Domino’s Pizza cloud computing use offers food for thought

The lure of a takeaway pizza is well-known and thanks to technology it's becoming ever easier to order whenever the mood takes you.

Smartphones and tablets let us place orders from any location via dedicated apps and one firm that's seen the rise perhaps better than any other is Domino's Pizza.

It now sees over 50 percent of its orders placed online, and 20 percent are coming from mobile applications on Android and iOS devices, according to the firm's chief information officer Colin Rees.

Rees was speaking at Cloud Expo in London last week and explained how the firm has embraced the benefits of cloud computing to ensure it can cope with the growing demand placed on its ordering systems.

Domino's, understandably, has fairly predictable demand windows, that revolve around a peak between 5pm and 9pm and particularly on Fridays, Saturday and Tuesdays - when it runs its two for £10 deal.

As a result, the firm has increased its capacity during these periods to ensure it meets demands, but it can also ask for even more from its provider whenever necessary.

This means during the quiet periods it's not paying for unnecessary extra capacity. However, this doesn't mean it can't react to events and boost capacity as necessary.

"Before Christmas when the weather was bad we knew sales would increase and we would need more capacity," Rees explained.

"So we doubled the processors we were utilising in the servers overnight and could prove that the increase was necessary given the sales we processed, which would have proven too great if we'd left the capacity levels as they were the day before."

The firm's experiences are likely to mirror many similar-sized firms considering whether or not their business could operate in a similar manner.