Success Stories

Opinie na temat naszej firmy - WhaBAM

WhaBAM and the AMD Opteron™ Processor: Powerful Performance with Less Power Consumption Translates to Cost Savings for Auction Customers

Profil
WhaBAM

"Our motto is ‘the searching stops here’ and for us to make that claim we need the most powerful infrastructure available without breaking our budget. With the AMD Opteron™ processor, we feel confident our customers can Search, Auction and ‘Reverse Want Auction’: All 5x faster and at 75 percent less cost than our previous system. - Eren Niazi, President and Founder"

Challenge:
- WhaBAM President and Founder Eren Niazi conjured up the concept for the company in 2001.
- WhaBAM was entering a competitive market, so keeping costs down while offering leading-edge performance with more features was critical.
- Finally armed with innovative technology, WhaBAM needed to rapidly launch the site that could support millions of beta users with exponential growth capabilities.
Solution:
- WhaBAM created its network based on a large number of AMD Opteron™ processors running Linux^® on OpenSourceStorage.com (OSS) hardware.
- AMD also worked closely with WhaBAM to configure the processors in order to maximize performance. “AMD really stepped up to the plate, helping us optimize our code to achieve outstanding performance levels. We consider AMD a team member rather than a vendor,” said Niazi.
Impact:
- Extensive benchmark testing revealed that for the power provided by one AMD Opteron processor, the equivalent of the competition required three processors. This dramatic difference resulted in a 5x performance increase as well as 75 percent cost savings. By using less power but offering superior performance, the AMD Opteron processor “allows us to pass along the cost savings to our customers, making WhaBAM more affordable than most of the competition,” according to Niazi.
- The AMD Opteron processor, which powers WhaBAM’s site, can affordably scale to address the growing network’s needs.

Organizational Profile

Created as the brainchild of President and Founder Eren Niazi, WhaBAM is positioned as the next generation auction site. Niazi felt that the marketplace needed an alternative auction site, with enhanced functionality for both buyers and sellers. Niazi envisioned an auction site that would host current and innovative services and as well as be able to support millions of users. As a result of his vision, WhaBAM not only offers services from auctions to search, but also includes a unique “reverse want auction” function. For example, typical online auction sites allow a person searching for a car to search various automobile listings. A “reverse want auction” allows the potential buyer to post the criteria for the car the person is seeking, and potential sellers are able to bid for the buyer’s business. Niazi calls WhaBAM a “unique blend of auction services at an affordable price.” Additionally, WhaBAM has a differentiated pricing model, a monthly “one fee does it all” which Niazi says makes the cost more affordable than most competitors’ fee structures. For more information about WhaBAM, visit www.whaBAM.com

Challenge

Through his work as the chief executive officer at OpenSourceStorage.com (OSS), Niazi has extensive knowledge of large-scale low-cost infrastructure design and knew that a powerful network was necessary to support his vision for WhaBAM. The company’s infrastructure would be required to manage millions of users and keep internal costs as low as possible in order to help keep users’ costs down. During initial testing based on the competition, Niazi found the cost of managing hundreds of applications such as Search, Auction, Reverse Auction and Web-based e-mail was exorbitant and the performance not nearly up to speed. Also, because WhaBAM was entering a market already established with major brand names, the company’s infrastructure needed to have superb performance but also needed to be procured at a reasonable price.

Solution

Niazi then called upon AMD, which he said treated WhaBAM as a long-term colleague rather than a customer. For example, WhaBAM’s initial code base was developed using CPU-specific code, which was costly to maintain and required unique programming skills. AMD provided technical resources to assist in identifying and removing the old code, adding a new code base that was much easier to maintain and support. Niazi said, “AMD really stepped up to the plate, helping us to optimize our code to achieve the best possible performance levels. We think of AMD as a team member rather than a vendor.”

Niazi ultimately chose a large-scale cluster powered by AMD Opteron™ processors running CENT Linux^® on OSS blade hardware.

Impact

After implementing the AMD Opteron processor, WhaBAM found a 5x increase in performance as well as a 75 percent reduction in cost. “As a small company entering a new market we were astounded by the 5:1 ratio—the cost savings of the data center were huge,” said Niazi. By using less power but offering enhanced performance, the AMD Opteron processor “helps allow us to pass along the cost savings to our customers, making WhaBAM an attractive alternative to the competition,” said Niazi.

The AMD Opteron processor, which powers WhaBAM’s site, can easily manage millions of registered beta users and WhaBAM knows once the site goes live, the innovative technology can affordably scale to meet the growing network’s needs while keeping maintenance costs low.

“Our motto is ‘the searching stops here’ and for us to make that claim we need the most powerful infrastructure available without breaking our budget. With the AMD Opteron processor, we feel confident our customers can Search, Auction and ‘Reverse Want Auction’: All 5x faster and at 75 percent less cost than our previous system.”—Eren Niazi, president and founder.<br>
About AMD

Advanced Micro Devices (NYSE: AMD) is a leading global provider of innovative microprocessor solutions for computing, communications and consumer electronics markets. Founded in 1969, AMD is dedicated to delivering superior computing solutions based on customer needs that empower users worldwide. For more information visit www.amd.com.

© 2006 Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. All rights reserved. AMD, the AMD Arrow logo, AMD Opteron, and combinations thereof, are trademarks of Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. Other names are for informational purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective owners.