1. Windows Azure
Customer Solution Case Study
Software Start-Up Scales for Demand Without
Capital Expenses by Using Cloud Services
Overview
Country or Region: United States
Industry: E-commerce
Customer Profile
Transactiv is a start-up company that
facilitates online transactionsbetween
buyers and sellers through social
networking platforms. The company has
20 employees and is based in Cincinnati,
Ohio.
Business Situation
The company wanted a scalable
architecture to handle unpredictable
traffic for its online commerce solution,
but it wanted to avoid capital expenses
and ongoing infrastructure maintenance
costs.
Solution
Transactiv developed its patent-pending
application, which integrates with the
popular social networking site Facebook,
on the Windows Azure platformwith
hosting through Microsoft data centers.
Benefits
 Cost-effective scaling
 Avoids capital expenses
 Quickly responds to business needs
“To build an on-premises infrastructurewouldhave
cost us in the order of tens of thousands of dollars, but
with Windows Azure, that’s an expense we simply don’t
incur.”
Shekar Chandrasekaran, ChiefTechnology Officer, Transactiv
Transactiv facilitates business-to-business and business-to-
consumer commerce through social networking websites. When
the start-up company set out to build its application, it knew
that it wanted a cloud-based infrastructure that offered high
levels of scalability to manage unpredictable demand, but
without cost-prohibitive capital expenses and IT management
costs associated with on-premises servers. After ruling out
competitors’ offerings based on scalability limitations and
maintenance requirements, Transactiv developed its solution on
the Windows Azure platform. As a result of using Windows
Azure, Transactiv gained the scalability it wanted while avoiding
capital expenses and saving a projected 54.6 percent of costs
over a three-year period compared to an on-premises solution.
In addition, the company has greater agility with which to
respond to business needs.

2. Situation
Transactiv is a Cincinnati,Ohio–basedstart-
up company that facilitates commerce
transactions. The small company has 20
employees and focuses on building
software to enable three transaction
models: business-to-business,business-to-
consumer, and social commerce with
affiliate model. Designed for small and
midsize businesses, Transactiv helps make
commerce easy for companies that may not
have the resources to acquire, implement,
and maintain existing commerce systems.
Businesses can conduct business-to-
business and business-to-consumer
transactions with a single online platform
provided by Transactiv, and extend the
transactions by few clicks to social media,
such as Facebook. Companies can take
virtually any catalog of products and, with
Transactiv, set up different product lists, set
up tiered pricing, and maintain inventory
levels and procurement online; then,they
can invite other businesses, consumers,
vendors, or trading partners to purchase
from their online catalog.
One of Transactiv’s key differentiators is
that its commerce system takes advantage
of social networking technology. With
Transactiv, anyone can establish a
transaction-based online presence through
the popular social site Facebook. For
instance, a small company can set up a
Facebook page with product and pricing
details and allow customers to make
purchases without usingcomplicated and
costly e-commerce solutions.
In the early stages of their vision, executive
leaders at Transactiv considered an on-
premises, Linux/Apache/MySQL/PHP
(LAMP) based architecture for its solution
However, the company found that an on-
premises model that required data centers
with server hardware and IT maintenance
and support was cost-prohibitive. “As a
start-up, we really wanted to avoid the
significant capital expenditures that go
along with building a self-hosting
architecture,” says Shekar Chandrasekaran,
Chief Technology Officer at Transactiv.
Beyond the capital expenses, the company
knew that by building a LAMP-based
architecture with on-premises server
hardware—whether in its own data center
or through another hosting provider—it
would also have to hire additional
personnel and dedicate financial resources
to manage and support that architecture.
Additionally, as the company grows, it does
not want to worry about latency and
performance issues for customers outside
of the United States. “We expect our
customer base to grow well beyond the
borders of the United States and into other
regions,” explains Chandrasekaran.
