Context Optional
Context Optional is the leading provider of social marketing software and services to global brands and advertising agencies. Its solution powers many of Facebook’s fastest growing and largest scale branded application campaigns, many of which grow to millions of unique visitors within months of deployment.
Environment
- Joyent MySQL SmartMachines
- Ruby on Rails
- nginx
- passenger
- MongoDB
- Ruby Enterprise Edition
- memcached
- MySQL
- starling
- Sphinx
“With Joyent we get the best of both worlds. On one the hand, Joyent delivers the world class infrastructure we need to scale infrastructure at Facebook scale and meet real time demand. On the other hand, we get a partner we know will respond quickly when we have any questions that need to get resolved.”
- Rafi Jacoby, Director of R&D
The Challenge
Build or Buy. Context Optional’s technical team knew that buying, racking and running compute, storage and network to meet stringent service level agreements and customer expectations wasn’t a core competence they wanted to invest in.
Scaling at Facebook Levels. The ability to scale at Facebook levels was crucial. A successful campaign could require infrastructure to support millions of users within the first months of launch.
Persistent Database. Context Optional needed the ability to run a persistent database. Since campaigns could last for multiple years, the team needed database instances to run uninterrupted for at least one to two years.
Timely, Professional Support. If there were any issues or questions, Context Optional needed the ability to get answers around the clock.
Context Optional needed a Cloud provider it could count on. For the past three years, Context Optional has counted on Joyent.
The Solution
No Worry Scale. Context Optional leaves the challenge of running the underlying compute, storage and network to Joyent, with confidence they can start new instances as campaigns ramp up and shut instances down as campaigns subside.
Real and Persistent Databases. Context Optional can start a database and be assured that it will run for extended periods, like current databases that have run for well over a year.
High-Touch, Professional Support. With Joyent, Context Optional gets the best of both worlds: Joyent operates a true Infrastructure-as-a-Service cloud and provides support like a managed hosting provider.
