Many online users may not realize it, but when a web page is opened on a mobile or desktop device and an advertisement appears, it’s the result of a fast-paced, sophisticated auction process that happens quicker than the blink of an eye.

One of the leading auction firms facilitating that process is The Trade Desk, which powers the most sophisticated buyers in advertising technology.

“People are bidding on the privilege to show you an ad,” said Ron Cormier (pictured), principal database engineer at The Trade Desk. “Across the open internet this happens seven to 13 million times per second. So, the display of the ad needs to happen really fast, and it’s about as real time as it gets outside of high-frequency trading.”

Cormier spoke with Dave Vellante, host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, during the virtual Vertica Big Data Conference. They discussed Vertica’s role in powering The Trade Desk’s high-volume platform and the value of being able to tap critical compute resources on demand. (* Disclosure below.)

Running 40,000 reports per day

The Trade Desk participates in auctions on behalf of its ad agency clients, bidding on hundreds of thousands of auctions per second, according to Cormier. That requires an ability to compute and store a significant amount of data, as well as to report results back to clients, which led The Trade Desk to become a Vertica customer.

“Any time we make a bid, some data flows into our data platform which is powered by Vertica,” Cormier said. “We run 40,000 reports per day on behalf of our customers.”

The daily workflows for The Trade Desk are what is commonly known in the industry as “lumpy,” prone to peaks and valleys depending on the time of day, particularly in periods when the company’s massive report volume must be run. The ad-tech firm uses Vertica’s Eon Mode to smooth out processing demand without disrupting other elements of the business or incurring major cost.

“We spin up a bunch of extra compute on the fly, run those reports, spin them down, and we don’t have to pay for that for the rest of the day,” Cormier explained. “Eon has been a nice boon for us for those reasons.”

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the virtual Vertica Big Data Conference. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for the Vertica Big Data Conference. Neither Vertica, the sponsor for theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE