DreamFactory Software provides web applications that combine data from different cloud platforms. It developed tools that run on Windows Azure to merge data from SQL Azure, Force.com, and other clouds. Migrating to Windows Azure took less than a month and provided faster performance, richer development capabilities, and access to Microsoft's large customer base compared to other clouds. Windows Azure's interoperability allows DreamFactory to build applications that consume data from any cloud or on-premises source.

1. Executive Case Study
Web Application Publisher
Combines Data Across Clouds
“Microsoft will undoubtedly be a major player in enterprise
cloud computing, and Windows Azure opens up
opportunities for us that we wouldn‟t have with other
cloud platforms.”
Eric Rubin, Chief Executive Officer, DreamFactory Software
Customer: DreamFactory Software During 25 years in the software business, Eric Rubin and Bill Appleton have seen
Country or Region: United States organizations struggle to implement big, expensive, packaged software applications.
Industry: Professional services—Software Then, when software as a service emerged as a deployment option in the 1990s, they
saw that it provided deployment and maintenance efficiencies, but companies often
Customer Overview ended up with a one-size-fits-all solution that failed to meet their specific needs.
DreamFactory is a leading publisher of rich Web
applications in the cloud, which are accessed via In 2005, as “cloud computing”—running applications in hosted data centers—
the Internet. Combining the agility of on-demand progressed, Rubin and Appleton joined forces to launch DreamFactory Software.
delivery with the performance of desktop applica- The company‟s aim is to combine the agility of on-demand application delivery with
tions, the DreamFactory Suite delivers enterprise- the performance and customization of on-premises applications. DreamFactory
class project, document, and data collaboration created a suite of eight workgroup productivity tools encompassing enterprise-grade
applications to more than 4,000 businesses. project, document, and data collaboration capabilities, which are delivered over the
DreamFactory is based in Campbell, California. Internet. The tools integrate easily with popular online software such as Salesforce.com
customer relationship management and the Intuit QuickBase database. Today, more
Business Results than 4,000 businesses use DreamFactory tools in combination with business data
Ability to merge data from different cloud-based residing in Amazon Web Services, Intuit Workplace, Cisco Webex Connect, and
data centers Force.com.
Rapid time-to-market for initial migration and
ongoing upgrades Workhorse Cloud Platform
Performance improvement of up to 30 percent When customers started asking DreamFactory if it would support the Windows Azure
versus other clouds platform, Chief Executive Officer Rubin and Chief Technology Officer Appleton imme-
Gateway to growth opportunities diately put it in their strategic plan. “We knew that Microsoft would be a major cloud
provider and that customers would want to run their applications on Windows Azure
Profile and be able to interoperate with other clouds,” Rubin says. “Our strategy is to be able
Chief Technology Officer to run on and interoperate with all of the critical cloud platforms, so we immediately
moved to support Windows Azure.”
One thing that Rubin and Appleton liked about Windows Azure was its breadth,
providing operating system, development, storage, and service management
capabilities. “It‟s not just a place to store data but a powerful development and
processing platform,” Rubin says. “Microsoft will undoubtedly be a major player in
enterprise cloud computing, and Windows Azure opens up opportunities for us in
corporate IT that we wouldn‟t have with other cloud platforms.”
Adds Appleton, “Windows Azure is a powerful combination of enterprise-grade cloud
computing capabilities and commodity pricing. Plus, the performance is great. We
initially thought that the role of a backbone workhorse platform could be met by
Amazon alone. But we found that the Windows Azure platform, with its fully relational

2. Executive Case Study
database, offers us the most complete development and deployment infrastructure.”
Data Merged Between Clouds
Companies can run DreamFactory tools on Windows Azure and store data in Microsoft
SQL Azure. But to Rubin and Appleton, the real power comes from combining the
DreamFactory tools with data from other cloud databases. For example, within a
“Windows Azure was DreamFactory workspace running on Windows Azure, a company might pull sales data
from Force.com and financial data from Intuit Workplace and combine it with corpo-
built from the ground up rate data in SQL Azure. Moreover, customers can collaborate on related documents
and manage structured projects inside workspaces in Windows Azure.
with interoperability in
mind. Developers can “Windows Azure was built from the ground up with interoperability in mind,” Appleton
says. “Developers can use just about any language or development tool to build their
use just about any application, run it on Windows Azure, and consume data from any other cloud or on-
premises platform. Using DreamFactory tools, users can then drag, drop, and connect
language or applications and data between clouds,” Appleton says. “We bring a new level of inter-
development tool to operability to cloud computing.”
build their application, Rapid Time-to-Market
DreamFactory was able to migrate its tools to Windows Azure in less than four weeks.
run it on Windows Azure, “Not only was the time-to-market significant, but we also had much richer develop-
and consume data from ment capabilities than other cloud platforms provide,” Appleton says. “The BLOB
Storage service was very familiar, and the Table service was very complete.” The
any other cloud or on Windows Azure BLOB (Binary Large Object) Storage service provides unstructured
data storage, and the Table service provides structured data storage.
on-premises platform.”
Bill Appleton, Chief Technology Officer, “Development speed is very important to us to support our business model,” Rubin
DreamFactory Software says. “We continuously improve our products based on customer feedback, and time-
to-market is critical in making this model work. The sophisticated development ser-
vices in Windows Azure enable us to deliver faster and widen the gap between us and
the competition.”
Great Performance Plus Growth Opportunities
Not only can DreamFactory quickly enhance its tools on Windows Azure, but it also can
make them run faster. “The performance of Windows Azure is impressive,” Appleton
says. “We benefit from as much as a 30 percent performance increase over similar
cloud computing offerings. This enables us to scale applications for enterprise cus-
tomers without concerns about performance.”
For DreamFactory, Windows Azure provides big growth opportunities. “The Windows
operating system offers the largest potential deployment platform for on-premises
applications, and Windows Azure offers the same potential in cloud environments,”
Rubin says. “With Microsoft, we have an opportunity to access a whole new universe of
customers, especially as more corporate IT staffs move to cloud computing. Microsoft
is the first cloud service available for building applications of any type with strong
enough features for enterprise applications. We also believe that Microsoft has the
ability to bring IT departments to the cloud en masse and that this will be beneficial
to providers on any cloud.”
Please continue reading for profile perspectives.

