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Case Study

How SelectMedia handles 60,000+ requests per second with Google Cloud

Advertisements in Urban Metropolis
Client
Select Media
SelectMedia
Industries
Digital Media
Technologies
Data Analytics
Location
Tel Aviv

With its proprietary algorithm and deep knowledge of the media landscape, SelectMedia automates the placement of video ads to help both advertisers and publishers get the best deal they can.

In a fast changing industry with numerous players, the ability to move quickly and adapt to the demands of the market has helped SelectMedia garner thousands of clients across 55 countries. To do that, the company chose Google Cloud Platform (GCP) for a solution that could satisfy its requirements.

 

“Our CTO had a previous experience with cloud platforms and encountered issues with load balancing and high traffic,” says Nir Zigler, Vice President of Research and Development at SelectMedia. “He used Google Cloud Platform to solve these problems, so we knew when we were designing our platform, that it was the correct technology for us.”

The brief

Ad-tech can be a difficult environment to operate in. The space between publishers and advertisers is crowded and gaining a competitive edge can be hard. Handling video ads, as SelectMedia does exclusively, requires low latency and a reliable infrastructure. With traffic ranging from 10,000 to 60,000 requests per second, the ability to scale up and down at speed is crucial. SelectMedia, as a startup, had limited resources and could not afford to maintain a large DevOps department. It needed a platform that could be easily managed by an IT team without drawing focus from its main business goals.

What we did

Drawing on past experience, SelectMedia knew that Google Cloud Platform would be the best infrastructure solution for its purposes. To implement it, the company teamed up with cloud specialists, DoiT International, to advise on the technical process and help decide exactly which Google products to use. The core of the platform was built with Google App Engine to ensure fast, robust scaling up and down, while Google Cloud Load Balancing ensured a smooth service. SelectMedia used Google BigQuery to handle its computations and Google Cloud CDN to deliver large video files without hassle. In addition, it kept some development environments and periphery tools on Google Compute Engine instances, which could be spun up or down very quickly.

“We’re a startup company. Besides the ability to scale up and down quickly, one of the things that we get from Google App Engine is the ability to focus on our algorithm and logic without the mess of handling infrastructure.” says Zigler.

“SelectMedia is a good example of the company putting tremendous focus on the product and leaving the IT related heavy-lifting to Google Cloud Platform, adds Vadim Solovey, the CTO of DoiT International. “Their software engineering brilliance is not compromised by IT operations and routine tasks.”

The result

With Google Cloud Platform at its core and with DoIT International’s guidance, SelectMedia built a platform that allowed them to survive, thrive and expand in a challenging business environment. Google App Engine’s speed and scalability allowed the company to move quickly and gain the advantage over its competitors. More importantly, GCP’s ease of use and reliability meant that SelectMedia’s IT team could focus on adding value to its customers instead of spending time and money on infrastructure maintenance. As SelectMedia looks to expand its business even further, as well as its team, it is always looking for ways to improve its platform. Whether that’s testing Google App Engine’s support of Java 8, currently in beta, or exploring GCP’s range of machine learning and AI tools, SelectMedia can count on Google to provide the solution it needs for now and for the future.

“If we didn’t use Google App Engine, our learning curve, the number of people and working hours that we would need to arrive to the place we are now, would be much higher,” says Zigler. “It let us focus on our business logic and the needs of our customers”.

Nir Zigler, VP R&D
“If we didn’t use Google App Engine, our learning curve, the number of people and working hours that we would need to arrive to the place we are now, would be much higher. It let us focus on our business logic and the needs of our customers.”

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