Solution Case Study
IT Firm Delivers Carbon-Data Management
in the Cloud, Lowers Barriers for Customers
Overview
Country or Region: India
Industry: Professional services—IT
services
Customer Profile
Based in India, HCL is a global
technology firm with 62,000
employees. Along with its subsidiaries,
HCL had consolidated revenues of U.S.
$5 billion as of March 2010.
Business Situation
HCL wanted to lower the cost barrier
for entry so that more customers could
adopt its manageCarbon application,
which was traditionally an on-premises
application.
Solution
Using an established framework, HCL
migrated its on-premises application
to the Windows Azure platform, using
the Windows Azure Software
Development Kit for Java Developers.
Benefits
 Smaller customer investment
required
 Shorter deployment time
 Simplified development and
maintenance
 Lower total cost of ownership
“[By using] Windows Azure…our customers…don’t need
to make upfront investments or spend resources
maintaining anything. They use the service when they
need it, and only pay for what they use.”
Sanjay Kumar, ERS SEG Online Practice Head, HCL
Technology firm HCL Technologies, offers an on-premises
software application, manageCarbon that helps businesses
aggregate, analyze, and manage carbon emissions data. The
application, which connects to customers' enterprise systems to
extract key emissions data, is growing in popularity due to the
increasing regulatory demands placed on businesses to report
carbon emissions. HCL wanted to lower the barriers to customer
adoption of the technology, reducing the need for customers to
make a significant capital investment upfront and shortening the
lengthy deployment time. Already familiar with cloud
computing, HCL migrated manageCarbon to the Windows Azure
platform. As a result, HCL lowered the investment required by
customers to use manageCarbon, trimmed deployment to onequarter of the time, simplified the development and
maintenance of the application, and lowered its total cost of
ownership.
Situation
HCL is a leading global technology firm
that comprises two companies in India: HCL
Technologies and HCL Infosystems. HCL
Technologies uses its extensive global
infrastructure and network of offices in 26
countries to provide multiservice delivery in
key industry verticals including financial
services, manufacturing, consumer services,
and healthcare.
“By running
manageCarbon on
Windows Azure, our
customers can be up and
running in one-quarter
of the time that it took
with an on-premises
model.”
Rajesh Babu Suraparaju, Product
Manager, HCL
HCL focuses on outsourcing that
emphasizes innovation and value creation.
The company offers an integrated portfolio
of services that includes software-led IT
solutions, remote infrastructure
management, engineering services, and
research and development.
To help customers meet regulatory and
corporate responsibility objectives, HCL
also offers environmental sustainability
services, such as its Java-based
manageCarbon application, which helps
enterprises measure and account for their
carbon footprint. The software application
is based on the Greenhouse Gas (GHG)
Protocol, the widely-accepted international
accounting tool for government and
business leaders to understand, quantify,
and manage greenhouse gas emissions.
HCL currently offers an on-premises version
of manageCarbon.
Typically, carbon emissions activity data
resides in multiple systems across a
customer's enterprise. To provide
corporate-wide carbon accounting, the onpremises version of manageCarbon has
several mechanisms for working with these
data sources to collect emissions data. The
manageCarbon application collects much
of the emissions activity data in batch
mode through the Java Database
Connectivity (JDBC) application
programming interface (API) to the data
sources. HCL also provides a web service
connection to enable enterprise systems to
push additional emissions activity data to
manageCarbon. A manual data entry mode
is also available with manageCarbon, so
that operators can enter emissions activity
data directly.
As companies strive to comply with
environmental laws and become more
sensitive to ecological concerns, HCL
expects that the adoption of carbon
accounting tools in general will increase
rapidly over the next five years. As an early
player in this niche market, HCL wants to
continue to be a market leader in carbon
accounting. It has therefore sought ways to
make manageCarbon more attractive to a
greater number of customers.
Already familiar with cloud computing, HCL
wanted to develop a cloud version of its
manageCarbon application to increase its
appeal to customers. Specifically, it wanted
to reduce the capital investment required
by customers to run manageCarbon onpremises, and thereby lower the barrier for
customers to purchase the application. At
the same time, HCL wanted to reduce the
level of customer IT maintenance required
to manage the application, a cost that is
incurred with any on-premises software
application.
In addition, HCL saw an opportunity to
decrease the time it takes to set up and
deploy manageCarbon. With the onpremises version, it takes customers up to
eight weeks to set up infrastructure, set up
manageCarbon, and configure the
connections to various data sources. HCL
wanted to reduce that setup time by using
a cloud computing model.
Solution
HCL decided to implement a cloud version
of its manageCarbon application using the
Windows Azure platform. The Windows
Azure platform, which is hosted in
Microsoft data centers, includes Windows
Azure as its development, service hosting,
and service management environment. The
company was already familiar with
Windows Azure, because it had assigned a
dedicated team to find ways to help
customers take advantage of the cloud
computing platform. “We use Windows
Azure because it is the best cloud
computing platform to help empower
customers in their business—and that’s
what we’re all about,” says Sanjay Kumar,
Online Practice Lead at HCL.