3. Chief Technology Officer Profile
How We Blend Applications from Different Clouds
An application developed with the compression and coding upload and
DreamFactory Interactive Development download also reduces the cost of Internet
Environment can run natively on multiple transactions. Other table services do not
cloud platforms using a single code base. have one or more of these features, and
Currently supported deployment environ- that makes it difficult to work with them in
ments include Windows Azure, Force.com, an enterprise context.”
Intuit Workplace, Amazon Web Services,
and Cisco WebEx Connect. Another benefit provided by Windows
Azure is the pay-as-you-go pricing model,
“We have a „blend‟ software layer that which enables customers to use processing
enables the interoperation between dif- and storage capacity on an as-needed basis.
ferent cloud platforms,” says Bill Appleton, They can easily scale up during peak periods
Chief Technology Officer for DreamFactory of activity and scale down as less power or
Bill Appleton
Chief Technology Officer Software. The blend layer is a software space is needed.
DreamFactory Software abstraction that blends the DreamFactory
applications running in different cloud “The Windows Azure platform is the first
Bill Appleton is an expert on service- platforms into a single application pro- cloud service targeted at the needs of
oriented architectures, rich media gramming interface (API). enterprise IT departments,” Appleton states.
authoring tools, and user interface “The table sizes, BLOB limits, partitioning
development. He has written more than From the user perspective, running a capability, and performance are great for
two dozen commercial software publica- DreamFactory application is similar to the cost profile.”
tions and has worked closely with Disney, embedding an animation or a movie file
Paramount, Viacom, and Bandai to build on a Web page. There is a client player that Business Results
creative vehicles for content development. “plays” the application content. The player DreamFactory took less than a month to
implements a security sandbox that protects migrate its applications to Windows
“The Windows Azure platform is the first
local files and other private network assets. Azure.
cloud service targeted at the needs of
The player is carefully written to minimize BLOB Storage service was familiar, and
enterprise IT departments. The table sizes,
contact with the local machine, but also to Table service placed no limits on table
BLOB limits, partitioning capability, and
allow access to certain external Web-based field size.
performance are great for the cost profile.”
assets or local desktop files under user con- Support for Gzip compression and coding
trol. DreamFactory does not host any user upload/download reduces cost of Internet
data; rather, all communication is conducted transactions for customers.
directly through an encrypted Secure Pay-as-you-go pricing model enables
Sockets Layer (SSL) pipeline with Windows customers to purchase processing and
Azure or other cloud platforms, where data storage as needed.
is stored.
Migrating DreamFactory applications to the
Windows Azure platform was a straightfor-
ward process, according to Appleton. “It
took us under a month to get DreamFactory
applications running on Windows Azure,” he
says. “The process went very smoothly. The
BLOB Storage service was very familiar, and
we liked the fact that the Table service
placed no limits on table field sizes. We also
had the ability to transmit updates and
deletions together as a set, which helps our
customers reduce the costs of Internet
transactions. The support for Gzip

4. For More Information Windows Azure Platform
For more information about Microsoft The Windows Azure platform provides an
products and services, call the Microsoft excellent foundation for expanding online
Sales Information Center at (800) 426-9400. product and service offerings. The main
In Canada, call the Microsoft Canada components include:
Information Centre at (877) 568-2495. Windows Azure. Windows Azure is the
Customers in the United States and Canada development, service hosting, and service
who are deaf or hard-of-hearing can reach management environment for the
Microsoft text telephone (TTY/TDD) Windows Azure platform. Windows Azure
services at (800) 892-5234. Outside the 50 provides developers with on-demand
United States and Canada, please contact compute and storage to host, scale, and
your local Microsoft subsidiary. To access manage Web applications on the Internet
information using the World Wide Web, through Microsoft data centers.
go to: Microsoft SQL Azure. Microsoft SQL
www.microsoft.com Azure offers the first cloud-based
relational and self-managed database
For more information about DreamFactory service built on Microsoft SQL Server
products and services, call (650) 641-1800 2008 technologies.
or visit the Web site at: Windows Azure platform AppFabric.
www.dreamfactory.com With Windows Azure platform AppFabric,
developers can build and manage
applications more easily both on-
premises and in the cloud.
− AppFabric Service Bus connects services
and applications across network
boundaries to help developers build
distributed applications.
− AppFabric Access Control provides
federated, claims-based access control
for REST Web services.
Microsoft "Dallas." Developers and
information workers can use the new
service code-named Dallas to easily
discover, purchase, and manage premium
data subscriptions in the Windows Azure
platform.
To learn more about the Windows Azure
platform visit:
www.windowsazure.com
Software and Services Links
Windows Azure Platform www.microsoft.com/windowsazure
− Windows Azure
− BLOB Storage
− Microsoft SQL Azure
− Table service
This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.
Document published April 2010