Aptimus Advertiser Specifications

Network Infrastructure Summary Overview

This document provides an overview of the Aptimus Network infrastructure that supports the Aptimus offer-serving platform, and how to ensure maximum uptime.

Architectural Summary
The Aptimus network utilizes a multi-tier architecture of redundant hardware to eliminate single points of failure. Routers, network switches and firewalls are all configured with automatic fail-over capability, to insure reliable and secure network access. Connected to this network is an array of load-balanced web servers running Apache. The web servers communicate with a cluster of application servers running BEA WebLogic, which are in turn supported on the back-end by an Oracle database with a hot standby and EMC storage array. All equipment is housed and managed by LoudCloud in a site in New Jersey with full site backup in a similar internally hosted setup in a secure, air-conditioned data center in Seattle and is protected from power failures by a state-of-the-art battery backup system.

The result of the above is that our average uptime is well over 99.9%.

More detailed information is available upon request.

Backup Strategy for Internet Slowdowns
When the Internet experiences occasional slowdowns, it can cause slower delivery of content from the Aptimus Network given the dynamic nature of the Aptimus offer-serving platform. To guarantee that offers are always available to present to the consumer without any delays, Aptimus recommends the following backup strategy.

To ensure 100% offer availability regardless of Internet delays, Partner may cache the XML stream of offers on a pre-determined cycle (e.g. once per hour). Under normal circumstances, when rendering the registration page a call should be made to the Aptimus Network to retrieve the appropriate XML offer. If that operation ever times out, however, the locally cached XML offer should be used.

Use of local caching should be limited to the rare occasions when Aptimus servers are not available over the Internet. Local static offers do not allow for offer rotation, geotargeting, upselling, etc. In addition, cached offers must utilize an Aptimus provided tracking code to ensure impression data is captured.

Aptimus engineers are available to consult on configuring the above local caching mechanisms.