When AddThis, one of the Web’s largest infrastructure platforms, needed to upgrade their data centers, implementing an off-the-shelf solution just wasn’t an option. As the most widely used content engagement and analytics platform on the open Web, AddThis has a one-of-a-kind environment – with a specific set of operating requirements. After all, supporting 14 million domains, serving 1.3 billion unique users a month, and managing ten terabytes of data every day isn’t simple. So when the AddThis team identified an opportunity to upgrade their data centers, what was their first move? Read on to find out.
AddThis kicked off the project with a trusted partner. Fortunately, the experts at Connection work with AddThis on an almost daily basis and already understood several of their unique requirements. We knew that, unlike many organizations today, AddThis wasn’t looking for a traditional virtualized environment. Instead, they needed a “scale-out” type of x86 compute solution to handle their workloads.
Our team collaborated with AddThis to pinpoint their specific needs for this expansion, identify potential solutions, and evaluate technologies from various vendors. Once we landed at an appropriate server design, we worked up a complimentary network infrastructure to integrate the new systems into the existing environment. The next step was to put together a logistics and implementation plan to help AddThis achieve the fastest possible time-to-business-value from their investment. HP’s Factory Express service was the answer – when the equipment was delivered to AddThis’ data centers, it was already racked, cabled, labeled, configured, and tested. The new servers were operating at production levels in just three days – the fastest turn around Andy Tomasello, Director of Operations at AddThis, had ever seen.
Watch our video case study to hear the rest of what Andy had to say about working with the Connection team.