“Looking forward, it’s going to be
imperative that we have a global data
center presence to support our
application.” Not only did Transactiv want
to avoid hiring additional personnel and
incurring costs for supporting a server
infrastructure,it also did not want to
redirect existing resources to maintenance
tasks. “As a new company, we want to
spend all of our time focused on enhancing
our offerings,” continues Chandrasekaran.
Finally, Transactiv wanted to ensure that
any technology solution that it invested in
would be able to scale up as the company
gains traction and grows its customer
base—or, if needed, scale down to avoid
underutilizing server resources, during off-
peak seasons. “It was difficult to predict our
usage requirements before we even have a
benchmark prior to launch,” says
Chandrasekaran. “As a young company, we
needed a solution that would guarantee us
an elastic infrastructure that could scale to
meet our needs and grow as we grow.”
“Whereas with [other
offerings] we still had to
worry about a certain level
of maintenance with
virtual servers, Windows
Azure gives us a true
service-oriented
architecture where the
maintenance is managed
by Microsoft and we don’t
have to worry about a
thing.”
Shekar Chandrasekaran, ChiefTechnology
Officer, Transactiv

3. Solution
Transactiv knew that a cloud-based
infrastructure was the best choice to meet
its scalability and cost-avoidance
requirements. In August 2009, Transactiv
joined the Microsoft BizSpark program—
which offers promising start-up companies
access to software, support,and a global
network of investors and partners with
whomto connect—and decided to
evaluate Windows Azure. Windows Azure is
the development, service hosting, and
service management environment for the
Windows Azure platform, which is hosted
through Microsoft data centers.
Transactiv quickly ruled out Google Apps as
a service model that would not support its
core application as a platform. The
company also evaluated Amazon Elastic
Cloud Compute (EC2), but found that the
service required virtual server
management—IT tasks that Transactiv
wanted to avoid—and did not offer
dynamic scaling capabilities. “Whereas with
Amazon we still had to worry about a
certain level of maintenance with virtual
servers, Windows Azure gives us a true
service-oriented architecture where the
maintenance is managed by Microsoft and
we don’t have to worry about a thing,”
explains Chandrasekaran.“Plus, Windows
Azure lets us scale elastically and has a
worldwide data center presence, which is
important in terms of performance.”
Scalable Architecture and Storage
Transactiv abandoned its originalplans to
use PHP and MySQL and built its
application fromthe ground up on the
Windows Azure platform. Developers at
Transactiv used the Microsoft Visual Studio
2010 development system to develop the
application in the C# programming
language.
The company uses Web roles and Worker
roles in Windows Azure for its
computational processing. As it needs
additional compute power to handle a
growing list of customers and transactions,
it can quickly add new Web roles and
Worker roles and scale up. Similarly, if
necessary, Transactiv can reduce the
number of Web and Worker roles it uses
equally as fast.
To optimize its storage footprint,Transactiv
uses Blob storage in Windows Azure for
product images. “We have a lot of images
that go into any catalog that a customer
creates,” explains Chandrasekaran. “With
Windows Azure, we can scale up our Blob
containers as we add more images without
impacting our relational database storage.”
Transactiv also uses Table storage in
Windows Azure to capture and store
Figure 1. Transactiv combines e-
commerce and social
networking and enables
customers to create catalogs
of products for purchase on
Facebook.

4. application log data and performance
metrics.
Transactiv uses Microsoft SQL Azure for its
relational database needs.SQL Azure offers
a highly available, full relational database in
the cloud and is built on SQL Server 2008
technologies. The company uses a 10-
gigabyte SQL Azure database to store
transaction details, catalogdata, and
product information.
E-Commerce Through Social Networking
Transactiv will launch its application in July
2010 with several customers ready to go
live. One customer represents several large
school districts, and, through Transactiv,
more than 4,000 teachers will be able to
build online catalogs of required school
supplies for students.Teachers can build a
group page on Facebook with a list of class
supplies and links where parents can
purchase those products online through
major retailers and have the items shipped
to the school or to their homes.
