LinkShare Selects the Windows Azure Platform

The Microsoft (News - Alert) Windows Azure platform has been selected by online performance marketing firm LinkShare Corp. for development of LinkShare Lightning, the next generation of its online performance marketing application.

In October 2009, LinkShare began testing the Windows Azure platform from Microsoft, which includes the Windows Azure development, service hosting, and service management environment, as well as Microsoft SQL Azure—the first cloud-based relational and self-managed database service built on Microsoft SQL Server 2008 technologies.  

Without requiring the costly investment in IT infrastructure, LinkShare needed to create a solution that would easily scale to handle peak holiday-season Internet traffic. Developers created a solution that they predict will easily handle more than 1 billion impressions per day, using Windows Azure, Microsoft SQL Azure, SQL Server 2008 Enterprise and .NET (News - Alert) Framework 4, Microsoft claimed.

“Retailers need an online performance marketing platform that can accommodate sudden changes in workload without the burden of costly management costs,” said Doug Hauger, general manager of the Cloud Infrastructure Services Product Management Group at Microsoft. “By leveraging the power of the Windows Azure platform, LinkShare is creating a scalable solution that can be easily customized to grow with the needs of its customers.”

LinkShare’s team of three developers built LinkShare Lightning in just three months with a steady stream of new Windows Azure development tools at its disposal. This put the company much closer to its vision of a global, cloud-based, online performance marketing solution, stated LinkShare. LinkShare expects annual savings of up to several million dollars in hardware, software and development costs, using Windows Azure and Microsoft SQL Azure.

Recently, Microsoft announced that Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 for on-premises and partner-hosted deployments is now available for customer download. This product will work with the latest version of Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online, which delivers Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 as an on-demand service from Microsoft’s data centers, and was launched into 40 markets and 41 languages in January. Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 delivers the ability to greatly increase productivity to sales, service and marketing organizations worldwide.