“As a startup, we did not have millions of dollars to build an enormous IT infrastructure…. Our business model would not have been viable if we had not moved to Windows Azure.”

Jan Kopmels, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Crumbtag

Crumbtag had a novel idea for Internet ad placement that involved analyzing web visitor behavior in real time. The only way to process this much data was to use cloud services—specifically, the Windows Azure platform. By using Windows Azure, Crumbtag can scale processing power and storage on demand, handle the largest customers, and offer more cost-effective Internet advertising. Crumbtag also avoided U.S.$10 million in IT infrastructure costs.

Business NeedsJan Kopmels had an idea for a better way to offer online advertising. Some online advertising companies provide content-based advertising, placing ads on web pages that have content similar to the ads. Others provide user-based ad matching, placing ads on web pages based on visitor profiles. The latter relies on the use of cookies—data that is stored locally on a user’s computer. Cookies help determine the user’s patterns of behavior, such as websites visited, paths to websites visited, and shopping cart contents.

“The problem with cookies is that they are raising privacy concerns, and many countries are outlawing them,” says Kopmels, Cofounder and Chief Executive Officer of Crumbtag. “Plus, cookies stay on users’ PCs, so advertisers cannot store them centrally for analysis.”

Kopmels wanted to capture user web-behavior data and process it centrally in a giant statistical database. This would not only allow customers to place ads without relying on cookies but also lets them take advantage of dynamic ad placements that are adjusted and refined with every webpage view and click.

In 2009, Kopmels launched Crumbtag and, with a small team, spent two years developing technology for the ad-

placement application. However, he determined that Crumbtag would have to spend millions of dollars on data center infrastructure to process the prodigious amounts of data involved, and millions more to expand across Europe. “We needed a whole new infrastructure and business model to make the business viable,” he says.

SolutionIn December 2010, Crumbtag began evaluating cloud service providers. The company turned to Windows Azure, the Microsoft cloud service development, hosting, and management environment. “We looked briefly at Amazon cloud solutions but felt they were too immature,” Kopmels says. “Plus, we were a committed user of Microsoft technology and had developed our ad placement application using the Microsoft .NET Framework and Microsoft SQL Server 2008 data management software.”

Crumbtag uses Windows Azure compute to provide on-demand processing power for its application, which processes about 4000 requests a second and provides an 80-millisecond response time to well-known Dutch companies such as ABNAmro and KPN. To store statistical information on visitors, the company uses Microsoft SQL Azure. It also uses the Windows Azure Service Bus, an Internet-

Partner: CrumbtagWebsite: www.crumbtag.nl Partner Size: 16 employeesCountry or Region: The NetherlandsIndustry: Manufacturing—High tech

Partner ProfileBased in the Netherlands, Crumbtag is a fast-growing startup that develops automated online advertising solutions. It currently serves Dutch companies and has plans to expand throughout Europe in 2012.

Software and Services Windows Azure Platform− Windows Azure− Windows Azure Caching− Windows Azure Service Bus− Microsoft SQL Azure

Technologies− Microsoft .NET Framework

For more information about other Microsoft customer successes, please visit: www.microsoft.com/casestudies

Windows AzurePartner Solution Case Study

Online Advertising Provider Scales Quickly, Wins Business by Using Cloud Services

scale enterprise service bus, to communicate ad-matching parameters to hundreds of virtual machines across its network, and Windows Azure Caching to provide high-speed communication between those virtual machines.

It took Crumbtag just six weeks to move its application to the Windows Azure platform, about 20 minutes of which was required to migrate the database to SQL Azure. “For an experienced .NET developer, moving to Windows Azure is a piece of cake,” Kopmels says.

When a customer launches an ad campaign on Crumbtag, it uploads the ad and indicates how many clicks or views it wants to purchase. Crumbtag then places the ad randomly on the web. When the first web visitors click on the ad, Crumbtag starts determining statistical anomalies in the ‘clickers’ based on the site the visitor came from, where the visitor lives, what day and time it is, and so forth—and starts matching users with similar data. All campaigns are matched in real time against the Crumbtag statistical database.

BenefitsBy launching its ad placement business on the Windows Azure platform, Crumbtag has been able to scale its business rapidly, pitch itself to the biggest businesses, and avoid significant costs.

Rapid ScalabilityCrumbtag can quickly scale to serve its growing number of customers, and in 2012, the company will expand into the rest of Europe.

“When we need more processing power, we just flip a switch on an online console,” Kopmels says. “We’re currently using about 400 cores, but we’re stepping up to 1,000 cores by the end of 2011, with no need to build data centers.”

Heightened CompetitivenessBy using cloud computing, Crumbtag is able to lower its operating costs and offer a more cost-effective solution that helps it win business against larger, more established players that are saddled with on-premises IT setups. “Because we are not spending millions of dollars on IT infrastructure, we can pass those savings on

to customers,” says Kopmels. “We have been able to win multinational customers as a small startup, but also demonstrate to them that we use cutting-edge technology.”

Cost Avoidance of $10 MillionKopmels estimates that Crumbtag avoided spending between U.S.$5 and 10 million a year on data centers and personnel, or up to $40 million in the first five years. “As a startup, we did not have millions of dollars to build an enormous IT infrastructure,” Kopmels says. “To expand across Europe, we would have to install a data center in each country. Our business model would not have been viable if we had not moved to Windows Azure.”

More Focus on the Business With Microsoft taking care of the Crumbtag infrastructure, Kopmels and his colleagues have more time to concentrate on growing their business. “We are a technology-driven business, but we don’t want to devote our resources to supporting hardware and managing IT systems,” Kopmels says. “We’ve outsourced these tasks to Microsoft, which lowers our costs and allows us to focus on the business.”

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

Document published December 2011