1. Windows Azure
Customer Solution Case Study
Combinatorial Auction Provider
Scales Up Quickly, Saves Costs
with Cloud Services
Overview “With Windows Azure, we’ve reduced …
Country or Region: Australia
Industry: Media and capital expenditures from $60,000 to
entertainment—Advertising
$1,000. This significantly lowers the barrier
Customer Profile for new customers and makes our
Based in Melbourne, Australia,
Tradeslot and Adslot bring services more enticing.”
business-to-business buyers Tradeslot specializes in designing and building
and sellers together through
their large scale combinatorial
large scale business-to-business and
auction platform. They employ government-to-business (G2B) auctions
10 people.
platforms; its partner company, Adslot, uses the
Business Situation same auction platform to auction online
Tradeslot and Adslot sought a
solution that would enable them
advertising space. The companies use
to scale up quickly, reduce computation-heavy combinatorial auction
capital expenditures for
customers, and provide the
algorithms to manage their complex conditional
compute power required for bid processes. However, with a lack of compute
complex algorithms.
power with its existing infrastructure, the
Solution companies found it necessary to manually add
After evaluating other
possibilities, Tradeslot and
constraints to auctions. In addition, the companies
Adslot chose to use a cloud wanted to reduce capital costs and IT resources
computing model and
developed solutions on
required to set up new server hardware for
Windows Azure™. customers. Tradeslot and Adslot implemented
Benefits
Windows Azure™ and, as a result, reduced capital
• Reduced capital costs—U.S. costs for customers—from U.S.$60,000 to only
$60,000 to $1,000
• Improved ability to scale up
$1,000 for each customer, improved their ability
• Improved services for to scale up and improve services for customers,
customers
• Saved IT resources
saved critical IT resources, and delivered a
• Delivered trustworthy solution their customers can trust.
solution

3. Situation and freight capacity,
Based in Australia and formed in environmental commodities, and
2005, Tradeslot designs and industrial commodities, Tradeslot
builds large scale business-to- formed a partner company in
business and government-to- 2007, Adslot. Using the same
business auction platforms. The intellectual property and
company has three main areas of technologies as the Tradeslot
focus: port and freight capacity, auctioning platform, Adslot is a
industrial commodities, and foray into the advertising sales
environmental commodities. One process—enabling media
of its largest customers is publishers to sell premium ad
Consolidated Bulk Handling, inventory to agencies and self-
which uses the Tradeslot auction serve advertisers using its
platform to auction port capacity proprietary ‘book&bid’ process.
for the 10-million ton West Though Adslot is currently
Australian wheat export. targeted at online media, the
Tradeslot also designed the company plans to apply its
Australian government carbon concepts and technology to
permit auction platform and has traditional media, such as
facilitated more than U.S.$400 television and radio.
million in forest timber
transactions. The Tradeslot and Adslot
auctioning platforms are built on
Unlike traditional price-only the Microsoft® .NET Framework
auctions that are one- 3.5 and use the Windows Server®
dimensional, the Tradeslot 2003 operating system and
combinatorial auction platform Microsoft SQL Server® 2005 data
allows bidders to place management software. For each
expressive bids—critical for of its customers, Tradeslot and
effective business-to-business Adslot had to set up servers and
transactions. For instance, hosting environments to run the
bidders can place price bids with auctions—often at a frantic pace.
non-price conditions, such as Setting up an auction with new
terms of trade, volume, and servers often took up to two
unique lot packages. In addition, months. For these small
the seller can add award companies, with only 10
constraints and factor the bids employees between Tradeslot
based on qualitative factors. and Adslot, this was also a strain
Tradeslot uses large scale on personnel resources.
“combinatorial auctioning”—a
complicated process that uses In addition, the hardware cost of
complex mathematical algorithms setting up an auction for the first
and requires significant time is often a barrier for
computational resources. customers. Costs associated with
initial hardware setup and hosting
With its tremendous success in fees could reach U.S.$60,000 in
combinatorial auctioning for port some cases, depending on the