Another customer that is rolling out the
Transactiv solution is also buildingan e-
commerce catalog on Facebook and is
using Transactiv to conduct business-to-
business transactions across its network for
110 distributors worldwide.
After a successful launch in July, Transactiv
already has plans for the future. In addition
to its established Facebook presence, the
company expects to expand to other social
networking sites.Initially a solution for
customers in the United States, Transactiv
also plans to translate its application into
multiple languages and offer the e-
commerce solution in multiple countries.
Benefits
As a result of developing and hosting its e-
commerce application on the Windows
Azure platform, Transactiv can launch its
solution with the confidence that it has a
scalable infrastructure that it can quickly
and cost effectively change to meet
demand. The company achieved critical
scalability at a lower total cost of ownership
(TCO) compared to an on-premises
infrastructure and avoided costly capital
expenses. Plus, as the company grows and
attracts customers, it can quickly respond
to changing business needs with agility.
Cost Effectively Scales Up and Down
By using WindowsAzure, Transactiv can
quickly scale up or down. The company was
initially concerned about how to avoid the
common pitfalls of an on-premises server
infrastructure:overbuilding and
underutilizing,or underbuilding and
negatively impacting application
performance. However, now the company
can simply change the number of instances
through the control panel in Windows
Azure and adjust the infrastructure while
optimizing performance and costs.
“Windows Azure gives me the greatest level
of comfort when it comes to scalability,”
says Chandrasekaran. “If we need to handle
more traffic, I can do it quickly and on the
fly.”
In addition, Transactiv does not have to hire
additional personnel—or distract existing
personnel frommore strategic tasks—in
order to maintain an on-premises
infrastructure.“No matter how large our
infrastructure grows, we don’t need
employees dedicated to server and data
center maintenance and can keep our costs
in line,” explains Chandrasekaran.
In fact, Transactiv can maintain the high
level of scalability it needs at a lower TCO
compared to an on-premises solution. By
using Windows Azure, the company will
save 54.6 percent over a three-year period
(see Table 1).
“Windows Azure gives us
the flexibilitywe need to
be extremelyagile and
responsive, which is
particularlyimportantas
a new company.”
Shekar Chandrasekaran, Chief
Technology Officer, Transactiv

5. Avoids Capital Expenses
Transactiv developed and deployed its
solution, and is prepared to launch it
commercially in July—all while avoiding the
cost of server hardware. “In addition to the
lower TCO for related operational costs, we
were able to completely avoid cost-
prohibitive capital expenditures,” says
Chandrasekaran. “To build an on-premises
infrastructure would have cost us in the
order of tens of thousands of dollars, but
with WindowsAzure, that’s an expense we
simply don’t incur.”
Quickly Responds to Business Needs
One of the things that makes Transactiv
unique is that it enables e-commerce
through popular social networking sites,
such as Facebook. At the same time,
though, the social networking component
makes it difficult for Transactiv to predict
usage. “Not only are we a new company
with no benchmarks on which to base
usage predictions, but [also,] with a social
networking audience,we could see viral-
scale traffic,” explains Chandrasekaran.By
using Windows Azure and the on-demand
scaling capabilities of the platform,
Transactiv can quickly respond to business
needs. “Windows Azure gives us the
flexibility we need to be extremely agile
and responsive, which is particularly
important as a new company,”
Chandrasekaran continues.
When Transactiv decides to offer its e-
commerce solution outside of the United
States, it is confident that the global data
center presence that Microsoft offers will
enable the company to expand business
quickly and support a global audience
without application latency issues.
“Microsoft has the reliable, global data
center presence that will be critical for us as
we expand to bring Transactiv to customers
around the world.”