Figure 1. – The manageCarbon
application connects to
customers’ enterprise
systems to help them collect,
analyze, and manage carbon
emissions data.
Framework Built to Implement Windows
Azure
HCL developed a core internal framework,
Migration++, to help customers migrate
smoothly from a traditional data center to
Windows Azure, and then have customers
effectively manage their online applications
on Windows Azure. Migration++ provides a
rich set of processes and tools, along with
an established framework with three key
loosely interconnected modules:
application assessment, migration and
execution, and management.
Using its Migration++ framework, HCL
migrated manageCarbon to Windows
Azure, where it is hosted. As more
customers use manageCarbon, HCL can
add additional Windows Azure web roles to
quickly scale up to meet customer demand.
For scalable storage, HCL uses Windows
Azure Blob Storage for binary data and the
Microsoft SQL Azure technology platform
for its relational database needs. SQL
Azure, which is based on Microsoft SQL
Server 2008 technologies, enables a rich set
of services for relational database,
reporting, and analytics and data
synchronization with mobile users, remote
offices, and business partners.
Developers at HCL first migrated its MySQL
5.1 databases, which it uses for the onpremises version of the application, to SQL
Server 2008; the HCL developers then
migrated those databases from SQL Server
2008 to SQL Azure, using the same
“It would be incredibly
tedious to upgrade every
customer whenever we
add new features in
manageCarbon, but with
Windows Azure, we can
refresh manageCarbon
at a central location and
every customer can take
advantage and reap the
benefits of new
features.”
Sanjay Kumar, Online Practice Lead, HCL
database schema and data patterns that
are used with the HCL on-premises version.
In the future, HCL will directly migrate its
databases from MySQL to SQL Azure with
capabilities not previously offered when the
company initially migrated its databases.
“Migrating our relational database schema
to SQL Azure was a very simple, smooth
process,” says Rajesh Babu Suraparaju,
Product Manager at HCL. By using SQL
Azure, HCL can offer its customers a
multitenant environment, where each
customer's data is kept separate in the
public cloud.
Emissions Data Collected Across
Network Boundaries
HCL used the Windows Azure Software
Development Kit (SDK) for Java Developers
with Windows Azure platform AppFabric
Service Bus to help securely collect
emissions activity data across network
boundaries. “When manageCarbon is
deployed in the cloud, the challenge is how
to collect emissions data from enterprise
systems that are on-premises and behind a
firewall,” explains Kumar. “With the
functionality of Service Bus within Windows
Azure, we have a solution to that
challenge.”
HCL used Service Bus to connect to
customers’ on-premises data sources using
web services plus a local component to
replace the direct MySQL Connector/J—a
native Java driver that converts JDBC calls
used by the MySQL database—that the onpremises version of manageCarbon uses. It
installs the local component, an enterprise
data connector, for each on-premises data
source, to extract the required emissions
activity data when triggered through a web
service request from manageCarbon.
For identity management, HCL
implemented the Windows Azure platform
AppFabric Access Control to federate
customers’ existing identity management
systems, such as the Active Directory
service. The rule-based authorization
supplied by Access Control enables
manageCarbon to respond as if the
application were running locally on a
customer's client computer. HCL is also
implementing Active Directory Federation
Services 2.0 as part of its own framework,
as a way to authenticate users. “Our goal is
to provide multiple ways to authenticate
users, and with Active Directory Federation
Services we can authenticate enterprise
customers by connecting to their own
Active Directory,” says Suraparaju.
On a periodic basis, such as quarterly or
monthly, as business practices demand,
customers can use manageCarbon to
extract emissions data from their enterprise
systems, and receive carbon emissions
reports that detail their carbon emissions
and provide data for carbon accounting, as
required by government regulations or
recommended by watch groups.
Benefits
As a result of migrating manageCarbon to
the Windows Azure platform to offer a
cloud-based version of the application, HCL
will be able to offer customers a lower cost
of entry and faster deployment time. At the
same time, HCL has simplified development
and maintenance by hosting and delivering
its application in the cloud. By doing so, it
also lowered total cost of ownership (TCO)
for its customers, compared to the
customer purchasing an on-premises
version.
Smaller Customer Investment Required
By supporting manageCarbon on Windows
Azure and Microsoft data centers, HCL
relieves its customers of having to purchase
server hardware or make other capital
expenditures to use manageCarbon. At the
same time, with the pay-as-you-go model
offered by Windows Azure, customers pay
only for the service that they use. This is
particularly important because many
organizations only pull carbon emissions
data and run carbon management reports
on a weekly, monthly, or quarterly basis,
rather than continuously. “One of the
biggest benefits that Windows Azure offers
our customers is that they don’t need to
make upfront investments or spend
resources maintaining anything,” explains
Kumar. “They use the service when they
need it, and only pay for what they use.”
