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Benefits by Quest Software, which cuts backup times and file size
Delivers data quickly
by 50 percent. Both solutions help Zillow respond to
Improves backup and recovery
efficiency customer queries quickly and save significant costs
Situation In many places we have 10 years of
Zillow.com™ is an online real estate valuation history,” says Butcher.
service dedicated to helping real
estate consumers answer the The company needed a database
question, "How much is this home application that could perform
really worth?" Users can access— powerfully enough to easily handle its
anonymously and free of charge— the large data sets and return quick
kinds of tools and information responses to user queries. The
previously exclusive to real estate product would also need to scale for
professionals. Among other things, the enormous growth in store for
users can get data and valuations for Zillow—the company projects to at
more than 65 million U.S. homes, as least double its offerings within a
well as median values for almost any year.
given region. Based in Seattle, the
company launched in early 2006 and Solution
“The LiteSpeed currently has just over 100 In November 2005, Zillow.com
backup files are employees. investigated several solutions,
including Microsoft® SQL Server™
about 20 percent of As Zillow began the task of putting 2000 and 2005. Says Butcher, “There
the size of the tools and information into the hands were a number of database vendors
of consumers, the big questions, says and plans that were being evaluated,
database file. And Mark Butcher, Database Manager at and it really came down to pricing and
LiteSpeed performs Zillow, were “How do we take all of a series of performance tests.” The
this data, how do we manage it, and company considered MySQL,
backups and how do we allow our customers to PostgreSQL, Oracle, and Microsoft SQL
recoveries in just query it effectively?” The sheer Server (2000 and 2005). “We quickly
volume of data that the company has pared down the list to MySQL and the
half the time.” to store and serve to the public is Microsoft products, based on cost,” he
Mark Butcher, Database Manager, massive. “What we build is actually says. “If we were going to use MySQL
Zillow.com an operational data warehouse for as a database platform, we would
customers,” he says. “We present have had to buy a much larger farm
tremendously large sets of data to of servers to support our application
millions of customers to be queried requirement.”
and searched very quickly—that in
itself is quite a challenge.” After narrowing the pool, Zillow
performed a series of side-by-side
What’s more, Zillow recalculates benchmarking tests. “We say that
home valuations for each property SQL Server 2000 significantly
every day. As neighborhood home outperformed MySQL—by orders of
sales fluctuate and other market magnitude,” says Butcher.
conditions change, each property in “Performing identical Zillow-type
an area is affected. Each day, the query benchmarks on identical
valuations need to be stored so that hardware and data volumes ‘out of
Zillow can provide historical graphs the box,’ we found SQL Server 2005
on home valuations over time. “The was 40 percent faster with query
graphs on our site reflect this history. response times than SQL Server 2000.
And SQL Server 2005 was more than
200 percent faster with query The total amount of data stored
response times than MySQL.” across the Zillow databases—
including its production, test, and
The company implemented SQL stress environments—is about 40
Server 2005 Enterprise Edition in terabytes (TB). The company expects
November 2005. Soon after, it began this number to at least double within
seeking a separate backup and a year.
recovery product that could help it to
significantly compress the size of Zillow performs full backups to disk at
backup files. Some Zillow employees least once daily. “We have multiple
had previous experience with a copies of our online data sets. In
product called LiteSpeed for SQL some cases, where we have
Server by Quest Software. Designed transactional data, we do transaction
specifically for SQL Server, the log backups frequently, as much as
product significantly compresses every minute, so we preserve every
“Providing rapid backup file sizes and reduces backup customer transaction,” says Butcher.
responses to and recovery time. Soon, the
company began testing LiteSpeed for The company also writes full backups
queries…Delivering SQL Server. “On average, the to tape, at varying times. “The end
accurate details LiteSpeed backup files are about 50 result is that we have data protection
percent of the size of the native SQL and recoverability from local disk and
about properties is Server backups,” says Butcher. “And, from network attached storage, and
critical. SQL Server LiteSpeed performs backups and in the event of a data center disaster,
recoveries in just half the time.” we have copies offsite and on tape.”