Table 1. Total Cost of Ownership of Windows Azure Over a Three-Year Period
Windows Azure
Costs (U.S.$)
On-Premises,
Virtualized Costs
Savings with
Windows Azure
(U.S.$)
Savings with
Windows Azure (%)
Web / worker computing $33,638 $54,486 $20,848 38.3%
Storage (non-relational) $1,223 $1,247 $24 1.9%
Database computing, licensing, and storage $26,497 $24,304 ($2,193) (9.0%)
Service Bus connections $761 $0 ($761) 0.0%
Access Control transactions $309 $0 ($309) 0.0%
Bandwidth $5,642 $9,183 $3,541 38.6%
IT administration and support $8,066 $47,240 $39,174 82.9%
Facilities and overhead $0 $26,938 $26,938 100.0%
Setup and delivery $156 $4,830 $4,674 96.8%
Total Cost Over Three Years $76,292 $168,228 $91,936 54.6%
Heading Heading Heading Heading Heading

6. Windows Azure Platform
The Windows Azure platformprovides an
excellent foundation for expanding online
product and service offerings.The main
components include:
 Windows Azure. Windows Azure is the
development, service hosting, and
service management environment for the
Windows Azure platform. Windows
Azure provides developers with on-
demand compute and storage to host,
scale, and manage web applications on
the Internet through Microsoft data
centers.
 Microsoft SQL Azure. Microsoft SQL
Azure offers the first cloud-based
relational and self-managed database
service built on Microsoft SQL Server
2008 technologies.
 Windows Azure platform AppFabric.
With Windows Azure platformAppFabric,
developers can build and manage
applications more easily both on-
premises and in the cloud.
− AppFabric Service Bus connects
services and applications across
network boundaries to help
developers build distributed
applications.
− AppFabric Access Control provides
federated, claims-based access control
for REST web services.
 Microsoft "Dallas." Developers and
information workers can use the new
service code-named Dallas to easily
discover, purchase, and manage
premium data subscriptions in the
Windows Azure platform.
To learn more about the Windows Azure
platform, visit:
www.windowsazure.com
For More Information
For more information about Microsoft
products and services, call the
Microsoft Sales Information Center at
(800) 426-9400. In Canada, call the
Microsoft Canada Information Centre
at (877) 568-2495. Customers who are
deaf or hard-of-hearing can reach
Microsoft text telephone (TTY/TDD)
services at (800) 892-5234 in the
United States or (905) 568-9641 in
Canada. Outside the 50 United States
and Canada, please contact your local
Microsoft subsidiary. To access
information using the World Wide
Web, go to:
www.microsoft.com
For more information about products
and services, call or visit the Web site
at:
For more information about products
and services, call (513) 297-2822 or
visit the Web site at:
www.transactiv.com
This case study is for informational purposes only.
MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.
Document published July 2010
Software and Services
 Windows Azure Platform
− Microsoft SQL Azure
− Windows Azure
− Windows Azure storage
 Services
− Microsoft BizSpark
 Microsoft Visual Studio
− Microsoft Visual Studio 2010
For More Information
For more information about Microsoft
products and services, call the Microsoft
Sales Information Center at (800) 426-
9400. In Canada, call the Microsoft
Canada Information Centre at (877) 568-
2495. Customers in the United States and
Canada who are deaf or hard-of-hearing
can reach Microsoft text telephone
(TTY/TDD) services at (800) 892-5234.
Outside the 50 United States and
Canada, please contact your local
Microsoft subsidiary. To access
information using the World Wide Web,
go to:
www.microsoft.com
For more information about Transactiv
products and services, call (513) 297-
2822 or visit the website at:
www.transactiv.com
Additional Resources:
Training: Channel9 Windows Azure
Training Course
Download: Windows Azure Training
Kit
Download: Windows Azure SDK
White paper: Security Best Practices for
Developing on the Windows Azure
Platform
This case study is for informational purposes only.
MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY. Microsoft and Windows
Azure are registered trademarks of the Microsoft group
of companies. All other marks are the property of their
respective owners.
Document published July 2010