Shorter Deployment Time
With a traditional on-premises model, it
took customers up to eight weeks to
procure the required hardware, set up the
software, and configure data source
connectors. However, by using Windows
Azure and readily-available enterprise data
connectors, it now takes customers only
two weeks from the time they sign up for
manageCarbon to the time they can start
using the solution, fully connected to their
data sources. “By running manageCarbon
on Windows Azure, our customers can be
up and running in one-quarter of the time
that it took with an on-premises model,”
says Suraparaju. “That’s really impressive.”
Simplified Development and
Maintenance
By using Windows Azure to host
manageCarbon, developers at HCL can
rapidly deploy new features and manage
software updates to just a single instance
of the application in the cloud. Instead of
pushing software updates or enhancements
to customers with on-premises versions of
the applications, developers can simply
deploy new versions to Windows Azure—
and the application gets updated for all
customers. “We are targeting a large
customer base between June 2010 and
June 2011,” explains Kumar. “Without
Windows Azure, it would be incredibly
tedious to upgrade every customer
whenever we add new features in
manageCarbon, but with Windows Azure,
we can refresh manageCarbon at a central
location and every customer can take
advantage and reap the benefits of new
features.”
HCL Total Cost of Ownership of Windows Azure Platform Compared to Maintaining an On-Premises Infrastructure
Web/worker computing
Storage (non-relational)
Database computing, licensing,
and storage
AppFabric Service Bus connections
AppFabric Access Control
transactions
Bandwidth
IT administration and support
Facilities and overhead
Setup and delivery
Total cost over three years
Windows Azure
Platform Cost
(U.S$)
On-premises
Virtualized (U.S.$)
Cost Savings with
Windows Azure (U.S$)
Percent Savings with
Windows Azure
$20, 235
$2,446
$16,598
$54,486
$2,492
$23,964
$34, 251
$46
$7,366
62.9%
1.8%
30.7%
$15,414
$1,536
$0
$0
($15,414)
($1,536)
0.0%
0.0%
$9,872
$9,093
$0
$46,862
$122,056
$18,332
$44,324
$27,428
$4,822
$175,848
$8,460
$35,231
$27,428
($42,040)
$53,792
46.1%
79.5%
100.0%
-871.8%
30.6%
For More Information
For 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 who are
deaf or hard-of-hearing can reach
Microsoft text telephone (TTY/TDD)
services at (800) 892-5234 in the
United States or (905) 568-9641 in
Canada. 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 HCL
products and services, send email to
ers.info@hcl.in or visit the website at:
www.hcl.in
Additional Resources:
Training: Channel9 Windows Azure
Training Course
Download: Windows Azure Training
Kit
Download: Windows Azure SDK
White paper: Security Best Practices for
Developing on the Windows Azure
Platform
Lower Total Cost of Ownership
HCL analyzed the costs associated with
developing and hosting its application on
Windows Azure, compared to offering an
on-premises infrastructure that takes
advantage of server virtualization. Over a
three-year period, taking into consideration
compute, storage, connections,
transactions, bandwidth, support, and
overhead, HCL expects to save U.S.$53,792,
or 30.6 percent of its costs, by using the
Windows Azure platform.
Windows Azure Platform
The Windows Azure platform provides an
excellent foundation for expanding
online product and service offerings. The
main components include:
 Windows Azure. Windows Azure is the
development, service hosting, and
service management environment for
the Windows Azure platform. Windows
Azure provides developers with ondemand compute and storage to host,
scale, and manage Web applications
on the Internet through Microsoft data
centers.
 Microsoft SQL Azure. Microsoft SQL
Azure offers the first cloud-based
relational and self-managed database
service built on Microsoft SQL Server
2008 technologies.
 Windows Azure platform AppFabric.
With Windows Azure platform
AppFabric, developers can build and
Software and Services

This case study is for informational purposes only.
MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.
Document published July 2010

Windows Azure Platform
− Windows Azure
− Microsoft SQL Azure
− AppFabric Access Control
− AppFabric Service Bus
− Windows Azure SDK for Java
Developers
manage applications more easily both
on-premises and in the cloud.
− AppFabric Service Bus connects
services and applications across
network boundaries to help
developers build distributed
applications.
− AppFabric Access Control provides
federated, claims-based access
control for REST Web services.
Microsoft Codename "Dallas."
Developers and information workers
can use the new service code-named
Dallas to easily discover, purchase, and
manage premium data subscriptions in
the Windows Azure platform.
To learn more about the Windows Azure
platform, visit:
www.windowsazure.com


Microsoft Server Product Portfolio
− Microsoft SQL Server 2008
Technologies
− Active Directory
− Active Directory Federation Services