2005 is paramount
to the success of In February 2006, Zillow opened its SQL Server 2005 Features
Web site to the public, and within One new feature the company
our entire three weeks the site had received 2.8 depends on is data partitioning.
application.” million unique visitors, according to “Without data partitioning, we would
comScore —placing it solidly within not be able to manage the volume of
Mark Butcher, Database Manager, the top-10 real estate Web sites. “Our data that we have,” says Butcher.
Zillow.com Web site was just completely Indeed, sheer data volume is the
inundated—we had more traffic than biggest challenge the company faces.
we had ever anticipated,” he says. “It “We have one table with seven billion
was a good problem to have.” In fact, records in it,” says Gary Johnson,
the site had to turn away some Senior Database Developer at Zillow.
visitors on launch day due to the “The table is a history table that
crush of traffic. “It’s nice to know that contains approximately one record
it was not the databases that were per property, per day for our
having the problem—it was our valuation calculations for the last 10
infrastructure that needed to be years—that is how we can build that
addressed,” he says. “SQL Server and wonderful graph on the value of your
our capacity plan were able to easily home over time.” The table grows
sustain the load that was there.” daily by the number of properties.
“The data partitioning feature has
Data Backups made selecting data out of this table
extremely fast.”
significantly improved the backup and
With integration services, Zillow can recovery processes, contributing to
move data from one environment to major cost savings. The company is
another more efficiently. “We have confident that the solution, which is
found integration services to be much easy to manage, will support its long-
more effective in moving the volume term growth plans.
of data that we have compared with
replication or any other method,” Delivers Data Quickly
says Butcher. “It’s important to emphasize that it’s
the performance and the performing
Data-mining features are used in characteristics of SQL Server 2005
property valuations—known as and Quest LiteSpeed that have
Zestimate™ values on Zillow. “We do allowed us to ship this product,” says
a lot of data mining to calculate the Butcher. “None of the other products
Zestimates for properties. We use it we looked at would allow us to
for trending across those calculations physically create the data and deliver
to see the variants from one period of it to the customer spacing site in a
time to another,” says Butcher. timely fashion.”
"The solution Company data shows that a majority
Is Easy to Manage
The company is able to efficiently
manage large tables and indexes
through data partitioning. Many other
features increase the productivity of
database administrators by saving
the time needed for maintenance,
configuration, and tuning. “We have
found the product very easy to
schedule, run, manage, and
troubleshoot,” says Butcher. “Support
has also been excellent from Microsoft
as well as Quest.”
For More Information Microsoft Windows Server System For more information about SQL
For more information about Microsoft Windows Server System is a Server 2005, go to:
Microsoft products and services, call line of integrated and manageable www.microsoft.com/sqlserver
the Microsoft Sales Information server software designed to reduce
Center at (800) 426-9400. In the complexity and cost of IT.
Canada, call the Microsoft Canada Windows Server System enables you
Information Centre at (877) 568- to spend less time and budget on
2495. Customers who are deaf or managing your systems so that you
hard-of-hearing can reach Microsoft can focus your resources on other
text telephone (TTY/TDD) services priorities for you and your business.
at (800) 892-5234 in the United
States or (905) 568-9641 in Canada. For more information about Windows
Outside the 50 United States and Server System, go to:
Canada, please contact your local www.microsoft.com/windowsserversys
Microsoft subsidiary. To access tem
information using the World Wide
Web, go to: www.microsoft.com Microsoft SQL Server 2005
Microsoft SQL Server 2005 is
For more information about Quest comprehensive, integrated data
Software products and services, call management and analysis software
(949) 754-8000 or visit the Web site that enables organizations to reliably
at: www.quest.com manage mission-critical information
and confidently run today’s
For more information about increasingly complex business
Zillow.com products and services, applications. By providing high
call (206) 470-7000 or visit the Web availability, security enhancements,
site at: www.zillow.com and embedded reporting and data
analysis tools, SQL Server 2005 helps
companies gain greater insight from
their business information and
achieve faster results for a
competitive advantage. And, because
it’s part of Windows Server System,
SQL Server 2005 is designed to
integrate seamlessly with your other
server infrastructure investments.