4. “Windows Azure auction. “We have cases where putting a strain on precious IT
customers say they’re prepared resources, and that would also
gives us the ability to try our service and we have to require less capital expenditure
tell them that they have to set up for customers.
to chase new deals an entire infrastructure to handle
with the rock-solid their auction,” says Anthony Du Solution
Preez, Founder, Tradeslot and As Tradeslot and Adslot
technology Adslot. “It’s hard for them to dip continued to identify unique
their toe in the water.” Not only market opportunities to extend
infrastructure in are some customers hesitant to the auction platform to other
place already. We use Tradeslot and Adslot for the industries, the companies chose
first time because of the often to move to a cloud solution—
can quickly scale costly capital expenditures, for hosting and managing their Web
some customers, whose auctions applications and services on the
up and service only run on a quarterly basis for Internet through data centers.
customers around two weeks, server investments After comparing other cloud
are under-utilized for months at a solutions, such as Amazon Elastic
the world with a time. Cloud Computing (EC2), the
companies chose Windows
The Tradeslot and Adslot auction Azure™, a solution that provides
platforms were limited by the application hosting by Microsoft
scalability of the hardware. In and that is designed for high
some cases, the companies had availability and powerful scaling to
to restrict the use of complex match usage needs.
mathematical algorithms that
require compute-intensive The companies chose Windows
processes and that allow highly Azure, in part, because
expressive auction functionality. developers can use their existing
“We had to put manual skills to develop new solutions
constraints on some of our with technologies and tools they
auctions and limit how sellers are already familiar with, such as
could sell and how bidders could the .NET Framework 3.5 and the
bid,” explains Du Preez. “That Microsoft Visual Studio® 2008
has a significant impact on Professional Edition development
bidding flexibility which is the system. In addition, Tradeslot and
driving factor for increased Adslot found Amazon EC2 to be
revenue and cost reduction.” far more complicated and time
consuming to develop on than
Tradeslot and Adslot needed a Windows Azure. “One of the key
solution that would provide the benefits of Windows Azure from a
compute processing power it development perspective is that
required to run its auctions the roles—such as Web roles and
without bid constraints in an effort worker roles—are already
to optimize results for its defined,” explains Michael Hart,
customers. In addition, the System Architect and Developer
companies wanted a solution that Lead at Tradeslot and Adslot.
they could scale quickly without

5. “With Amazon EC2, you’re Adslot uses worker roles to host
basically starting from scratch.” and scale the compute-heavy
combinatorial algorithms used in
In addition, by continuing to use their auction platform, as well as
Microsoft products and for managing a number of
technologies, Tradeslot and additional auction processes,
Adslot can grow and scale their such as sending e-mail or Short
technology infrastructure with Message Service messages.
ease of deployment across Windows Azure Web Roles are
complementary products. used for hosting AdSlot’s
customer-facing web
Adslot is developing three distinct applications.
solutions on Windows Azure using
its proprietary combinatorial To manage application data,
auction technology: Adslot uses Windows Azure
Tables, Blob Storage, and Queue
• Classified ad sales solution. service. In addition, Adslot is
This solution is an automated evaluating Microsoft SQL Azure™
auction-based platform that for adding relational and
enables classified publishers, transactional storage capabilities
such as ads for automobiles, in the future.
Figure 1.Carsales application,
jobs, real estate, and travel,
powered by Windows Azure.
to sell search keywords for Adslot has designed its solution
online advertising. to horizontally scale, allowing
auction workloads to be broadly
• Display ad sales solution. This distributed across a number of
solution allows a general Windows Azure instances. This
display ad publisher to means the solution can easily
engage the buyers with two accommodate more users than
types of dynamic pricing: was previously the case. “As the
dynamic rate cards, where needs come up, we can add
the fixed price varies on real- more servers and more roles in
time demand projections, and Windows Azure and take
‘book&bid,’ where ad advantage of on-demand scaling
buyers can buy at a fixed to accommodate heavy usage,”
price and bid for additional explains Hart. Adslot ran
inventory. simulations of its platform where
it used 7,000 lots for bid and
• Video/television ad sales 4,000 bidders. It used 120 worker
solution. This solution is an roles and had all 4,000 users bid
automated auction-based on 20 lots at one time—putting
sales platform that enables maximum load on the system.
television networks to sell ad “What we found is that we’re
spots in broadcast on online able to handle that capacity
television shows. better on Windows Azure than
our previous infrastructure,”
continues Hart.

6. time, the lean IT department is
Tradeslot and Adslot will continue free to focus on more strategic
to develop solutions and expand tasks, thanks to enterprise-class
their market reach, adapting their service from Microsoft, and the
auction platform for other company can focus on delivering
industries—something that was new services instead of
difficult to achieve prior to managing IT infrastructure.
implementing Windows Azure.
Reduced Capital Costs, Lowered Barrier
Benefits for New Customers
As a result of implementing By implementing Windows Azure,
Windows Azure, Tradeslot and Tradeslot and Adslot have
Adslot can efficiently implement a eliminated the need to procure,
scalable solution for their auction set up, and configure new
platform. The companies servers, as well as the need to
decreased the capital arrange for hosting services for
expenditures required to set up new customers. Instead, the
an auction, which lowered the companies can rely on data
entry-barrier for new customers. centers hosted by Microsoft.
Tradeslot and Adslot can quickly Previously, it cost up to U.S.
scale up the solutions and extend $60,000 in hardware, licensing,
service offerings to customers, and hosting costs to set up a new
while also improving services with auction—a cost that is passed on
the powerful compute and to customers without a margin for
storage resources offered by Tradeslot and Adslot. “With
Windows Azure. At the same Windows Azure, we’ve reduced
those capital expenditures from
$60,000 to $1,000,” says Du
Preez. “This significantly lowers
the barrier for new customers
and makes our services more
enticing.”
Improved Ability to Scale Up and Extend
Service Offerings
Tradeslot and Adslot are always
looking for new opportunities to
extend their auction platform to
new markets. With Windows
Azure, the companies can take
their intellectual property and
adapt their auction platform to
new industries, new
commodities, and new
geographies using existing
infrastructure. “Windows Azure
gives us the ability to chase new

