1. Windows Azure
Customer Solution Case Study
Leading Integration Company
Speeds to Market with Cloud-to-
Cloud Interoperation
Overview “Using the Cast Iron cloud integration
Country or Region: United States
Industry: Software engineering solution, customers can go live on the
Windows Azure platform faster than they
Customer Profile
Cast Iron Systems provides could wrestling with interoperability issues
application integration solutions
that help organizations connect themselves.”
many kinds of business
software. The Mountain View,
California–based firm employs
Cast Iron Systems specializes in helping
100 people. organizations connect Internet-hosted (cloud)
Business Situation
applications with on-premises applications. When
When Microsoft announced the Microsoft announced the Windows Azure™
Windows Azure™ platform, Cast
Iron wanted to enhance its
platform, Cast Iron set out to enhance its Cast
integration solution with better Iron Integration Solution with Windows Azure
connectivity to other public and
private cloud offerings and to
platform connectivity. Using the Service Bus and
on-premises data. Access Control Service, Cast Iron created the
Solution
needed connectors in just one day. Faster time-
Cast Iron used the Service Bus to-market enabled Cast Iron to supply a timely
and Access Control Service,
developer services that run on
solution to an urgent need. Its enhanced product
the Windows Azure platform, to can help customers host applications off-
quickly provide broad
connectivity with other data
premises without concerns about interoperability
sources. with on-premises data. With the Cast Iron
Benefits
Integration Solution, companies can now use
• Faster time-to-market application data wherever it resides and scale
• Time savings for customers
• Improved scalability
workloads without worrying about overloading the
communications infrastructure.

3. “Without the Situation Solution
Cast Iron Systems, whose tagline In mid-2009, Cast Iron began
Service Bus and is “The #1 SaaS and Cloud working with the Windows Azure™
Integration Company,” provides team at Microsoft to demonstrate
Access Control a simple way to connect that Windows Azure applications
Service, we would software-as-a-service (SaaS), or could communicate with virtually
“cloud”-based, applications with any application running in any
have had to create one another and with on- environment, hosted or on-
premises applications. For premises. Windows Azure is a
our own service example, using the Cast Iron cloud services operating system
bus infrastructure, Integration Solution, an that serves as the development,
organization can link Microsoft service hosting, and service
which would have Dynamics® CRM Online data with management environment for the
an on-premises SAP financial Windows Azure platform.
taken months.” application so that any changes Windows Azure provides
Rishi Vaish, Vice President of made to the customer developers with on-demand
Engineering, Cast Iron Systems relationship management data is compute and storage to host,
reflected in the financial system. scale, and manage Web
Cast Iron has helped companies applications on the Internet
reduce integration costs by up to through Microsoft® data centers.
80 percent. The company is
based in Mountain View, To create this anything-to-
California, and has 100 anything interoperability, Cast
employees. Iron used the Service Bus and the
Access Control Service features
“Research shows that of Windows Azure. Using these
integration difficulties are the services simplifies the task of
major reason why organizations building applications and services
are hesitant to pursue the that bridge cloud and on-
hosted-services computing premises deployments.
model,” says Chandar
Pattabhiram, Vice President of The Service Bus is an Internet-
Product and Channel Marketing scale enterprise service bus that
for Cast Iron Systems. “Our makes it easy to connect
mission is to help cloud applications over the Internet.
customers and providers get past Services that register on the
those difficulties so that they can Service Bus can easily be
deploy business solutions discovered and accessed across
wherever it makes sense, on- any network topology. Access
premises or in the cloud.” Control Service provides an easy
way to control Web applications
and services while integrating
with standards-based identity

4. providers. Authorization decisions Service rules can easily and
can be pulled out of the flexibly be configured to cover a
application and placed in a set of variety of security needs and
rules that can transform incoming different identity-management
security claims into claims that infrastructures.
applications understand.
One-Day Development
“We liked the Service Bus Using the Service Bus and
because it uses a nonproprietary Access Control Service, Cast Iron
interface to address message was able to extend its Cast Iron
queues in the cloud,” says Rishi Integration Solution to include
Vaish, Vice President of Windows Azure platform
Engineering for Cast Iron connectivity in just one day. “Our
Systems. “It gave us an easy philosophy is that we do not want
way to connect to the Windows to write any code to solve
Azure platform, from any other integration problems,” Vaish
cloud or from behind a says. “Using drag-and-drop
customer’s firewall. Without the controls, we were able to use the
Service Bus and Access Control Service Bus and Access Control
Service, we would have had to Service to add Windows Azure
Figure 1. Cast Iron create our own service bus platform connectivity to our
demonstrated SAP-to-
infrastructure, which would have existing Cast Iron Integration
Amazon EC2 connectivity
taken months. Our customers Solution. It took us one day to
using the Service Bus and
also would have had to invest in a understand the services and
Access Control Service.
similar development effort. Using another day to build the Azure
the Service Bus and Access connection capability. No code
Control Service, they can simply writing was required. Plus, there
subscribe to these services and is no requirement to maintain the
connect their various applications infrastructure.”
immediately.”
Cast Iron used Access Control
Service to make sure that only
authorized users can access
service queues. With Access
Control Service, Cast Iron was
able to avoid the complicated
programming that is normally
required to secure applications
that extend beyond organizational
boundaries. With its support for a
simple declarative model of rules
and claims, Access Control

