Originally known as PaperG, a company dedicated to helping the “paper generation” bring advertising online, Thunder has rapidly evolved and expanded to support brands and agencies looking for the latest digital capabilities.
A different DBaaS vendor limited what Thunder could do, and it was starting to hurt the business. “I actually asked my boss why he hadn’t fired me yet. I chose the wrong vendor, and it caused a lot of pain,” Fox admits with some chagrin. “They wanted to be helpful, but at the end of the day they didn’t solve my problem.” That’s when he started looking for a better database management solution.
Thunder needed a partner that could utilize specialized hardware that would do what they needed it to do. They wanted the choice to run things with neighbors, or run it in a cloud, or run it on dedicated hardware. In short, they wanted someone who had the ability to go up and down the technical stack, in terms of infrastructure, and customize MongoDB instances as needed to meet the needs of emerging use cases. And finally, they needed fast and accurate customer support that actually solved problems for them rather than getting back to them later.
Those in the organization who had used ObjectRocket in the past suggested that Fox take a look at going back to it. It quickly became clear to Fox that ObjectRocket was indeed the solution they needed. It checked all the boxes and more. After determining that ObjectRocket does, in fact, work with databases not hosted by Rackspace, and that he could work directly with ObjectRocket sans Rackspace, Fox leaped on board, eager to set things back on the right path.
ObjectRocket’s targeted expertise and incredible level of service and support helped Thunder create efficiencies, easing budget strains while improving execution. Fox praises ObjectRocket’s proactive problem-solving most of all: “Of all the database management models we investigated, ObjectRocket has the most variability in the permutations that they can provide—and they’re not trying to shove ‘one size fits all’ to solve everybody’s problems the same way.” Instead, ObjectRocket’s experts continually analyze the architecture and make recommendations to solve or head off problems before they affect Thunder’s customers.
Customer’s Business:
Named one of Forbes’ 100 Most Promising Companies in America, Thunder is the original and leading Creative Management Platform. Thunder powers ad personalization and versioning for advertisers, agencies, and publishers across the globe.
Challenge:
Thunder has evolved and expanded its offerings over the years to help brands and agencies stay ahead in the ever-changing world of digital advertising. As part of this expansion, Thunder has acquired a variety of companies and technologies, which often use different database management solutions. Their challenge was choosing the best solution and unifying Thunder’s DB operations under that system.
Solution:
• ObjectRocket for MongoDB®
Outcome:
Thunder chose ObjectRocket for its decades of experience running MongoDB in production, customizing it, and pushing it to its limits. They stay with ObjectRocket because of its truly exceptional customer service and support, which allows Thunder to focus on delivering on its brand promise without worrying about the database piece.
“You would have to use other database management providers to understand just how good ObjectRocket is. I’m not just buying dollars per gigabyte. I am buying a deluxe team that is there for us 24/7.”
BJ Fox, VP of Engineering, Thunder Industries
Fox is now one of ObjectRocket’s biggest fans. With ObjectRocket, he was able to save the day and fix a less than optimal situation. He says he couldn’t be happier with the outcome, and Thunder plans to trust any future MongoDB, Redis, Elasticsearch, or Hadoop deployments to ObjectRocket without hesitation.
“Mongo is a tricky space. Because of the nature of the sharding, and the nature of access patterns, and just the way you scale certain aspects of it, you can’t just go vertical and get bigger hardware. You have to shard things out and you have to go horizontal. As you do that, there are trade-offs. ObjectRocket knows all those trade-offs,” explains Fox. With ObjectRocket’s expert guidance helping with future decision-making, he foresees the organization becoming less transactional and more transformational, opening more doors for future evolution and growth that will keep Thunder in its leading position in the Creative Management Platform space.
