Context and Challenge
At first, HFN ran all its systems in local data centers. This worked fine until their webshop grew fast. They expanded and acquired competitors’ sites. So, their old setup couldn’t keep up, leading to the following challenges:
- Scalability issues: Their servers couldn’t handle more traffic, bigger databases, and growing business needs.
- Slow performance: Pages took longer to load, and response times dropped, frustrating customers.
- Infrastructure limits: Expanding local data centers was cheap but inefficient. The cloud services were scalable but expensive.
- Development bottlenecks: The team needed a faster, more flexible system to release new features quickly.
HFN strived for a better solution. To stay ahead, they decided to move to Google Cloud, making their system faster, more scalable, and ready for future growth.
Client’s Objectives
HFN knew that moving to the cloud was the best way to handle their growing demands, so they turned to Forbytes to achieve the following goals:
- Migrate their infrastructure to Google Cloud for scalability and traffic spike prevention
- Optimize performance to ensure a smooth and reliable user experience
- Increase flexibility for faster development cycles and innovation
How We Approached the Project
To help HFN migrate smoothly to the cloud, we followed a structured approach:
- Assessment & planning: We analyzed their existing infrastructure, identified bottlenecks, and created a migration roadmap.
- Seamless Cloud Migration: Our team moved their systems to Google Cloud with minimal downtime, ensuring scalability and performance improvements.
- Optimization & testing: We fine-tuned the infrastructure, optimized load balancing, and conducted rigorous testing to ensure reliability.
Solution Overview
The only solution to Trademax’s challenges was migration to Google Cloud. Here’s how we assisted them:
- Cloud migration: We moved Trademax’s entire infrastructure to Google Cloud, making it scalable and efficient. This upgrade optimized server response times, improved website speed, and gave customers a seamless shopping experience. To avoid disruptions, we scheduled data transfers during maintenance windows, keeping downtime to a minimum.
- CI/CD pipelines: Software updates used to be slow and complicated. We introduced continuous integration and deployment (CI/CD), allowing new features to roll out quickly without any downtime. As a result, the development process sped up, helping Trademax stay competitive.
- Microservices & Kubernetes: We rewrote applications into microservices and deployed them using Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE). This change ensured that the system could scale easily, using resources only when needed. Plus, Docker helped package and move applications smoothly, making the transition seamless.
- Centralized data storage: Instead of scattered databases and storage systems, we migrated everything to Google Cloud – databases, image servers, and storage. Keeping the same databases meant there was no disruption in functionality, while response times improved significantly.
- Seamless data migration: Data transitions can be tricky, but we implemented a master data flow to ensure a smooth shift with no data loss or inconsistencies.
Detailed Execution Timeline
With the collaboration of our DevOps, CTO, and development team, we completed 3,096 hours of infrastructure migration work in just 3 months. Here’s how our effort was distributed:
- Discovery & architecture/infrastructure planning (485 hours)
- Infrastructure setup, microservices development & deployment (280 hours)
- CI/CD Implementation (360 hours)
- Databases migration & centralized data storage (1,131 hours)
- Third-party integrations (480 hours)
- Performance & scalability optimization (360 hours)
Result and Impact
Qualitative results:
- Smooth performance at scale: The system can now handle higher traffic loads without slowdowns, ensuring a seamless user experience.
- Faster order processing: Optimized infrastructure allows for quicker and more efficient order processing.
- Effortless scalability: The company can scale its operations without disruptions, no matter how much demand grows.
- Improved development workflow: Teams can now work independently, reducing bottlenecks and accelerating project timelines.
- Seamless seasonal traffic management: The system efficiently manages surges during peak seasons like Black Friday and Christmas without the need for extra servers.
Key Takeaways and Lessons Learnt
Success factors:
- Close collaboration with the client: Our team worked closely with HFN to understand their needs. This helped us create a system that was just right for them.
- Continuous improvements: We didn’t stop after the initial setup. We made small changes along the way to keep everything working better.
- A strong partnership: Forbytes experts had worked with HFN for a long time, so communication was easy. This trust helped us deliver what they needed.
- Cloud and scalability expertise: We have a lot of experience with cloud migration and scalability. As a result, we built a flexible system that could grow with HFN, especially during peak times like Black Friday and Christmas.
- Proven track record: HFN trusted us because we had already done successful projects for them before.
Challenges overcome:
- Data consistency and relevance: We had to ensure that data remained accurate and up-to-date throughout the migration. This required careful planning to prevent any inconsistencies between the old and new systems.
- Minimal downtime during migration: We worked within maintenance windows to ensure the transition was as smooth as possible, with minimal downtime and disruption for all teams.
- Flexibility to adapt: Migration from on-premise systems to the cloud required us to be flexible and ready to change the architecture as needed. We had to adjust quickly to new challenges during the process.
- Building a new architecture: Migrating to a cloud environment meant rebuilding the system from scratch. This was tricky as we had to adapt to new requirements.
- Data synchronization: We faced the challenge of ensuring that the data in the old system matched the new one. Our team ensured everything was aligned correctly.
