Empowering Success through Transformation with QloudX – An Inspirational Journey to AWS Cloud and Application Modernization
Executive Summary
In the face of challenges that hindered agility, speed, and scalability, our esteemed customer—a Swedish high-performance SaaS company with 20 years of experience in developing and implementing Digital Asset Management solutions—embarked on a transformative odyssey. Grappling with outdated on-premises systems, their potential was constrained. Fueled by determination, they looked to AWS Cloud and partnered with QloudX, ushering in an era of redefined possibilities and application modernization. This case study unveils an inspiring tale of innovation and resilience that transcends barriers. Guided by QloudX and the capabilities of AWS tools and services, our customer’s Digital Asset Management (DAM) product achieved unprecedented heights, including a migration encompassing an impressive 130 TB of data, including a staggering 56 million objects. Envision swift migrations, unwavering performance, and relentless availability. Join us on this captivating journey as we explore how our customer overcame challenges, amplified customer satisfaction, and charted a path toward digital excellence. Let their triumphant narrative inspire your aspirations and highlight the potential that cloud solutions hold for your own journey to success.
Our Customer
A Swedish high-performance SaaS company, with 20 years of experience in developing and implementing Digital Asset Management solutions for businesses across the globe.
Their Digital Asset Management (DAM) platform is a flexible, cloud-based technology providing businesses with a centralized hub to access, manage and distribute all digital assets.
The company has over 160 clients with over 550,000 users worldwide, who primarily use the service to manage digital material such as pictures, movies, presentations, logos.
The Challenge
Our esteemed customer, a company currently confronted with obstacles related to their on-premises server infrastructure, is experiencing repercussions on their agility, speed, and scalability. Their applications are encountering performance bottlenecks due to outdated databases and physical framework. Moreover, the task of upkeeping these applications has progressively become more arduous, significantly hampering the team’s overall efficiency.
One of the major challenges they face is the migration of their vast and complex datasets to the cloud. Handling large datasets involves intricate planning, robust infrastructure, and meticulous execution. Factors such as data volume, compatibility, and data transfer speed can pose significant challenges. Ensuring minimal disruption and downtime during the migration process is crucial, as any interruption could adversely impact business operations. Moreover, maintaining data integrity, security, and compliance throughout the migration process adds an additional layer of complexity.
With the aim of tackling these concerns, our customer seeks to revamp their applications and give precedence to transitioning towards the AWS Cloud. Concurrently, they are grappling with scalability hurdles and the escalating expenses linked to their on-premises infrastructure. It’s only by adeptly addressing these multifaceted challenges that our customer can seamlessly transition to a more efficient and flexible operational landscape.
Unleashing the Power of Cloud
In the era that lies ahead, the conventional on-premise hosting model will fall short of meeting the imperatives of scalability, performance, and global application delivery. As a result, the journey to a cloud-based solution will become not just an option, but a necessity.
Through the strategic migration of their Digital Asset Management (DAM) product to the cloud, our esteemed customer will position themselves at the forefront of competition and insight discovery. The cloud’s vast array of technologies will grant them access to a global infrastructure network, propelling them into an advantageous position. Beyond the immediate benefits, this migration will act as a transformative catalyst, triggering a broader digital metamorphosis. Rapid scalability, cost efficiencies, and heightened productivity will be just the beginning.
Moreover, this venture will pave the way for harnessing advanced analytics and machine learning, amplifying the enhancement of core business processes and products. By embracing this dynamic shift, our customer will embark on a journey not just towards migration, but towards digital evolution and sustained excellence.
The QloudX Solution
In the ambitious solution crafted by QloudX for our esteemed customer, transitioning from traditional on-premises hosting to a modern container-based Kubernetes solution has ushered in a transformative era for the platform’s infrastructure, guided by the principles of Infrastructure as Code (IaC). This strategic shift has unlocked unparalleled agility and scalability, eclipsing the limitations of conventional on-premises hosting.
QloudX’s first step involved orchestrating a seamless migration of digital assets from our customer’s on-premise data center to AWS S3 storage, a pivotal move that laid the foundation for this holistic transformation. This migration was executed with precision using the Snowball service, streamlining the transfer process, while AWS DataSync ensured data integrity through delta sync operations.
Simultaneously, QloudX invested in enhancing the end-user experience by implementing a CloudFront distribution mechanism. This optimization not only facilitated swift and efficient asset downloads but also significantly improved overall asset accessibility, an integral aspect of the customer journey.
As QloudX modernized our customer’s infrastructure, they leveraged Terraform and AWS CodePipeline to streamline the infrastructure setup process. By revitalizing the code pipeline with these powerful tools, our customer experienced a marked increase in efficiency when deploying and managing their infrastructure. This transformation empowered them to deliver new features with unprecedented speed and flexibility, aligning infrastructure setup practices with the dynamic demands of the evolving platform.
Furthermore, the core of the system, the relational database, underwent a meticulous migration process using AWS Database Migration Service, seamlessly transitioning to the Aurora PostgreSQL DB environment. This strategic move ensured both a seamless transition and optimal database performance, a linchpin for the success of the entire migration initiative.
Throughout this monumental transformation, QloudX has steadfastly adhered to stringent testing and optimization methodologies. This meticulous approach has not only guaranteed the technical excellence of the solution but also harmonized it with the essence of our customer’s aspirations.
