by David Beckwith, Hightail

1. © 2017, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates. All rights reserved.
VP – Business Development and Analytics
Hightail Case Study
Dave Beckwith

2. Topics to Cover
• What is Hightail?
• Background
• Key Events & Best Practices
• Decision Process & Factors
• Moving Forward

3. What is Hightail?
• Founded in 2004 as YouSendIt.
• Expanded in 2015 from large file sending to file
sharing & collaboration.
• Built for creative professionals managing digital
media – video, images, designs, audio.

4. Precise
feedback
Fast-track your creative
process by providing
precise comments right on
designs, illustrations, photos
and more.

5. Clear
approvals
Request approvals from specific
people and set follow-ups so it’s
easier for them to give you the
green light.

6. Eliminate confusion by keeping
the latest version front-and-
center while still having easy
access to past versions and
conversations.
Version
control

7. Follow-ups,
approvals &
task mgmt
Monitor all recent activity on
your projects and see to-dos for
you and your team at a glance
with My Hightail.

8. Background
• YouSendIt tech stack was on premise:
• Applications
• System Infrastructure – DB, caching, networking, etc.
• Storage – Cleversafe / IBM
• New Hightail product required overhaul of stack.
• Strategic move to cloud made for flexibility,
scalability & efficiency around digital media.

9. Key Events
2014 2015 2016 2017
AWSSpend
Q3 ‘14: Start of
Rewrite
Q2 ‘15: Beta
Launch HT Ramps &
YSI Users
Migrated
Q3 ‘16: RIs (Key
Decision Pt) Q4 ‘16: Data &
Tiering Analyses
Q1 ‘17: Storage
Agreement Signed &
Migration Completed

10. • Data purge:
• Analysis 1 found large # of old dormant accounts.
• Purging these reduced data footprint by ~25%.
• HT continues this practice in line with industry standards.
• Tiering:
• With on prem, all HT storage was active.
• Analysis 2 found big drop on file activity after 30-60 days.
• Activity pattern + new cloud pricing
enabled use of colder tiers.
Best Practices – Data Purge & Tiering
10

11. Mission Critical - Decision Factors & Process
• Timing and planning dictated by current storage & data
center contracts.
• Full evaluations done in Q3 ‘16 on AWS, Google, IBM for
compute & storage. Decision factors:
• Solutions & product roadmap
• Operational risk
• Financials
• Decision process:
• Requirements discussion
• Shared modeling
• Decision & communication

12. Benefits of AWS Storage
• Tiering with S3/IA/Glacier:
• Cost efficiency
• Life cycle management
• Alignment of data types with customer needs
• Utilizing only what is needed – no longer having to
plan and purchase excess capacity.
• Reducing data center footprint & related ops.
• Improving tech credibility internally and externally.
• Consolidating and improving vendor support.

13. In Summary
• Market moving rapidly - Google & IBM were competitive.
• AWS chosen for:
• Experience with platform for HT & other vendors.
• Solid migration plan & support.
• Lowest operational cost & risk.
• Best financials – competitive pricing + MAP credits.
• Data center & migration:
• Migration done March 31
• Data center done August 31
• HT now in optimization mode

14. Thank You