Microsoft SQL AzureCustomer Solution Case Study

Web Firm Saves $30,000 Annually, Expands Global Growth with Cloud Database Service

OverviewCountry or Region: ItalyIndustry: Professional services—Software engineering

Customer ProfileEdisonWeb is an independent software vendor whose Web Signage application provides an easy way to create and manage content for digital signs. EdisonWeb is based in Mirabella Imbaccari, Italy.

Business SituationEdisonWeb hosted Web Signage database content in Microsoft SQL Server running on on-premises servers, a model that burdened the firm with high costs and limited its ability to grow its business.

SolutionEdisonWeb gave customers the more affordable option to run Web Signage from the Windows Azure platform, storing data in Microsoft SQL Azure, where it is available globally.

Benefits Flexible pay-as-you-go pricing Free to grow internationally More flexibility for customers Faster pace of innovation

“We are proud of having achieved SQL Azure and Windows Azure compatibility, which will allow us to further shorten our release and development times and increase both scalability and performance.”

Riccardo D’Angelo, Chief Executive Officer, EdisonWeb

In 2009, Italian software developer EdisonWeb launched Web Signage, an application that retailers and other organizations use to manage content for digital signs used in retail stores and other venues. However, hosting the application in an on-premises infrastructure was expensive and limited the company’s ability to expand beyond Italy. EdisonWeb added the Windows Azure platform as a deployment option for Web Signage, which enabled the company to store key elements of the application in Microsoft SQL Azure, a cloud-based relational database service. By using SQL Azure, EdisonWeb is realizing savings of nearly U.S.$30,000 a year and can now expand internationally without the expense of setting up and managing a global server infrastructure. Customers enjoy a more cost-effective service, and EdisonWeb can focus on developing great software rather than managing servers.

SituationEdisonWeb is an independent software vendor that specializes in developing innovative web-based solutions for commercial and government customers. Established in 1996, EdisonWeb develops applications for e-government, healthcare, info-mobility, tourism, and digital marketing companies that require high-performance and easy-to-use solutions. EdisonWeb is a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner based in Mirabella Imbaccari, Italy.

In 2009, EdisonWeb developed Web Signage, a software platform that helps businesses manage interactive and non-interactive digital signs, such as in-store projectors, digital billboards, and information signs in public facilities. Companies can also broadcast audio clips to in-store radios and send Bluetooth messages over its platform. Customers use the PC-based Web Signage Player software for audio/video content playback, and the web-based Web Signage Server Platform to create and distribute content to the player machines, manage the player network, and analyze audience response data.

EdisonWeb hosted the Web Signage server application on on-premises servers and stored content metadata, user account information, and part of application logic, in databases running Microsoft SQL Server data management software.

However, hosting Web Signage in local data centers presented barriers to EdisonWeb. “We allow customers to rent player licenses by the month and turn them off when they’re not using them, such as during low retail seasons,” explains Vittorio Polizzi, Chief Technology Officer for

EdisonWeb. “But with an on-premises infrastructure, we still had to pay for SQL Server licenses even when we weren’t using them, and we had a steady capital exposure for the whole server infrastructure.” Also, EdisonWeb had to manage the application and database servers—apply security updates, monitor performance, and routinely upgrade software and hardware—which consumed precious IT resources.

Additionally, the company’s flexible licensing model did not fit well with a standard on-premises infrastructure, which presented recurring costs that were disconnected from server usage.

The biggest challenge, though, was that EdisonWeb wanted to grow its Web Signage business but could not move beyond Italy without significant work and expense. “It was difficult to expand our services outside of Italy with an on-premises infrastructure,” Polizzi says. “The performance was often insufficient when we tried to stream video content across long distances. For every new country, we would have to establish relationships with local telecommunications companies, set up servers in those countries, and then manage them remotely. Managing a transnational network with an on-premises infrastructure would require a great deal of capital and work.”

SolutionIn late 2009, EdisonWeb began to evaluate cloud service providers that could host Web Signage in the cloud—in a network of third-party global data centers, delivering the application and data to customers over the Internet with a level of scalability, flexibility, and economy that was not

27

“It was difficult to expand our services outside of Italy with an on-premises infrastructure.”Vittorio Polizzi, Chief Technology Officer,

EdisonWeb

possible with an on-premises infrastructure. EdisonWeb considered a few solutions, including Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), but in the end it chose the Windows Azure platform from Microsoft.

“Web Signage is a Microsoft-based application, and we have in-depth experience with the Microsoft .NET Framework and the Microsoft development environment,” Polizzi says. “Also, we found the Windows Azure platform much more suitable than the other cloud services because of its comprehensive services and the ease of porting our web application to the cloud without losing compatibility with on-premise deployments. The Windows Azure platform was simpler to manage because of its platform-as–a-service approach, more flexible, and also offered a relational database service [with Microsoft SQL Azure], which Amazon did not have.”

