AWS Case Study: MediaPlatform Embraces AWS

MediaPlatform migrated its Software-as-a-Service offering to Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) from a traditional data center, using Amazon Elastic Load Balancing to distribute load across the most active Amazon EC2 images and Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) for long-term storage. The MediaPlatform team is now exploring the use of Amazon S3/Amazon CloudFront to distribute elements of client webcasts in lieu of a traditional content delivery network.

“Amazon Web Services (AWS) has allowed us to build a more robust product offering with less hassle and at a lower cost than traditionally available,” says Greg Pulier, CTO of MediaPlatform.

Originally, MediaPlatform software ran off a stack of hardware managed by the MediaPlatform team in a local data center operated by a global infrastructure provider. The team began experimenting with virtualization for local testing and quality assurance; when it came time to upgrade hardware in the data center, they looked at all options and launched a few experimental Amazon EC2 instances. At first, the MediaPlatform team created the instances to act as MySQL servers but eventually moved the databases to a Radio Data System.

The most immediate result of moving the MediaPlatform servers to AWS was a “tremendous number” of man-hours saved, according to Greg Pulier. This was a benefit not only in configuring, upgrading, and decommissioning hardware but also in commute time to and from the data center.

The MediaPlatform team appreciates AWS’s customizable instances as well as the quick development and release of new features and services. “As we grow into AWS,” Greg Pulier says with confidence, “the overall cost savings will become more apparent.”

In the near future, MediaPlatform plans to increase its use of AWS and expand into other availability zones, looking forward to new available services. “We’re a small company, so leveraging Amazon’s infrastructure is a bonus for us and our customers,” says Greg Pulier. “We’re able to offer increased stability and performance at a lower cost. Looking forward, the option to work with the different availability zones will be a huge plus.”

Although the team’s first step was to mirror the server configuration they already had in the data center, “you have to think a little differently with virtualized hardware…differently in a good way,“ says Greg Pulier. “Looking back, I would highly suggest utilizing all of the benefits of cloud computing from the very beginning.”

To learn more, visit http://www.mediaplatform.com/ .