Problem: Need to reduce Capital Expenditure and Operating Expenses while meeting stringent performance requirements.
As a marketing and analytics company in the highly competitive Ad Tech industry, PulsePoint’s business runs on data. PulsePoint uses a real-time bidding and buying platform, which allows clients to monetize their website traffic. The company’s network has approximately 10 gigabytes of traffic moving through it at any given time. Performance is imperative when you consider the sub-millisecond latency requirements to meet advertising objectives. This kind of high-performance business requires an infrastructure that can both handle this traffic and will be reliable with repeatable automation. In addition to these challenges, the infrastructure must be remotely manageable as the company’s data centers are thousands of miles away from its offices.
PulsePoint’s data centers cumulatively house 45+ racks of servers and storage. With this limited data center space, it is imperative that the company maximize their footprint by squeezing in as much infrastructure as possible into each rack. PulsePoint is constantly looking for ways to save operational expenses by reducing this footprint as well as limiting power draw.
PulsePoint was working with traditional tier 1 server manufacturers that did not recognize their specific needs. As a result, PulsePoint felt marginalized—like they were another server buyer. PulsePoint’s complaint was that these server manufacturers’ products and customer service were not at all tailored to what was needed to reduce CAPEX and OPEX. At the same time, these systems were creating additional headaches by arriving non-functional or having other technical issues. Ultimately, PulsePoint needed to find a solution that could help lower their IT total cost of ownership.
Solution: A server and storage platform designed for specific application needs.
For their Hadoop deployment, PulsePoint was introduced to PSSC Labs. PSSC Labs’ servers and storage solutions are engineered specifically for application performance and in turn, lower the total cost of ownership. Compared to other tier 1 manufacturers, PSSC Labs’ servers can reduce data center footprint by up to 50% while reducing power consumption by up to 40%.
PulsePoint quickly made the switch to PSSC Labs servers and storage platforms for not only their Hadoop environment but also for every other aspect of their application deployments, including their Real Time Bidding (RTB) platform. In addition to the space and power savings, PSSC Labs’ servers are delivered pre-configured for easy network integration and installation. This service helps ensure that PulsePoint is able to quickly place these servers into production immediately upon delivery. Speaking about the impact of this service, Jad Nehnme, PulsePoint’s Chief Technology Officer, stated, “This made a huge difference in comparison to servers from big manufacturers.” Mr. Nahme added, “we have never received a DOA server from PSSC Labs.” With its level of attentive service and support, PSSC Labs provides PulsePoint with the experience of a partner interested in the company’s continued success. This was well beyond their existing relationships with vendors, which were just interested in providing hardware.
Results: Lower Total Cost of Ownership
Since transitioning to PSSC Labs servers, PulsePoint reduced its total cost of ownership by over $300,000 on a recent $1 million deployment. PulsePoint has seen these savings particularly in its Hadoop infrastructure, which was improved by PSSC Labs’ revolutionary CloudOOP 12000 server. This platform is the only server on the market today specifically designed to meet the workloads of the exploding big data marketplace. “It’s important for us to be able to play against the big people in the market. For us to do that, we need to be able to optimize our capital investment in servers and infrastructure. PSSC has helped us accomplish that,” said Nehnme.
PulsePoint’s servers are now configured to its specific requirements, and as a result they are less expensive to manage. This helps the business run at full potential and allows the company to focus on achieving its goals.