Database Moved in Two WeeksMicrosoft SQL Azure, part of the Windows Azure platform and hosted by Microsoft, is

a cloud-based relational database service built on SQL Server technologies. SQL Azure Database provides a highly scalable, multi-tenant architecture that allows multiple tenants to share a common underlying infrastructure while isolating each tenant’s data. “SQL Azure offers many of the features available in SQL Server 2008, far more cost effectively,” Polizzi says. “We no longer needed to purchase licenses for each physical instance of SQL Server.”

In June 2010, EdisonWeb made the Windows Azure version of Web Signage available. It took the company four months to migrate the Web Signage application to Windows Azure but only two weeks to migrate the database portion to SQL Azure. “Moving our code to SQL Azure was easy,” Polizzi says. “We had to change some code, but we didn’t have to change anything in the database schema. Our developers were able to use the very same tools that they use in working with SQL Server.”

Global Data DeliveryCustomers that opt to deploy Web Signage in Windows Azure enjoy the same application functionality and appearance that they do with the on-premises version. EdisonWeb uses SQL Azure to store all multimedia content metadata, configuration and statistical information, and user credentials. It also stores part of the application business logic in SQL Azure. EdisonWeb stores actual sign content by using Windows Azure Blob Storage and delivers content through the Microsoft Content Delivery Network (CDN), which caches publicly available blobs at strategic locations to provide maximum bandwidth. This flexibility makes it possible for customers to manage content in one

37

Customers install the Web Signage player software on their PCs, but sign data can be stored in Microsoft SQL Azure and accessed over the web.

country while delivering it to a different country. Blob storage is a collection of binary data stored as a single entity in a database and used primarily to hold multimedia objects such as images, videos, and sound.

“If we have a customer in Italy that wants to expand in Brazil, they can easily do so now,” Polizzi says. “The customer can manage their digital signage content from Web Signage Platform in Italy but send relevant content to players in Brazil.”

Coming Soon: Data Mash-UpsNow that Web Signage is running on the Windows Azure platform, EdisonWeb is working to optimize and expand it. It is evaluating the Windows Azure AppFabric, specifically the AppFabric Service Bus, as a way for customers to link Web Signage to other applications. AppFabric Service Bus provides security-enhanced connectivity between loosely coupled services and applications, enabling them to navigate firewalls or network boundaries.

Web Signage implements a set of custom Windows Communication Foundation services that it calls Open Communication Interface, which makes it possible for third-party solutions to connect to the service to create content and plan advertising campaigns on a digital signage network. “We’re interested in using AppFabric Service Bus to let third-party applications use our communications interface without changing their security settings,” Polizzi says. “With Service Bus, a customer can, for example, link their point-of-sale solution running on their own servers with Web Signage to advertise slow-selling products.”

EdisonWeb also plans to use Windows Azure Marketplace DataMarket, a cloud-based data marketplace and another component of the Windows Azure platform, to easily locate third-party data sources, web services, and applications that it can combine with Web Signage. So-called data mash-ups combine data from multiple sources—such as Web Signage and a database of a company’s sales by region—to give customers new insights into their data. Because Web Signage exposes functionality through Windows Communication Foundation service interfaces, other applications can connect with it. “We can federate our network and create a digital signage marketplace,” Polizzi says. “DataMarket could help us here, and let us supply additional services to customers.”

BenefitsBy offering the Windows Azure platform as a Web Signage deployment option, EdisonWeb anticipates saving nearly U.S.$30,000 a year in database-related costs and has removed barriers to growth. Customers will continue to pay for the level of service they need, with pay-as-you-go scalability. With Web Signage for Windows Azure, EdisonWeb introduced the first digital signage and proximity marketing solution using Windows Azure and SQL Azure. Rapid development was possible due to the ability to reuse existing code. And because its developers always have access to the latest versions of SQL Azure and Windows Azure technologies, EdisonWeb can accelerate its pace of innovation.

Flexible Pay-As-You-Go Pricing

47

“The math is very compelling. In addition to offering Web Signage on Windows Azure and SQL Azure, we are planning to move all our databases to SQL Azure.”Vittorio Polizzi, Chief Technology Officer,

EdisonWeb

By using SQL Azure and Windows Azure, EdisonWeb can significantly reduce its infrastructure costs and offer customers a cheaper pricing model. The company currently maintains 50 physical databases. When it migrates them all to SQL Azure, EdisonWeb will avoid the cost of upgrading to Microsoft SQL Server 2008 and replacing the physical servers—a $50,000 expense. Depreciated over the five-year life of the hardware, this is an annual savings of $10,000 for hardware, software licenses, and consulting. Add to this an estimated $25,000 annually for maintenance and bandwidth fees, and the cost avoidance totals $35,000 a year. For its application, EdisonWeb pays about $6,000 a year to use SQL Azure, so it saves $29,000 a year.

“The math is very compelling,” Polizzi says. “In addition to offering Web Signage on Windows Azure and SQL Azure, we are planning to move all our databases to SQL Azure.”

