Shazam is a popular music and entertainment app. The brand needed to scale dynamically and cost-effectively, with more than 100 million active monthly users. They turned to Peer 1, who tell us a little more about the work
Background
Founded in 1999, Shazam is one of the world’s most popular apps, connecting millions of people to the music, TV shows, and advertising they love. With a simple tap of a button, Shazam delivers a deep content experience in seconds, including lyrics and videos as well as purchasing, sharing and more.
It was one of the first apps to be available on the Apple App Store and, today, the company is extending its capabilities to further delight a customer base that has grown exponentially since Shazam’s inception.
Challenge
When Shazam first launched, it was a dial-up service. Customers simply dialled 2580, held their mobile up to the music they were hearing, and received the song title and name of the artist via SMS message. Today, Shazam is much more than a music discovery tool—it’s a mobile app that recognises music and other media, including TV shows, radio, cinema pre-shows and adverts. Users still hold the phone up to whatever they are listening to, but they can now also play, buy, share, access additional content, and comment on media.
With more than 100 million active monthly users to date, usage has boomed, leading the company to look for a technology partner capable of providing the capacity that allows Shazam to scale dynamically and cost-effectively, so it can retain its vital USP–rapidity.
Solution
Charles Henrich, Executive Vice President of Engineering at Shazam, says, “In terms of adoption, Shazam is used by more than 100 million people each month to connect with the world around them. A major driver in this adoption is that the app allows people to get information they want in a matter of seconds. Once they have opened the app, a digital fingerprint of the audio they are listening to is created and matched against our database of millions of tracks and television programmes. Relevant information about what they ‘shazamed’ is then sent back to their mobiles within a matter of seconds.
“Our app generates a vast deal of traffic and obtaining the required information so speedily requires incredible processing power. So we were initially just looking for a hosting partner to provide us with co-location services.”
Simon Gooding, Shazam’s Account Director at Peer 1, explains, “Shazam came to us with a proposition to buy their own servers and house them in our state-of-the-art data centres”.
“As we got to know Shazam, it became clear they would benefit much more from being able
to focus on developing their application without diverting financial or operational resources associated with acquiring, managing and regularly upgrading servers and networking infrastructure.”
Managed Hosting
Shazam opted for a bespoke managed hosting solution from Peer 1. By doing so, Shazam can run its app on a bespoke high-performance computing platform, allowing the application to run significantly faster than if it was based on traditional CPU compute resources alone.
Technical Support Services
It is absolutely business-critical Shazam’s infrastructure runs at peak performance at all times, with maximum resiliency and minimum latency. The company enjoys the services of a dedicated technical manager, who oversees Shazam’s entire infrastructure running on Peer 1’s sites—both in the UK and internationally.
Many of Shazam’s developers collaborate using chat tools, so Peer 1 have also integrated key support staff into the Shazam chat group to allow instant support and advice on all manner of technical issues.
“We have partnered with Peer 1 for a number of years now and they have become an essential part of our team,” notes Henrich. “We are well matched on so many levels, including our culture of flexibility and collaboration, and appreciate that their customer service is absolutely exceptional.”
Results
Market Differentiating Performance
A combination of outstanding service-level agreements, including zero downtime guarantees, Peer 1’s FastFiber Network and twenty-four-seven technical support, including advanced monitoring, come together to ensure Shazam’s service always runs at a level of performance that drives customer satisfaction and loyalty. This is also essential in attracting new partners and developing new features.
Cost-effectiveness
Peer 1 is one of only a very few hosting providers that provide their own network. Because all fibre links connecting the data centres are owned and managed by Peer 1, all managed hosting customers enjoy a more cost-effective way to transmit traffic.
Platform Testing
The Shazam app is always evolving, and so too are the partners that collaborate with the company to offer new promotions and capabilities. The app’s continued success relies upon the performance and usability of all product updates being absolutely flawless. With Peer 1, Shazam has the ability to stress-test its solution on pre-release technology and infrastructure, before cutting over into the production environment. This ensures Shazam users retain the speed and quality of service they have come to expect.
Network Scalability and Business Growth
Partnering with Peer 1 gives Shazam infinite potential to rapidly scale its technology both as application usage increases, and as it deploys new value-added services (including buying music, reviewing artists’ biographies and finding concert tickets). Users readily adopt these features, too. For example, in the two-hour Country Music Awards 2013, Shazam sold 50,000 songs for the artists represented in the show. Shazam has recently upgraded their app with an always-on capability, for which it will likely need increased data capacity and resiliency. With Peer 1, Shazam has a partner that is prepared to invest in its future.
“We are proactively building out capacity for customers including Shazam,” explains Gooding. “This gives Peer 1 the freedom and capacity to fulfil its customers’ business ambitions through fast deployment and provisioning.”
Henrich concludes, “We have a very exciting future ahead and an app that has a remarkably loyal and satisfied user base. With Peer 1’s flexibility, vision and focus on proactive service, I believe we will retain our leadership position in this market for many years to come.”