AWS Case Study: Zenga Media

Shabir Momin, CEO of Zenga, founded the company in 2007 and went live with the first services in 2008. At that time, primary challenges included scaling, server management, shipment time, and ensuring the availability of products and hardware.

Momin explains the infrastructure transition: “Initially, we had dedicated machines owned by Zenga on the ground. Then, we moved to Rackspace, and finally to AWS. In the beginning, we had 36 people managing the infrastructure. It was reduced to 20 when we moved to Rackspace, and then reduced to four when we moved to AWS.”

Zenga decided to move to the cloud in 2008 when they were launching a B2C service that had the potential of scaling very quickly. Momin explains: “Anticipating the growth rate was difficult, as it was the first time something like this was going to be launched globally. So we made the choice to move to a service capable of being more scalable with less notice.” He adds, “We could reduce and increase the server size without having to recreate it each time.” The primary considerations for moving to AWS included scalability, features, and the pay-as-you-go model.

While the implementation process was fairly straightforward, Zenga was able to use the AWS forum to resolve issues that did arise.

The company now uses Amazon EC2, Amazon S3, Amazon RDS, and Amazon CloudFront, with servers in the EU and Singapore. The infrastructure is currently 80% dependent on cloud services.

The infrastructure supports websites, including Streaming, Facebook, Zenga TV, Zenga Mail, and several others. The following customers (which are well known in India and Asia) have used Zenga’s services:

• MTV India
• India Premier League
• ColorsTV
• CLT20.com

According to Momin, positive results of using AWS include lower average costs, scaling, the pay-as-you-go model, features as services, and a low human resource requirement. In addition, ROI time has been reduced by about 50 percent.

In terms of future use of AWS solutions, Momin says, “I would consider using anything AWS can offer, and would push AWS to offer things I need that they do not offer currently.”

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

Added February 7, 2012