Confidential and Proprietary. © 2010 American Girl, LLC.
American Girl BackgroundAmerican Girl is one of the country’s leading direct marketers,
children’s publishers, and experiential retailers. Since the first catalogue debuted in 1986, American Girl has provided girls
ages 3-12 with an array of premium-quality dolls, books, clothes, and accessories.
Confidential and Proprietary. © 2010 American Girl, LLC.
American Girl Fast Facts• 132 million: the number of American Girl books that have been sold since
1986• 56 million: visits per year to the American Girl Web site, americangirl.com• 33 million: visits to American Girl retail stores, which have won numerous
awards as premier models for experiential retail.• 18 million: the number of American Girl dolls that have been sold since
1986 through our retail stores, Web site, and catalogue, which ranks among the top 25 consumer catalogues in the country.
• 500,000: the circulation for American Girl® magazine, ranking it among the top ten children’s magazines in the nation and the largest publication dedicated exclusively to girls.
• 5,000: pieces of mail American Girl magazine receives after each issue.
Confidential and Proprietary. © 2010 American Girl, LLC.Confidential and Proprietary. © 2010 American Girl, LLC.
• Launched on July 13, 2010• World access is part of the
My American Girl doll purchase• The online avatar looks like the
doll
Innerstar University
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Robust community
• Personalization of avatar
• Games • Activities• Earned currency• E-mail to other users• Shopping for outfits• Quests• Collectible content
Body Balance game played at Real Spirit Center
Map of InnerstarU
Innerstar University
Confidential and Proprietary. © 2010 American Girl, LLC.
Planning• AG had a “plan”
– Initially go-live with internal infrastructure– Transition to RightScale/EC2 late in year
(volume picks up)– Scaling considerations built into application– Compare load testing results vs. projected
usage to estimate hardware needs– Be trained
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Go-Live• Internal hardware could not handle
load• Guest-only application moved to Cloud
– Implemented in ONE day – Increased capacity 2,500%
• Registered-user application moved to Cloud one month later– Required additional development– Changing of business rules– Increased capacity 1,000%
Confidential and Proprietary. © 2010 American Girl, LLC.
VPN Tunnel
using Amazon EC2
EUP Deployment (Registered)10
Innerstar U Prod
EUP AllOneDeploymen (Guest)t
25 m1.largeEUP, DB-M
Profile Manager User
RCS User
App Server(3)RCS, Email: 7777
Load Balancer
Load Balancer
Web (2)
Load Balancer
IMAGE Deployment
8 m1.larg
WEB Array 5 m1.large
EUP ESm1.large
EUP
Load Balancer
REGSTRY Jetty Array
2 m1.small
REGSTRY DB Deployment2 m2.2xlarge
EUP DB-Mm1.large
mysql
EUP DB-Sm1.large
mysql
Load Balancer
VPN Manager Deployment1 m1.small
Americangirl.comLanding page
VPN Router (Phoenix)
VPN Tunnel
Choose WEB 1 m1.small
Akamai CDN
Internal
Confidential and Proprietary. © 2010 American Girl, LLC.
Reflection• Much more work ahead
– Getting ready for Season 2010– Create dedicated DEV, TEST, LOAD
environments on RightScale– Implement ability to auto-scale
• “Give a man a fish…Teach a man to fish”– RightScale Services a great partner– AG on path to become mostly self-sufficient