Flexible deployment models

In the enterprise world where one size does not fit all and change is ever constant, the demand for flexibility is immense. TORO understands this need, which is why it built Martini to be customizable – starting from deployment.

TORO offers two production-level subscriptions that either:

• Gives you the privilege to run your instance on top of TORO Cloud - featuring convenience, availability, and direct technical support; or
• Empowers you to freely deploy and manage instances on your own, leading to a gateway of countless alternatives and possibilities.

Aren't there three types of subscriptions?

The Martini Desktop Edition is for developing on your own desktop computer. Applications created with the Martini Desktop Edition can be uploaded to either Martini Online on TORO Cloud or a server running the Martini Runtime. However, we will leave the Desktop Edition out of this discussion as this type of subscription is not intended for production-use.

The type of subscription you have determines not only your Martini instance's feature-use limitations¹ but also the deployment options available to you and your organization. A license for the Online Edition gives you access to TORO Cloud; whereas a license for the Runtime Edition gives you the ability to deploy your Martini instance on the server of your choice, be it a server of a different cloud provider or your own provisioned hardware. But with a hybrid deployment, you won't have to choose because you can get the best of both worlds.

To summarize, it is possible to deploy your Martini instance using any of the four deployment models below:

• TORO Cloud deployment (requires a Martini Online subscription)
• Public cloud deployment (requires a Martini Runtime subscription)
• On-premise deployment (requires a Martini Runtime subscription)
• Hybrid deployment

While deployments on TORO Cloud guarantee convenience and care in the hands of TORO's experts, self-managed deployments such as public cloud and on-premise deployments offer more options in terms of configuration and customization.

No commitments

With Martini, you won't have to commit to a single deployment model; shifting from one deployment model to another isn't too difficult. It's just a matter of backing up your data, and configuring your new instance correctly.

TORO Cloud

TORO Cloud is TORO's implementation on distributing Martini as an iPaaS application. It is a pay-per-use service² that lets you rely on TORO for the hosting, monitoring, and patch management of your Martini instances, freeing you of these responsibilities and allowing you to focus on what truly matters – developing applications.

TORO Cloud deployments are characterized by:

• Lack of hardware investment
• Easy and quick setup
• Zero need for maintenance; updates are automatically applied, ensuring that you always have the latest version of Martini running
• Scalability, flexible storage, and computing capacity
• Cost-effectiveness due to reduced operational costs³
• The ability to manage data from anywhere

Martini Online is a browser based development environment for building and managing Martini projects on TORO Cloud⁴. This type of deployment requires a license for TORO Cloud.

TORO Cloud deployment architecture

Instances on TORO Cloud implement a three tier, high availability network architecture.

Public cloud deployment

With a Martini Runtime license, you can opt to deploy Martini using cloud computing services by AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, Alibaba Cloud, or others of the like. This type of deployment is ideal for organizations that already have existing servers or data repositories hosted by public cloud providers or those that require their data center to be in a specific geographic location.

Public cloud deployments are characterized by:

• Lack of hardware investment
• Self-managed software installation and configuration which means the subscriber has:
  • Internal oversight of the deployment
  • Can customize and fine tune the server configuration
  • Absolute control of the instance's application data

On-premise deployment

An on-premise deployment means Martini will be deployed using your own provisioned hardware. This enables you to have direct access to local data repositories, thereby giving you more control over your own data.

On-premise deployments are characterized by:

• Hardware investment; which also means you are responsible for maintaining the provisioned hardware
• Self-managed hardware setup and software installation and configuration which means the you have:
  • Internal oversight of the deployment
  • The option to customize and fine tune the server configuration
  • Absolute control of the instance's application data
• Offline availability

This type of deployment requires the Runtime Edition of Martini.

Hybrid deployment

A hybrid deployment model is a deployment model that combines two or more of the deployment models above. This type of deployment model is recommended for instances where your organization may benefit from a combination of deployment models. For example, if you require your own server (public cloud or on-premise) but would like to have the TORO-managed option for your public facing instance, then a hybrid of a self-hosted solution (public cloud deployment or on-premise deployment) plus TORO Cloud would be the ideal solution.

Deciding factors

Choosing the right deployment model for your organization is not an easy task; your choice could either slow you down or put your business on top. Here are the factors you need to consider when choosing which deployment model to use for your Martini deployment:

• Responsibility of setup and maintenance

  Self-managed deployments will require a team of system administrators as the process of setup and deployment may involve⁵:

  • Setting up your server's hardware and software;
  • Setting up the architecture of Martini and the family of services it requires; and
  • Dealing with your public cloud provider's technology, which can be very specific

  Meanwhile, TORO Cloud subscribers are freed from the responsibility of setup and maintenance as TORO will automatically set-up your instance for you using predefined configurations, and are backed up by TORO's team of experts.

• Software and hardware configuration options

  With self-managed instances, you can pick out your server's operating system, use a load-balancer like NGINX, run your instance inside a container like Docker, set the firewall configuration of your server, and more. You will also have direct control over your application data.

• Location

  The closer your server is to your group of target users, the faster it can respond; thus, it is ideal to position your server such that is located as close as possible to your users. Consideration must also be made when Martini is reliant on internal systems such as databases, which can be very slow if Martini and a database it's using is not on the same network.

• Privacy

  Sometimes it's a requirement to have Martini deployed on your own infrastructure because it's dealing with sensitive data, which can't be processed outside it.

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1. Such as invoke limitations, supported SQL servers, etc. ↩

2. or platform. ↩

3. You will not have to pay for hardware, or create a technical support team of your own; you also only pay what you use. ↩

4. Although Martini Desktop can still be used. ↩

5. This depends on the type of self-managed deployment (public cloud deployment or on-premise deployment). ↩