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Akamai Case Study

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AKAMAI CASE STUDY

Victoria’s Secret Web Site Raises the Bar on Customer Experience with Content Delivery from Akamai and IBM
Akamai Delivers Record Traffic, Improved Performance, and $1,000,000 in Infrastructure Savings

“It’s one of those great situations where everybody wins. Akamai enables VictoriasSecret.com to efficiently distribute content for our global e-commerce site while reducing the load on our infrastructure. This provides customers a fast, seamless user experience.”
— Chris Evans, Webmaster, VictoriasSecret.com

The Challenge
The Unpredictability of Marketing and the Online Channel In January 1999, Victoria’s Secret aired its first-ever Super Bowl commercial, announcing the live Webcast of its Spring Fashion Show. The site was flooded with millions of hits within the first few minutes after the spot ran. Just a few days later, the Live Webcast drew a recordbreaking worldwide 1.5 million visitors. This incredible drawing power posed technical challenges for VictoriasSecret.com and many customers were turned away due to the Web site’s inability to support the traffic bursts. Immediately after the 1999 Spring show, VictoriasSecret.com executives began preparing for an even bigger event – the 2000 Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show, Webcast live from Cannes, France. The Victoria’s Secret team recognized they needed to deliver an incredible user experience with improved traffic management and faster content distribution. “After the tremendous response we received from the ’99 Super Bowl ad, we knew that we had to be better prepared to sustain intense traffic bursts in a short period of time,” recalls Chris Evans, Webmaster for VictoriasSecret.com. “If the customer cannot get on the site, they cannot see the Webcast. In addition, we wanted to avoid buying hundreds of servers that would only sit idle when we were not utilizing them to support the traffic to VictoriasSecret.com during our Web events.” Brand Image Creates Performance Challenges Beyond traffic spikes, the VictoriasSecret.com technical development team must also contend with a global brand strategy that has made the Victoria’s Secret name synonymous with glamourous high-quality images. These images particularly challenge the Web site, where site performance is constantly threatened in the pursuit of an incredible customer experience. “For optimum performance, we like the home page to be between 60K and 75K in size, but we have had instances where it reaches 90 to125K.

COMPANY
Victoria‘s Secret Columbus, Ohio www.victoriassecret.com

INDUSTRY
Retail

SOLUTION
Akamai Dynamic Site Accelerator Akamai Streaming

KEY IMPACTS
• Longterm partnership with proven technology provider • Building brand equity with high-quality images • Record traffic from improved site performance • Saved 1 million dollars in infrastructure investments • Freedom to focus on functional site enhancements that grow the business

The Goal
Victoria’s Secret had a number of business objectives:
• Deliver a Fast and Engaging Web Site • Manage Millions of Site Hits from Around the World • Avoid Purchasing Hardware that Sits Idle Much of the Time

continued...

Victoria’s Secret

AKAMAI CASE STUDY

Why Akamai
Proven Technology Victoria’s Secret went searching for partners with a proven track record of delivering large amounts of global content across the net. Their choice was IBM for managed Web hosting and Akamai Technologies, Inc., the leading provider of secure, outsourced e-business infrastructure services and software. By having Akamai distribute our images, we can use the higher page weights while maintaining excellent performance,” states Evans. “We monitor performance using an independent Internet performance measurement company. They have found that our typical results are always faster than several competitors we watch For heavier weighted pages like ours to load faster than these competitors is pretty impressive,” said Evans. A Seamless Experience with Akamai Akamai enables VictoriasSecret.com to leverage the Internet as a high-performing network for the delivery of its glamorous images. Based on a massive, distributed global network of servers that work together, Akamai was able to intelligently place the Victoria’s Secret content close to Web customers.“When we came across Akamai, we found exactly what we needed: thousands of servers located all over the world to enable us to scale instantly to support the large traffic bursts we expected during the time of the Fashion Show,” said Evans. Better Site Performance Leads to Record Traffic Through the use of Akamai, the Victoria’s Secret Cannes 2000 Fashion Show Webcast was a tremendous success. Customers were able to access and enjoy the VictoriasSecret.com site without interruption. And today, the Akamai service is still playing an important role as the company faces new challenges, including aggressively expanding its highly successful and profitable e-commerce business.“We wouldn’t have been able to sustain this level of traffic without utilizing Akamai for our graphically intensive site,” states Evans. “I believe that Akamai and the good performance of the site have contributed a great deal to our new traffic records. Thanks to Akamai, we don’t have a capacity concern. In fact, we are sitting here today on a record sales day, and system performance is outstanding. That’s because nearly all of Victoria’s Secret images are delivered from the Akamai network, which frees up the company’s servers to perform core e-commerce transactions.” Succeeding without Hardware Infrastructure Investments Akamai has enabled Victoria’s Secret to successfully grow its online endeavors without making additional hardware infrastructure investments. This is because the Akamai service causes a dramatic reduction in the number of requests to the company’s Web servers. The bulk of these requests now flow through Akamai’s servers, providing much needed relief, particularly during busy periods when an order is placed at least every three seconds and database inquiries are processed at a rate of several per second. “If we had to scale to support this level of business by adding hardware, we’d need to add significant infrastructure. By distributing our content with Akamai, we are saving up to $1 million in infrastructure enhancements,” said Dan Smith, Director, Limited Technology services, the technology arm of VictoriasSecret.com. “Equally important is the fact that instead of focusing on infrastructure enhancements, our development team can concentrate on functional enhancements that will allow us to grow the online business even more.” IBM Adds Value as an Akamai Content Delivery Service Provider IBM hosts the Victoria’s Secret Web site and also resells Akamai services as part of itsmanaged service offering. By acting as a single point of contact for all of the Victoria’s Secret Web site needs, IBM can provide the company with better accountability. “A single point of accountability allows one company to be responsible for the overall bundled services to the customer. The more bundled services we have, the more value we bring. Our fully managed services include everything the customer needs for a successful Web presence, including hardware, software, networking, connectivity, security, and of course, Akamai’s content delivery capabilities,”said Robin Blackburn, Project Executive, IBM. Victoria’s Secret also recognizes the value in this arrangement. Says Smith, “We can save on bandwidth and hardware by working with IBM and Akamai, and our customers get a seamless, high-quality experience. What can be better than that?”

The Akamai Difference
Akamai® is the leading cloud platform for helping enterprises provide secure, high-performing user experiences on any device, anywhere. At the core of the Company’s solutions is the Akamai Intelligent Platform™ providing extensive reach, coupled with unmatched reliability, security, visibility and expertise. Akamai removes the complexities of connecting the increasingly mobile world, supporting 24/7 consumer demand, and enabling enterprises to securely leverage the cloud. To learn more about how Akamai is accelerating the pace of innovation in a hyperconnected world, please visit www.akamai.com and follow @Akamai on Twitter.

Akamai Technologies, Inc.
U.S. Headquarters 8 Cambridge Center Cambridge, MA 02142 Tel 617.444.3000 Fax 617.444.3001 U.S. toll-free 877.4AKAMAI (877.425.2624) www.akamai.com International Offices Unterfoehring, Germany Paris, France Milan, Italy London, England Madrid, Spain Stockholm, Sweden Bangalore, India Sydney, Australia Beijing, China Tokyo, Japan Seoul, Korea Singapore
©2011 Akamai Technologies, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission is prohibited. Akamai and the Akamai wave logo are registered trademarks. Other trademarks contained herein are the property of their respective owners. Akamai believes that the information in this publication is accurate as of its publication date; such information is subject to change without notice.

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