Delivering the Infrastructure for Scale

Rod Drury, CEO, Xero www.xero.com

www.xero.com

Platform Vendor Picking winnersHigh performance, scalability, maintainability, security, access to resources

Global Hosting Global from day 1Centralised database, fast from anywhere in the world

Application Scale for competitive advantageSingle instance, multi-tenanted, multi-user, plug in modules (e.g. tax), separation of UI, testable, debuggable, performance monitoring, role based security

Operation Support Systems

Server runs the businessBuild or buy, integration, logical separation from application, topology, ease of management, scale globally

Teaming model Multi-disciplined teamDesign led, customer driven, product management, program management, QA

Research and Development

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Our stack

Development environment Microsoft Visual Studio 2008, Virtualisation for internal servers & QA

Rendering framework XSLT, Ext.js

Data Access LLBLGen pro

Runtime platform ASP.Net with custom architecture, WCF

Database SQL Server 2005 Enterprise Edition

Database Server Windows Server 2003 x64

App Server Windows Server 2003

Hardware 23 servers, 8 for production,load balancing for web servers,clustering for database servers

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Operational Systems Support (OSS model)

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Global Hosting Model

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Hosting partner engagement

• Model– Co-location vs Full managed service?

• Selection Process– Developed checklist– Shortlisted 4 providers – Site visits and consistent interview process– Evaluation and selection– Contract negotiation

• Implementation– 4 weeks from contract to go live

• Ongoing operations

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Why Rackspace

• Impressed by their research and understanding of our business

• Fanatical support - really

– Dedicated support team with specialist available 24x7

– Online ticket management superb

– Often less than 10 minute turnarounds

• Complete partner

– No surprises

– Consulting advice freely given

– Feels like they are part of our team