When fast wasn’t fast enough, The Trade Desk turned to Peer 1 Hosting

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The Trade Desk, the demand-side platform, offers agencies, aggregators and their advertisers technology to manage display, social and video advertising campaigns. The Trade Desk powers the most sophisticated buyers in advertising technology. By maintaining a pure buy-side focus, The Trade Desk delivers on branding and performance for clients worldwide. Headquartered in Ventura, Calif., The Trade Desk has offices across the US, Europe and Asia.

Most web users are unaware of the behind-the-scenes activity that takes place in the moments leading up to serving an online ad. Within milliseconds (ms) of opening a web page, the bidding process for the ad inventory occurs. In the middle of this complex process sits The Trade Desk, which has less than 100ms to complete the important role it plays in the bidding and fulfilment cycle. As The Trade Desk CTO and co-founder Dave Pickles explains, ""We have an incredibly small window to serve an ad. If they [the network] add 100ms of latency across the board, my entire deployment would be worth zero. That is the window we operate in. Between 30ms and 100ms you go from full value to zero value."

So The Trade Desk looked to Peer 1 to provide a solution that could pro- vide incredibly fast networking between its back-end, super high performance database, its front-end web servers—the "bidders"—and its partner companies.

The Trade Desk quickly identified managed dedicated servers as the ideal platform for real-time bidding. In addition, they needed a hosting partner with the right geographical spread to cover their global footprint and really high-end tech coupled with a supremely fast and reliable network to minimise latency.

The company migrated to Peer 1's managed dedicated servers in spring 2011 and the move was such a success that it now relies on hundreds of managed dedicated servers hosted in Peer 1's datacentres, in multiple countries. The servers are tightly specified by The Trade Desk to match their very particular requirements, with bare iron access so they can put whatever software they want on them.

Pickles notes, "Peer 1's selling points were an incredibly robust wholly-owned network and the ability to have their technicians customize a solutions that met our needs. This was critical for us because low latency is really, really important."

Pickles is very clear that the overriding benefits of working with Peer 1 centre both on performance and service. Peer 1's philosophy that 'Every Interaction Matters' exactly matches The Trade Desk's business requirements, and that includes the service it receives from the Peer 1 team.

From The Trade Desk's perspective, the network either works or it doesn't. And by working they mean they need to meet a specific ping time. Peer 1 helps them connect much more consistently than other vendors by providing low latency and always being on. Pickles feels that Peer 1 does a great job providing The Trade Desk with what they need to get the job done.

Pickles is continuously impressed by Peer 1's flexibility and ability to customise solutions on the fly. This helps The Trade Desk get what they need, and get it quickly. Add in the professionalism of the service, and the end result is a more than satisfied partner. "There is just a level of trust with the Peer 1 team."

Pickles and The Trade Desk team regularly re-evaluate their hosting options, but the company's preferred solution is still managed hosting. "[Having Peer 1 manage the hosting] allows my team to focus on building product and enhancing features, and I love that."