A C A S E STU DY FO R:

S HOW P ITCHSHOWPITCH CONNECTS THE DOTS FOR ENTERTAINMENT, ARTISTS, AND BRANDSPowered by Rackspace Fanatical Support® for AWS, Showpitch helps emerging talent take the stage.

BUSINESSOnline home for artists to connect, build their brands and get discovered by studios, networks, talent agencies and more.

SOLUTIONFanatical Support™ for AWS

CHALLENGESOvercome dev interruptions and increase productivity, scale and reliable uptime.

OUTCOMEEmpower and connect entertainment pros - help build audiences and connections between artists and industry representatives more efficiently.

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Founded in Naples, FL, in 2012, Showpitch is a collaborative community that empowers aspiring talent, musicians, athletes and writers to connect with key industry representatives to get their product to market. This unique offering enables each user to play their role in the process of creating, acquiring, distributing, and consuming entertainment content.

The idea for Showpitch was born while.Showpitch Founder and CEO J.P. Fatta was working on a related entertainment industry project. The driving force in creating Showpitch was the realization as to how hard it can be for independent producers and filmmakers to get connected with the right people in the film industry to move their projects forward and ultimately get them to market.

The now Miami-based company has created a platform combining aspects of LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, and American Idol wrapped in one package — a game-changing “connect the dots” solution for the next generation of digital entertainment discovery, connectivity, and collaboration. “With Showpitch, we are creating an ecosphere that has not previously existed,” said Fatta. “Traditional entertainment is connected now through agents, managers, studios, and associations, but you don’t see that online. Showpitch connects everyone under one roof.”

CONNECTING ARTISTS AND EXECUTIVES When Showpitch recently announced a competition to find the next member of legendary Latin boy band Menudo, the company began preparations to scale up their website capacity to address the anticipated traffic for this new deadline-driven event. The new competition, which included both online and live performances, would certainly stretch the

“FROM A CUSTOMER STANDPOINT, IT’S AN ABSOLUTE WIN. IT’S GREAT WORKING WITH RACKSPACE. THEY ARE CERTIFIED AND WORKING WITH AWS, AND THEY PRESENT A SOLID FRONT, AND A REALLY TALENTED TEAM.” ERIC JOHNSON :: Senior Software Architect, Showpitch

capacity of their site to serve the upcoming demand.

Showpitch is running Windows-based app servers, file storage, load balancers, ObjectRocket databases, and messaging services (RabbitMQ) in AWS to deliver their app to their users.

When Rackspace suggested Fanatical Support for AWS as the answer to this new challenge, Showpitch took advantage of Rackspace’s team of AWS certified experts to re-architect its site.

“We knew we’d be facing traffic as well as a tight timeframe, so we turned to the Rackspace Fanatical Support for AWS so we could scale,” explains Eric Johnson, Senior Software Architect with Showpitch. “Moving into Fanatical Support for AWS was like managed care on steroids. I don’t have to worry about anything.”

AUTOMATING INFR ASTRUCTUREFor Showpitch, the ability to scale is critical, and with Fanatical Support for AWS Rackspace has enabled the company to more fully automate its app environment. Now, rather than spending their time on manual scaling operations, they can get back to focusing on growing their core business.

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“WE KNEW WE’D BE FACING TRAFFIC LOADS AND SPIKES AS WELL AS A TIGHT EVENT-DRIVEN TIMEFRAME, SO WE TURNED TO DEVOPS SO WE COULD SCALE.” ERIC JOHNSON :: Senior Softwar Architect, Showpitch

Johnson says Showpitch uses Rackspace to automate everything. “The traffic is coming, and because we are so new, we don’t know what to expect. Rackspace gives us the ability to add one, two, five, ten boxes right away – and if something goes down in our development environment, we can spin it back up automatically within minutes.”

R ACKSPACE FANATICAL SUPPORT® FOR AWSWith tooling and automation built with best practices, plus always available certified AWS experts who will dig in and help users get the most out of Amazon Web Services, Fanatical Support for AWS blends automation technology and human expertise to deliver ongoing architecture management security services and 24×7×365 operations all backed by AWS-certified engineers and architects.

“When I first saw the AWS portal I was overwhelmed, so it was nice knowing we have that Rackspace Fanatical Support that could help get things set up and working the way they needed them to,” said Matthew Bonig, the Showpitch Senior Software Engineer responsible for backend development.

Rackspace advised Johnson and Showpitch that an AWS architecture backed by Fanatical Support® for AWS would cost less and provide the company the additional tools and services they desired – all within a fully managed environment.

“I knew then it was definitely worth doing because it would mean we would have the automation, scalability and autoscaling of AWS plus we could still rely on Rackspace to be our dev ops team,” said Johnson. “From a customer standpoint, it’s an absolute win. It’s great working with Rackspace. They are certified and working with AWS, and they present a solid front, and a really talented team.”

A DIGITAL FUTURE FOR THE ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRYFor Showpitch, Fanatical Support® for AWS has meant expanded resources and knowledge power — an extension of the team. “The experience of Rackspace has been a full functioning, highly skilled team as our guide,” Johnson said. “I shied away from Rackspace when I first started the process of picking a hosting provider, but as we started to peel back the layers, Rackspace was the one provider who could answer all the needs we knew we couldn’t.”

According to Fatta, Showpitch’s growth over the last couple of years has been exponential in nature. In this same time period, the company has also grown to roughly 25 full-time employees, 25 part-time consultants and advisers, including a number of partnerships with key media companies Showpitch’s users are looking to connect with.

At its technology core, Showpitch staffs a small team – the reflection of a business decision to go to market in a fully managed cloud environment. The AWS infrastructure that Rackspace’s certified experts have helped build and develop has freed up the Showpitch team to focus on other areas vital to Showpitch’s future growth.

“Rackspace is a backbone of support, a whole team of highly skilled individuals that has solved our dev operation and manpower needs,” concludes Johnson. “Rackspace helps us get where we need to be, and continually goes steps beyond, to take care of us. That’s important to me, and that has shown in everyone I’ve worked with.”

DATE MODIFIED: 2015-12-08

ABOUT RACKSPACE

Rackspace (NYSE: RAX), the #1 managed cloud company, helps businesses tap the power of cloud computing without the challenge and expense of managing complex IT infrastructure and application platforms on their own. Rackspace engineers deliver specialized expertise on top of leading technologies developed by OpenStack®, Microsoft®, VMware® and others, through a results-obsessed service known as Fanatical Support®.

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