Animoto and AWS: When a Video Platform Nearly Crashed the Cloud

The Rise of Amazon Web Services and Elastic Computing

Currently, Amazon Web Services dominates the cloud infrastructure services market, representing a $60 billion enterprise. However, in 2008, AWS was a relatively new entity, striving to establish itself and manage escalating demand for its cloud servers. Fifteen years ago, the company initiated the beta launch of Amazon EC2, fundamentally altering the landscape.

Introducing Scalable Compute Power

From that moment onward, AWS provided startups with virtually limitless computing capabilities, a key advantage at the time. EC2 represented an initial, significant effort to deliver elastic computing at scale – meaning server resources that dynamically adjusted to your needs, expanding when required and disappearing when not.

As Jeff Bezos articulated in a 2008 presentation to startups, preparedness is crucial: “You must be ready for unexpected surges, because failing to do so can lead to significant regret. Preparing your infrastructure to excessive levels, however, is equally unwise if those surges never materialize.” He continued, explaining that AWS offered a solution to this complex dilemma.

Animoto: An Early Stress Test

A pivotal early validation of this proposition occurred with Animoto, a startup customer. Within a four-day period in 2008, following the launch of their Facebook application at South by Southwest, Animoto experienced user growth surging from 25,000 to 250,000.

The Power of User-Generated Content

Animoto’s application enabled users to transform uploaded photos into videos accompanied by music. While seemingly simple by today’s standards, it was a cutting-edge innovation at the time, demanding substantial computing resources for video creation. It exemplified the emerging trends of Web 2.0 user-generated content and the convergence of mobile technology with the cloud.

For Animoto, founded in 2006, adopting AWS was a calculated risk. The company determined that independently managing its infrastructure presented an even greater gamble, given the unpredictable nature of service demand. Establishing its own servers would necessitate substantial capital investment. Brad Jefferson, the company’s co-founder and CEO, explained that they initially pursued this route before shifting focus to AWS, as it occurred before securing initial funding.

“We initially focused on building our own servers to demonstrate the concept’s viability. As we gained traction and allowed early access to the product, we reassessed our strategy. Preparing for failure was straightforward, but preparing for success was the real challenge,” Jefferson stated.

A Gamble on an Unproven Concept

Choosing AWS might appear logical with the benefit of hindsight, but in 2007, it involved entrusting the company’s future to a largely untested concept. Jefferson recalled, “It’s remarkable to observe how far AWS and EC2 have progressed. However, at the time, it truly was a gamble. We were considering an e-commerce company to manage our infrastructure, and they were attempting to assure us of a fully dynamic server environment, which felt quite risky.”

Animoto faced the dual challenge of verifying AWS’s claims and re-engineering its software to operate within Amazon’s cloud environment. However, Jefferson’s financial analysis indicated the viability of the choice. Their business model offered a free 30-second video, a $5 extended clip, or a $30 annual subscription. Modeling the necessary resources proved complex, leading the founders to bet on AWS and anticipate a potential surge in usage.

The South by Southwest Surge

This test materialized the following year at South by Southwest with the launch of their Facebook application, triggering a dramatic increase in demand and pushing AWS’s capabilities to their limits. Within two weeks of the app’s release, interest exploded, leaving Amazon scrambling to allocate sufficient resources to maintain Animoto’s operational status.

Dave Brown, currently Amazon’s VP of EC2 and an engineer on the 2008 team, described the event: “Each Animoto video initiated, utilized, and terminated a separate EC2 instance. For the preceding month, they had been using between 50 and 100 instances daily. On Tuesday, usage peaked at around 400, Wednesday at 900, and by Friday morning, 3,400 instances.” Animoto successfully managed the demand surge, and AWS delivered the necessary resources. Usage ultimately reached 5,000 instances before stabilizing, demonstrating the practicality of elastic computing.

Jefferson emphasized that his company wasn’t solely relying on EC2’s marketing promises during this period. They maintained frequent communication with AWS executives, ensuring the service wouldn’t falter under the increasing load. “The primary concern was, can you provide us with more servers, we urgently need more servers. To their credit, I’m unsure how they accomplished it – perhaps by reallocating processing power from their own website or others – but they met our requirements, allowing us to navigate the spike and eventually return to normal levels,” he explained.

A Lasting Impact

The story of keeping Animoto online became a central selling point for AWS. Amazon was also the first external investor in the startup, beyond friends and family, raising a total of $30 million, with the final funding round occurring in 2011. Today, Animoto primarily serves the B2B market, assisting marketing departments in creating videos.

While Jefferson refrained from disclosing specific cost details, he highlighted that maintaining servers that would remain largely idle was not a viable option for his company. Cloud computing proved to be the ideal model, and Jefferson confirmed that Animoto remains an AWS customer.

The Evolution of Cloud Computing

The fundamental goal of cloud computing has always been to provide on-demand computing resources whenever needed. This particular situation rigorously tested that concept. The challenge of provisioning 3,400 instances now seems insignificant, considering Amazon currently processes 60 million instances daily. However, it was a substantial hurdle at the time and demonstrated to startups that elastic computing was more than just a theoretical possibility.

• Elastic Computing: The ability to scale server resources up or down as needed.
• AWS EC2: Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud, a foundational service in cloud infrastructure.
• Web 2.0: The era of user-generated content and interactive web applications.