infoTECH Feature

February 27, 2012

The Screen Actors Guild Selects Windows Azure

Looking to get the cloud technology necessary to handle high volumes of traffic to its website during its biggest annual event, the SAG Awards, The Screen Actors Guild (SAG) has selected Windows Azure.

The SAG website experienced negative impact due to high traffic each year leading up to the SAG Awards, according to the release, which noted that the website was previously hosted on internal Linux boxes. On Oscar night, the site hosts a tremendous increase in visitors who view uploaded video clips and news articles from the award ceremony, the release said. SAG had to continually upgrade its hardware to meet demand during that time. That is, until the SAG Awards team moved the site to Windows Azure, the company stated in the press release.

“Windows Azure is committed to making it easier for customers to use cloud computing to address their specific needs," said Doug Hauger, general manager, Windows Azure Business Development, at Microsoft in the company press release. "For the entertainment industry, that means deploying creative technology solutions that are flexible, easy to implement and cost-effective for whatever opportunities our customers can dream up.”

During its 2012 SAG Awards show, which generated a significant increase in visits and page views over the previous year, windows Azure helped the SAG website handle the anticipated traffic spike. This year's show generated 325,403 website visits and 789,310 page views. The 2011 awards show saw 222,816 total visits and 434,743 page views in comparison. To gain greater storage capacity and the ability to handle increased traffic on the site, AG worked with Microsoft Corp. to port its entire awards site from Linux servers to Windows Azure.

Recently, Redknee (News - Alert) announced that it is expanding its strategic alliance with Microsoft (News - Alert) Corp. to support Redknee's strategy to deliver on-premise, private cloud, and public cloud-based converged billing solutions. The integration of Redknee's real-time converged billing platform to Windows Azure will reinforce the commitment by Redknee and Microsoft to develop solutions that deliver greater scalability and agility while reducing capital expenditure for communications service providers across the world.




Edited by Chris Freeburn
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