Microsoft Azure (Microsoft) > Case Studies > Adobe's Transition to Azure: Enhancing Customer Experience with IoT

Adobe's Transition to Azure: Enhancing Customer Experience with IoT

Technology Category

Cybersecurity & Privacy - Security Compliance
Platform as a Service (PaaS) - Application Development Platforms

Applicable Industries

Equipment & Machinery
National Security & Defense

Applicable Functions

Product Research & Development
Sales & Marketing

Use Cases

Behavior & Emotion Tracking
Tamper Detection

Services

Cloud Planning, Design & Implementation Services
System Integration

About The Customer

Adobe is a multinational computer software company headquartered in the United States. It is known for its Creative Suite, which includes software like Adobe Photoshop, Acrobat Reader, and more. These products have been transitioned into a software as a service (SaaS) offering called Adobe Creative Cloud. In addition to this, Adobe introduced Adobe Experience Cloud, a set of marketing, analytics, and advertising tools to help brands deliver exceptional customer experiences. Adobe has over 10,000 employees and is a leader in the Partner Professional Services industry. The company has made Microsoft Azure its preferred cloud platform to ensure that its growing portfolio of cloud offerings runs fast, reliably, and securely.

The Challenge

Adobe, a leading software company, recognized the need to transition from simply creating beautiful content to understanding how people engage with that content. This understanding would allow businesses to refine their interactions with prospects and customers. To achieve this, Adobe introduced Adobe Experience Cloud in March 2017, a set of tools that complements Adobe Creative Cloud. However, as Adobe migrated more products to a SaaS model, it faced the challenge of finding a reliable and secure cloud platform to host its growing portfolio of cloud offerings. Adobe also needed to ensure that its open-source software-based products would be fully supported on the chosen cloud platform. Furthermore, Adobe had to address customer concerns about running their mission-critical applications, which include petabytes of confidential customer and sales data, in the cloud.

The Solution

Adobe signed a strategic partnership with Microsoft to make Microsoft Azure its preferred cloud platform. Azure was chosen due to its extensive support for open-source software and its multilayer security. Adobe's Experience Manager, part of Experience Cloud, was the first solution deployed in Azure, followed by Adobe Cloud Platform and Adobe Document Cloud. Adobe made extensive use of Azure platform as a service (PaaS) offerings such as Azure Data Factory, which allowed the company to integrate data from multiple hybrid sources at scale. Adobe also used Azure Data Lake Storage and Azure Virtual Machines. To address security concerns, Adobe provided evidence of Azure's multilayer security, which complies with multiple international and industry security compliance standards and certifications. Adobe also had the freedom to apply security at a granular resource level in Azure. Additionally, Adobe used Azure Security Center to quickly find and respond to potential vulnerabilities.

Operational Impact

By choosing to run its SaaS applications in Azure, Adobe has freed its employees from datacenter and infrastructure worries, allowing them to focus on building innovative software. Adobe has also been able to deliver outstanding customer experiences with its software due to the enterprise-grade availability and performance provided by Azure. The company has been able to test its solutions for resiliency in a unique way by running Azure Availability Zone outage drills. Furthermore, Adobe has been able to leverage Azure's support for open-source software, allowing its developers to write software in the language of their choice while still having access to the full set of Azure PaaS services. Lastly, Adobe has been able to address customer concerns about security by providing evidence of Azure's multilayer security.

Quantitative Benefit

Adobe's cloud products make extensive use of Azure PaaS offerings, allowing the company to quickly and easily integrate data from multiple hybrid sources at scale.
Adobe uses Azure Availability Zones to perform disaster recovery drills and demonstrate Azure resilience to customers.
Azure exposes its server processors as real physical cores versus logical cores, which results in substantially better performance per dollar than equivalent offerings from other cloud providers.