5. The Service Bus provides the integrate with applications
familiar, enterprise service bus running in another cloud. The
application pattern, while helping other is cloud-to–on-premises
to solve some of the hard issues systems—cloud-based
that arise when implementing this applications are able to integrate
pattern across network, security, with on-premises applications
and organizational boundaries at running behind a firewall without
Internet scale. “When customers having to open any ports in the
connect to applications behind firewall.
another company’s firewall, they
usually have to work with those As an example of the latter, Cast
companies’ IT organizations to Iron has demonstrated use of the
open up service bus ports,” Service Bus to connect an
Vaish says. “With the Service Amazon EC2 application with an
Bus, you don’t have to do this, SAP application running behind a
because the request comes from customer firewall (Figure 1). No
behind the firewall.” firewall ports had to be opened
for the data to be synchronized
Usage Scenarios reliably and securely. Account
With the Service Bus connectivity updates were picked up from
to the Windows Azure platform, SAP by Cast Iron, and data was
the Cast Iron Integration Solution put in a dynamically created
delivers expanded integration queue. Another Cast Iron runtime
options. One is cloud-to-cloud— running in Amazon EC2 polls for
applications running in one cloud changes in the queue and
are able to securely and reliably updates the custom application
with the changes. No
programming was required to
demonstrate this use-case, which
was implemented in less than a
day.
Benefits
Using the Service Bus and
Access Control Service, Cast Iron
was able to expand the
capabilities of its Cast Iron
Integration Solution with only one
day’s development work, handily
beating competitors to market.
With this solution, its customers,
too, can speed to market with
applications that connect to the

6. “We can focus on Windows Azure platform and then Time Savings for Customers
scale those applications With the Cast Iron Integration
delivering services endlessly. Solution enhanced with Windows
Azure platform connectivity, Cast
rather than on Faster Time-to-Market with New Iron can help its customers,
coding integration Integration Solutions including SaaS providers and
Cast Iron used the Service Bus corporate IT departments, quickly
interfaces. We and Access Control Service to move their applications to that
enhance its Cast Iron Integration platform. “Using the Cast Iron
were able to create Solution with cloud-to-cloud data cloud integration solution,
the SAP-to-Amazon exchange capability in one day, customers can go live on the
with no code-writing. “Without Windows Azure platform faster
EC2 solution in just the Service Bus, we would have than they could wrestling with
had to spend months to create an interoperability issues
one day.” interface to the Windows Azure themselves,” Pattabhiram says.
Sumit Kapoor, Technical platform,” Vaish says. “Our “We can tell customers, ‘If
Alliance Manager, Cast Iron customers would have had to you’re looking at the Windows
Systems invest the same effort, plus Azure platform for your next-
develop the messaging generation applications, we
infrastructure and the integration already have the connectivity
middleware.” covered. We can connect the
Windows Azure platform to your
Sumit Kapoor, Technical Alliance on-premises applications, your
Manager for Cast Iron Systems, customers’ on-premises
adds, “We can focus on applications, or any cloud-based
delivering services rather than on applications.’”
coding integration interfaces. We
were able to create the SAP-to- Improved Scalability
Amazon EC2 solution in just one Now that the Cast Iron Integration
day. There is a growing number Solution can take advantage of
of cloud environments, both the Service Bus to connect to a
public and private, and data broader range of applications
sitting on on-premises over the Internet, customers are
infrastructures. Using the Service able to scale their infrastructures
Bus, we can connect all these endlessly to keep pace with
environments.” need. “There’s no worry about
overloading the communications
infrastructure,” Vaish says.
“Microsoft handles that for us.
This is very important for
customers that do not know how
their workloads will grow over
time. We’ve removed one more

7. For More Information barrier that was keeping them Windows Azure Platform
For more information about from the cloud.” The Windows Azure platform
Microsoft products and provides an excellent foundation
services, call the Microsoft for expanding online product and
Sales Information Center at service offerings. The main
(800) 426-9400. In Canada, call components include:
the Microsoft Canada • Windows Azure. Windows Azure
Information Centre at (877) is the development, service
568-2495. Customers in the hosting, and service
United States and Canada who management environment for
are deaf or hard-of-hearing can the Windows Azure platform.
reach Microsoft text telephone Windows Azure provides
(TTY/TDD) services at (800) developers with on-demand
892-5234. Outside the 50 compute and storage to host,
United States and Canada, scale, and manage Web
please contact your local applications on the Internet
Microsoft subsidiary. To access through Microsoft data
information using the World centers. In addition, Windows
Wide Web, go to: Azure serves developers’
www.microsoft.com connectivity needs through
the following services.
For more information about 〉 The Service Bus connects
Cast Iron Systems products and
services and applications
services, call (650) 230-0621 or
across network
visit the Web site at:
boundaries to help
www.castiron.com
developers build
distributed applications.
Additional Resources:
Download: Windows Azure 〉 The Access Control Service
Tools and SDK provides federated,
View: Architecting and claims-based access
Developing for Windows Azure control for REST Web
services.
• Microsoft SQL Azure. Microsoft
SQL Azure offers the first
cloud-based relational and
self-managed database
Software and Services
Software Azure Services
• Windows and Platform
• Windows Azure
− Windows Azure Platform
• Service Bus
− Windows Azure
Access Control Service
• − Access Control Service
Service Bus
This case study is for informational
This case study is for informational
purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO
purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO
WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN
WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN
THIS SUMMARY.
THIS SUMMARY.
Document published November 2009
Document published November 2009

8. service built on Microsoft SQL
Server 2008 technologies.
To learn more about the Windows
Azure platform, visit:
www.windowsazure.com