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May 04, 2019

E-commerce leader migrates to SQL Server and Azure SQL Database, boosts product performance, opens markets

Since establishing itself as a pioneer in e-commerce, Intershop has never looked back—building up a global customer base and seizing the opportunities of the cloud. But supporting its software with database solutions sometimes led to complex and expensive licensing, over-provisioning instead of flexible scale, and fewer cloud benefits for its customers. Dedicated to offering its customers the best options, Intershop migrated to Microsoft SQL Server and Microsoft Azure SQL Database. Customers are already reporting dramatic leaps in performance, and Intershop has made its e-commerce services even more attractive across new markets.

Intershop Communications AG

“Our move to Azure SQL Database and SQL Server makes sense for our customers right now—and we’ve positioned ourselves to focus on innovation as the nature of e-commerce evolves.”

Nils Breitmann, Enterprise Architect, Intershop

True pioneers don’t break new ground and rest on their laurels. They keep on moving the frontiers. Since 1995, Intershop has been pioneering e-commerce, and the company remains a leading e-commerce software vendor, with B2B and B2C online retailers around the world relying on Intershop Commerce Management solutions.

Intershop has remained strong by evolving with its industry, gaining new customers, new partners, and a new focus on using the cloud to deliver its software as a service (SaaS). But the Intershop Commerce Management platform relied on database solutions which had become an increasingly poor fit for the company and its customers.

Staying at the cutting edge by listening to customers

Intershop customers struggled to find qualified databank administrators. Every customer environment required separate licenses—DevOps, User Acceptance Testing, production, or any other environment—making licensing expensive and complicating the sales process for Intershop and its customers. Eventually, the company found it difficult to realize the full potential of its cloud strategy, such as increased agility, reduced operating costs, and less management complexity.

“Our customers were asking for a database than can breathe, scaling up to handle peaks in demand, then scaling back down to keep costs low,” says Ronni Swialkowski, Vice President Strategic Alliances at Intershop. “With our Oracle environment, customers had to pay for licenses all year round—to cover capacity that they might only use once or twice a year.”

Intershop decided to address this issue by migrating its Commerce Management platform to Microsoft Azure SQL Database and Microsoft SQL Server, tools that the company could scale more easily and had the skills to support. In March 2018, it began moving Intershop Commerce Management 7.10 to SQL Server 2017 and later to SQL Database.

Thanks to Microsoft Data Migration Services and automated migration tools like the SQL Server Migration Assistant, a theoretically complicated shift was quick and simple for Intershop.

“We had great support from Microsoft,” says Swialkowski. “The migration was made really easy with both in-person support and a collection of useful tools. Now the Microsoft team is helping us with performance optimization, too.”

Intershop customers have their own on-premises, hybrid, and cloud environments, so the company began by running SQL Server on-premises before moving existing customers and most new customers to Azure SQL Database. Now, Intershop offers the renamed Intershop Cloud Commerce with both SQL Server 2017 deployments on-premises, and as a fully managed service with Azure SQL Database, giving customers the choice and flexibility based on their needs.

“Our move to Azure SQL Database and SQL Server makes sense for our customers right now—and we’ve positioned ourselves to focus on innovation as the nature of e-commerce evolves,” says Nils Breitmann, Enterprise Architect at Intershop.

A dramatic leap in software performance

Daily Fresh Food, a Dutch online packaged-food retailer, was one of the first Intershop customers to adopt Intershop Cloud Commerce, moving from an on-premises Oracle database to a hybrid SQL Server. The company already used Microsoft products or products running on SQL Server for its other business-critical applications, so using SQL Server for Intershop Cloud Commerce made perfect sense.

When the online retailer began using Intershop Cloud Commerce on SQL Server, it recorded a dramatic increase in performance. “We’ve been able to increase Intershop Cloud Commerce performance strongly compared to when we used Oracle,” says Swialkowski. “With SQL Server, Daily Fresh Food processes more requests per minute and has cut its response times significantly.”

“We’re happy with the reliability and performance of the Intershop platform,” says Roel van Alebeek, E-Commerce Architect at Daily Fresh Food. “We’ve known it since 2016, but it’s been improved in the new release using SQL Server. We can look back on a textbook upgrade without any major problems and look forward to serving our customers with new functionality and an improved user experience.”

A more compelling offer, and a platform for future innovation

Today, Intershop customers no longer need to purchase a database and the infrastructure before adopting Intershop Cloud Commerce. Everything can be wrapped in a single SaaS package.

Intershop has built a more compelling, personalized offer for its customers—with simpler licensing and smoother deployments, whether they’re on-premises or using Intershop Cloud Commerce. For Intershop, that means more power to generate revenue, and more cross-sell and up-sell opportunities.

The company has also solved the scaling problem that turned away some midsize B2C customers. Instead of planning for and purchasing all the databank licenses they might need three years in advance, Intershop customers can now scale freely—only paying for the capacity they actually use. And that means new opportunities in new segments for Intershop.

“Our customers are applauding Intershop Cloud Commerce, and it has exceeded our expectations,” says Dr. Jochen Wiechen, CEO of Intershop. “We’re using SQL Server and Azure to help customers do more with their own resources and drive higher market acceptance of Intershop solutions.”

Find out more about Intershop on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

“With our Oracle environment, customers had to pay for licenses all year round—to cover capacity that they might only use once or twice a year.”

Ronni Swialkowski, Vice President Strategic Alliances, Intershop

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