AWS Services used:
AWS Snowball: Utilized for the efficient transfer of digital assets from the on-premises infrastructure to the Amazon S3 bucket.
Amazon S3: Offered extensive storage for digital assets with high availability and CRR (Cross-Region Replication) or disaster recovery, minimizing downtime and data loss. Ensured a stable connection with low latency and high availability while simplifying traffic management.
AWS DataSync: Employed to address the disparity between newly generated on-premises data and existing cloud data during the migration process, facilitating seamless data transfer and minimizing migration duration.
AWS Database Migration Service (DMS): Deployed to migrate the on-premises relational database into Amazon Aurora.
Amazon Aurora: Provided highly scalable, durable, and secure database solutions, enabling seamless focus on applications while entrusting database management tasks to AWS. With its unique architecture, Amazon Aurora delivered high performance and low latency.
Amazon CloudFront: Delivered fast content delivery, scalability, and global reach. In the world of digital content, where speed and performance are crucial, AWS CloudFront stood as a powerful solution.
Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2)/Auto Scaling Group (ASG): Offered secure, resizable compute capacity in the cloud, allowing quick provisioning of virtual servers and configuration as per specific requirements. ASG helped maintain application availability, optimize resource utilization, and improve overall performance by automatically adjusting the number of instances in response to changing demand.
Amazon CloudWatch: Utilized to identify anomalous behavior through the collection of data in the form of logs, events, and metrics. Also provided a unified view of all resources.
Amazon FSx: Enabled the launch and operation of highly scalable and durable file systems in the cloud. FSx for Lustre offered high throughput, low latency, and massive scalability, making it ideal for demanding applications.
AWS Application Load Balancer (ALB): Automatically distributed incoming application traffic across multiple Amazon EC2 instances, acting as a highly available load balancer. Improved fault tolerance and scalability of applications by evenly distributing traffic and automatically managing spikes, ensuring a seamless experience for users even during peak periods.
Amazon OpenSearch: Provided a fully managed, highly scalable, and reliable search and analytics service. Offered a powerful and easy-to-use solution for indexing, searching, and analyzing data in real-time.
AWS Key Management Service (AWS KMS): Enabled the creation and control of encryption keys used to encrypt data.
AWS Snowball
Introducing AWS Snowball, a groundbreaking data transfer solution designed to simplify and accelerate large-scale data migrations. As an innovation by Amazon Web Services, Snowball combines cutting-edge technology with practicality. This robust physical device empowers businesses to seamlessly move massive volumes of data from on-premises locations to the secure expanse of the cloud. With its high storage capacity, encryption capabilities, and efficient data transfer mechanisms, AWS Snowball redefines the landscape of data migration, offering a reliable and efficient bridge between existing infrastructure and the cloud’s boundless potential.
A solution that creates value and benefits
The accelerated cloud migration led to the realization of a fully modernized operational solution. Rigorous testing validated performance across uptime, downloads, and database connections. This resulted in benefits such as heightened availability, optimized performance, seamless communication, instant scalability, and efficient cost management. Continuous monitoring ensures premium user experiences, reinforced security, and risk mitigation. In essence, the cloud solution represents elevated data control, rapid response times, and enhanced user engagement. This transformation empowers the organization with improved data accessibility, elevated performance, cost-efficiency, valuable insights, streamlined infrastructure management, and a forward-looking growth platform.
Enhanced Data Accessibility
The migration to the AWS Cloud enabled the customer to access their digital assets and data from anywhere, anytime, providing greater flexibility and ease of use.
Improved Performance and Scalability
By leveraging AWS services such as EC2 instances, CloudFront, and Aurora PostgreSQL, the solution offered improved performance, scalability, and reliability, ensuring that the customer’s applications and infrastructure could handle growing demands effectively.
Reduced Costs
The migration to the AWS Cloud allowed the customer to eliminate the expenses associated with maintaining and upgrading their on-premise infrastructure. Additionally, the optimized data transfer process and efficient resource utilization led to cost savings in data migration.
Increased Security and Data Protection
The utilization of Amazon KMS for key management and AWS security services offered enhanced data protection and encryption capabilities, ensuring the customer’s sensitive data remained secure throughout the migration process.
Seamless End-User Experiences
The combination of CloudFront’s content delivery network and ALB’s load balancing capabilities provided improved user experiences with reduced latency, faster asset downloads, and high availability of applications.
Real-Time Insights and Analytics
The integration of Amazon OpenSearch will, in the future, enable the customer to gain valuable insights from their data, enabling better decision-making and optimization of their digital asset management processes.
Simplified Data Migration
The adoption of AWS services, including Snowball and DataSync, simplified the data migration process and reduced the complexity of managing large-scale data transfers and synchronization tasks. This streamlined approach not only enhanced operational efficiency but also significantly lowered the risk of data loss or disruptions during the migration process.
Future-Proofed Solution
By migrating to the AWS Cloud, the customer embraced a modern and future-proofed infrastructure that can easily scale and adapt to their evolving business needs. They are well-positioned to leverage additional AWS services and innovations in the future.
Agile Infrastructure Deployment and Management
QloudX’s adoption of Terraform and AWS CodePipeline revolutionized the customer’s infrastructure management. This streamlined setup process allows for swift deployment and efficient resource management. This modernized approach enables the customer to deliver new features rapidly, aligning seamlessly with the evolving platform’s demands.
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