Welcome » Case Studies » Anonymized Customer – Managed Services for SMB API Integration Platform
AWS CASE STUDY
Executive Summary
The collaboration between the company and Cloudar demonstrates how AWS services can be leveraged to address the unique needs of SMBs. By combining scalability, security, and operational efficiency, the company successfully enhanced its platform’s capabilities while maintaining cost control. This case study highlights how tailored solutions for SMBs can drive growth and improve customer satisfaction in competitive markets.
CUSTOMER:
Anonymized
PROJECT:
FIRST LAUNCH:
November, 2024
Introduction
A growing platform that simplifies API integration faced significant challenges as it expanded. The company’s goal was to provide a single integration layer to connect clients with various third-party APIs, simplifying the development process. As their customer base grew, their existing infrastructure struggled to keep pace, and operational complexities increased.
Given the SMB nature of the company, the solution had to balance scalability, cost control, and simplicity, as internal resources were limited. Partnering with Cloudar, an AWS Premier Partner and Managed Services Provider, the company transitioned to an optimized AWS infrastructure that improved performance, security, and operational efficiency.
The Challenge
The SMB encountered multiple obstacles typical for businesses of its size:
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Scalability Issues: Their infrastructure struggled to manage increasing workloads and API requests, leading to performance bottlenecks.
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Resource Constraints: Limited internal AWS expertise resulted in time-consuming infrastructure management and reduced focus on core product development.
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Operational Overhead: Manual deployment processes consumed valuable resources.
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Security and Compliance: The company needed to implement industry-standard security practices to ensure data protection.
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Cost Control: As an SMB, cost management was crucial to maintaining profitability while scaling operations.
Partner Solution
Cloudar provided a comprehensive solution that aligned with the AWS Well-Architected Framework. The approach addressed the company’s unique SMB constraints while ensuring scalability, security, and cost efficiency.
Key elements of the solution included:
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Infrastructure as Code (IaC): Using Terraform and Terragrunt, the company’s AWS infrastructure is now defined and managed as code. This streamlined deployment processes, improved consistency, and enabled better version control.
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AWS Services: Key AWS services implemented include:
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Amazon ECS Fargate: Hosts the company’s GraphQL API and other essential services, providing auto-scaling capabilities to handle increased demand efficiently.
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Amazon DynamoDB: Ensures low-latency data access for the company’s core API layer.
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AWS Lambda & API Gateway: Powers key API functions and manages incoming requests efficiently.
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Amazon OpenSearch: Supports search functionality but is being evaluated for replacement with a time-series database to control costs.
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AWS Identity Center: Integrated with Google Workspace for centralized identity management.
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Automated Preview Environments: Using GitHub Actions, the company now automatically spins up temporary environments for code testing. Unused environments are cleaned up post-testing to reduce costs. Automation improvements are ongoing to ensure failed deployments no longer result in lingering resources.
Results and Benefits
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Improved Reliability: Enhanced uptime ensured a better user experience for customers globally.
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Scalable Growth: The new architecture handles higher traffic volumes without performance degradation.
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Cost Efficiency: Automated resource scaling reduced infrastructure costs, aligning expenses with usage. By leveraging Cloudar’s Managed Services, the company significantly reduced the overhead associated with infrastructure maintenance. This allowed their internal teams to focus resources on core product development, maximizing productivity while lowering costs.
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Enhanced Security: AWS Identity Center integration improved access control and security compliance.
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Operational Efficiency: Automating deployments with Terraform and GitHub Actions minimized manual intervention, allowing the company’s team to focus on product development.
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Lessons Learned: During the migration, Cloudar identified key improvements for handling staff transitions in SMB environments. By enhancing information-sharing processes, the company can now better manage knowledge transfer when technical staff change roles or leave the company. This mitigates the risk of critical expertise being lost, ensuring smoother ongoing operations.