7. “What used to deals with the rock-solid Tradeslot and Adslot run lean
technology infrastructure in place operations—only 10 employees—
take two months to already,” explains Du Preez. and efficiency is critical to
“We can quickly scale up and success. With Windows Azure,
set up can now be service customers around the the companies are able to
done in only one world with a single streamline management of the IT
infrastructure.” infrastructure that supports their
week and we can auction platform, and do not have
Improved Services for Customers with to expend critical IT resources on
use those precious Powerful Computing setting up and managing a server
IT resources to The mathematical algorithms that environment for each customer.
the auction platform uses are “All of the work that goes into
focus on more complex and require significant setting up an auction—buying,
compute and storage resources— configuring, and maintaining
strategic tasks, sometimes beyond what its hardware—is huge overhead for
such as developing previous infrastructure could us,” says Hart. “What used to
manage. As a result, Tradeslot take two months to set up can
new services.” and Adslot had to manually add now be done in only one week
constraints to its auction and we can use those precious IT
systems, limiting some of their resources to focus on more
functionality. With the powerful strategic tasks, such as
processing capability of Windows developing new services.”
Azure, Tradeslot and Adslot can
set up auctions for its customers Delivered a Trustworthy Solution
without constraints, creating Because Tradeslot and Adslot
highly expressive combinatorial work with government agencies
auctions to better meet and large enterprises, having a
customers’ needs. reliable solution that its
customers could trust was a key
In addition, the companies can concern for the companies. By
add new services to its robust using Windows Azure, with
offering, thanks to the CPU and hosting provided by Microsoft
storage power offered by data centers, Tradeslot and
Windows Azure. “The power of Adslot have the enterprise-class
Windows Azure gives us the service they need and the
ability to do things that we could confidence of working with a
only do with a significant partner that has deep expertise in
investment in building and online services. “We win
managing our own data center, business because of our
such as data mining and business business-to-business auction
intelligence,” says Du Preez. expertise, and because we have
“We see this as a wonderful the most capable solution
growth opportunity for our available,” explains Du Preez.
business and what we’re able to “Then, we have to prove that we
offer customers.” can deliver the scalability that
large businesses need—that’s
Saved Critical IT Resources not always easy as a relatively

8. For More Information small company. But with Windows Azure Platform
For more information about Windows Azure, we have the The Windows Azure platform
Microsoft products and credibility that comes with the provides an excellent foundation
services, call the Microsoft Microsoft brand and customers for expanding online product and
Sales Information Center at just know that it’s going to service offerings. The main
(800) 426-9400. In Canada, call work.” components include:
the Microsoft Canada • Windows Azure. Windows Azure
Information Centre at (877) is the development, service
568-2495. Customers in the hosting, and service
United States and Canada who management environment for
are deaf or hard-of-hearing can the Windows Azure platform.
reach Microsoft text telephone Windows Azure provides
(TTY/TDD) services at (800) developers with on-demand
892-5234. Outside the 50 compute and storage to host,
United States and Canada, scale, and manage Web
please contact your local applications on the Internet
Microsoft subsidiary. To access through Microsoft data
information using the World centers. In addition, Windows
Wide Web, go to: Azure serves developers’
www.microsoft.com connectivity needs through
the following services.
For more information about 〉 The Service Bus connects
Tradeslot and Adslot products
services and applications
and services, call (61) 3 9621 across network
1511 or visit the Web sites at: boundaries to help
www.tradeslot.com or developers build
www.adslot.com distributed applications.
〉 The Access Control Service
provides federated,
Additional Resources: claims-based access
Download: Windows Azure control for REST Web
Platform Training Kit services.
View: Architecting and
Developing for Windows Azure
• Microsoft SQL Azure. Microsoft
SQL Azure offers the first
cloud-based relational and
Software and Services • Microsoft Server Product
• Windows Azure Platform Portfolio
• Windows Azure • Windows Server 2003
• Microsoft SQL Azure Enterprise Edition
• Technologies • Microsoft SQL Server 2005
• Microsoft .NET Framework Enterprise Edition
3.5 • ‘Solutions
• Microsoft Visual Studio • Software-plus-services
• Microsoft Visual Studio 2008
Professional Edition
This case study is for informational
self-managed database
purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO
WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN
THIS SUMMARY.
Document published November 2009

9. service built on Microsoft SQL
Server 2008 technologies.
To learn more about the Windows
Azure platform, visit:
www.windowsazure.com