EdisonWeb will also save on database software licensing when customers scale their infrastructure. Some retail customers have seasonal advertising needs, and EdisonWeb allows them to suddenly add or remove players as needed; they simply send EdisonWeb an email message. Now, when a customer changes the number of active licenses, EdisonWeb can scale the number of Windows Azure instances accordingly.

Free to Grow Internationally The move to the cloud also helps EdisonWeb expand internationally. “With Windows Azure and SQL Azure, it’s easier for us to deliver our service outside the Italian borders,” says Polizzi. “We simply

choose the closest Microsoft data center from which to deliver the service. If we want to deliver the Web Signage service to a customer in China, we don’t have to put servers on a plane and fly them there. I can manage the deployment process from Europe and deliver the Web Signage server application from a Microsoft data center in Hong Kong. With SQL Azure and Windows Azure, we can offer our service anywhere—and deliver it tomorrow.”

Integrating third-party data sources through the Windows Azure Marketplace DataMarket will also give EdisonWeb more opportunity to grow.

More Flexibility, Availability for CustomersBy reducing its IT infrastructure costs, EdisonWeb can lower prices for customers. “If we have a customer with a small network, we can start them off with a less expensive Web Signage service and scale up their processing power and database capacity to follow their business growth,” Polizzi says. “Windows Azure and SQL Azure provide more flexibility and cost effectiveness for customers.”

Microsoft cloud services also offer higher availability. Web Signage was originally implemented as a single-tenant application, meaning that each customer had its own database server. By using Windows Azure, EdisonWeb also has the option of implementing an isolated Windows Azure and SQL Azure service for each customer, delivering single-tenant security at lower prices. “With Windows Azure, an application error or service failure cannot cause a massive service disruption,” Polizzi

57

“Our digital signage platform supplied over a cloud-based service allows us to launch a new network in a few hours, achieving performance, reliability, and ease of administration unmatched by traditional solutions.”

Riccardo D'Angelo, Chief Executive Officer, EdisonWeb

says. “SQL Azure is not only less expensive, it’s safer.”

Faster Pace of InnovationBecause of the consistency between SQL Server and SQL Azure, EdisonWeb developers were able to port Web Signage data to the Windows Azure platform in just two weeks, enabling it to be first to market with a digital signage offering based on Windows Azure. “We are proud of having achieved SQL Azure and Windows Azure compatibility, which will allow us to further shorten our release and development times and increase both scalability and performance,” says Riccardo D’Angelo, Chief Executive Officer for EdisonWeb. “Web Signage is attracting the attention of communications professionals, advertising agents, and the media, which have found that our digital signage platform supplied over a cloud-based service allows us to launch a new network in a few hours, achieving performance, reliability, and ease of administration unmatched by traditional solutions.”

EdisonWeb developers can quickly roll out new features of the service because they always have access to the latest Microsoft software. “With SQL Azure, we can deliver future versions of our product faster because we are always up-to-date in the cloud,” Polizzi says. “Also, with Microsoft managing our database infrastructure, our staff can focus on developing great software and supporting customers. Our staff has more time to work on the application rather than maintaining servers.”

In short, EdisonWeb believes that it has made both good business and technical decisions by adopting the Windows Azure platform. “We think that we can glean greater benefits from Windows Azure than any other,” Polizzi says. “Microsoft is supplying the best cloud services out there and is working to take the cloud closer to developers and to make the transition to the cloud very easy.”

Windows Azure PlatformThe Windows Azure platform provides an excellent foundation for expanding online product and service offerings. The main components include:

Microsoft SQL Azure. Microsoft SQL Azure offers the first cloud-based relational and self-managed database service built on Microsoft SQL Server technologies.

Windows Azure. Windows Azure is the development, service hosting, and service management environment for the Windows Azure platform. Windows Azure provides developers with on-demand compute and storage to host, scale, and manage web applications on the Internet through Microsoft data centers.

Windows Azure AppFabric. With Windows Azure AppFabric, developers can build and manage applications more easily both on-premises and in the cloud.−   AppFabric Service Bus connects services and applications across network boundaries to help developers build distributed applications.

67

For More InformationFor more information about Microsoft products and services, call the Microsoft Sales Information Center at (800) 426-9400. In Canada, call the Microsoft Canada Information Centre at (877) 568-2495. Customers in the United States and Canada who are deaf or hard-of-hearing can reach Microsoft text telephone (TTY/TDD) services at (800) 892-5234. Outside the 50 United States and Canada, please contact your local Microsoft subsidiary. To access information using the World Wide Web, go to:www.microsoft.com

For more information about EdisonWeb products and services, call (39) (0) 933 99 11 99 or visit the websites at: www.edisonweb.com or www.websignage.eu

This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.

Document published November 2010

Software and Services Windows Azure Platform− Windows Azure− Microsoft SQL Azure

−   AppFabric Access Control provides federated, claims-based access control for REST web services.

Windows Azure Marketplace DataMarket. Developers and information workers can use the new service DataMarket to easily discover, purchase, and manage premium data subscriptions in the Windows Azure platform.

To learn more, visit: www.sqlazure.com

77