1. Windows Azure
Customer Solution Case Study
Worldwide News Provider Creates
New Content Channels with
Hosted Computing Platform
“Capacity planning is the thing that stands
Customer: Associated Press out as the biggest advantage of the
Web Site: www.ap.org
Microsoft cloud model. The Windows
Customer Size: 100–5,000
Country or Region: United States Azure platform takes that out of the
Industry: Media and
entertainment equation for us, unlike the other cloud
providers.”
Customer Profile
The Associated Press (AP) is Jonathan Malek, Chief Architect and Director of Research, Associated
the world’s oldest news Press
organization, providing news
feeds for print, broadcast, and
online media. AP has 4,100
The Associated Press (AP) is the world’s largest
employees, and its news news organization, with bureaus in 97 countries.
appears in 122 countries.
On average, more than half the world’s
Software and Services population sees news from AP on a given day. AP
Windows Azure Platform
Windows Azure
wanted to broaden its reach by encouraging
Service Bus developers to incorporate AP content into their
Microsoft SQL Azure
Blob Storage
applications. Using the Microsoft-hosted Windows
Azure™ platform, AP created a highly scalable
solution that simplifies capacity planning and
creates new business opportunities.
Business Needs worldwide staff of 4,100. AP
The Associated Press (AP) serves 1,700 newspapers and
provides up-to-the-minute news 5,000 broadcast outlets in the
and information for newspapers, United States, along with 550
radio, television, and the Internet, international broadcasters. AP
24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It operates as a not-for-profit
successes, please visit: is the world’s largest and oldest cooperative owned by its U.S.
www.microsoft.com/casestudie news organization, with 243 daily newspaper members, and it
s bureaus in 97 countries and a

2. maintains a digital photo archive Architect and Director of
of more than 10 million images. Research, Associated Press. Benefits
“The infrastructure lets us scale With a flexible, cloud-based
To open potential revenue relevant parts of the solution platform for its API offering,
streams and find new customers quickly without worrying about Associated Press was able to
for AP content, the organization the rest of the operating system. simplify project planning, speed
began work on a highly scalable It also aligns well with our up development, and create new
application programming interface internal standardization on opportunities for business and
(API) that developers worldwide Microsoft technology.” product innovation.
can use to incorporate AP news
content into their applications. The AP developers’ existing skills Simplified Planning
AP team was eager to learn what adapted quickly to the Windows By choosing a hosted
developers would do with the new Azure platform. “That’s one of development platform, AP has
tool, which it calls the Associated the areas where the Windows freed itself from the planning and
Press Breaking News API. Azure platform shines,” says costly hardware investment
Malek. “The quality of tools, the traditionally required when
“Part of the mission of this ease of deployment, and the creating a highly scalable
project is to see what people will simplicity of management are product. “Capacity planning is
come up with,” says Alan very compelling.” Development the thing that stands out as the
Wintroub, Director of of the Breaking News API began biggest advantage of the
Development, Enterprise in late 2008, and AP has put Microsoft cloud model,” says
Application Services, Associated several releases into limited Malek. “The Windows Azure
Press. “We wanted to tap into production with a public beta platform takes that out of the
the developer ecosystem and its planned for late 2009. Visitors to equation for us, unlike the other
energy and ideas. We see it as a developer.ap.org will have cloud providers.”
win-win scenario.” access to tools, forums, and
support to build applications Straightforward Development and Faster
To deliver its content through the linking to AP content. Time-to-Market
API, AP originally considered an Developers at AP found that prior
on-premises solution, but the IT On the back end, a Microsoft® experience with Microsoft
staff was concerned about the SQL Azure™ database stores development tools translated
up-front investment in hardware news story metadata. Document easily to the Windows Azure
and software necessary to host IDs for retrieval are held in a platform. “We’re pretty much a
the solution and the potential message queue, which is Microsoft shop, with a focus on
impact to existing services and monitored and processed by C#, Microsoft SQL Server®
systems. So, the organization Windows Azure, and the [database management
began looking at alternative documents are stored in software], and Microsoft Visual
platforms for the project. Windows Azure Blob Storage. Studio® [development system],”
says Malek. “Our developers
One key requirement was the were able to get up to speed
Solution ability to easily and securely rapidly. The tools and
After considering several “cloud make large amounts of internal environment were impressive
computing” platforms—where content available externally, so right out of the gate.” Thanks to
applications and data storage are the team turned to the Service the ease of development, and
hosted off-premises—AP chose to Bus in Windows Azure. The the ease of planning made
base its offering on the Windows Service Bus helps provide secure possible by the cloud
Azure™ platform from Microsoft. connectivity between services architecture, AP was able to
The Windows Azure platform and applications to navigate quickly create a prototype and
provides an operating system and firewalls and network implement its API system. AP
a set of developer services that boundaries. “The Service Bus believes the Windows Azure
can be used individually or made it easy for us to set platform will continue to help it
together on a pay-as-you-go something up and expose it bring other new products to
basis. “With the Windows Azure outside the firewall. Without the market as quickly.
platform, we can scale up easily Service Bus, it simply wouldn’t
without worrying about the have been an option,” explains New Opportunities for Growth
capacity planning we would have Pramod Anchuparayil, Architect, Although development of the
had to do with other providers,” Associated Press. Breaking News API system is still
says Jonathan Malek, Chief underway, AP is already pleased
This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS
OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.
Document published November 2009

3. with its progress. “In a lot of
ways, we’ve already been
successful,” says Wintroub. “The
Breaking News API project has
allowed us to explore new
possibilities we hadn’t thought of.
It has also fostered ideas
internally for our own
development organization, and it
has provided new business
opportunities. The platform is a
big part of that—I don’t believe
we would be in production today
without the support of Windows
Azure platform.”
This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS
OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.
Document published November 2009