DevOps services for maintenance and optimization of the enterprise-grade creator cloud
One of IT Svit customers is an influencer marketing cloud for enterprise creators that offers private enterprise cloud services concentrating on the needs of digital content creation. The platform is used by Disney, Airbnb, Amazon, Dell, Unilever, Mattel, and Ralph Lauren to drive business results based on their content and storytelling projects.
Case info
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Industry: Private enterprise cloud
Partnership period: July 2019 — January 2020
Team size: 1 team lead, 2 DevOps engineers
Team location: Kharkiv, Ukraine
Services: Cloud infrastructure design and optimization, database performance optimization, monitoring implementation, CI/CD implementation, app containerization, API integration
Expertise delivered: App containerization and container management, cloud infrastructure management, monitoring implementation, CI/CD configuration, API integration
Technology stack: AWS, GitHub, Jenkins, MS SQL, AWS Lambda and Redshift, ElasticSearch, Node.JS, social media APIs (Youtube, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Google+, etc.), Ansible, AWS CloudWatch, Terraform, Docker
Project requirements
The customer required in-depth DevOps expertise to optimize the existing infrastructure and workflows, automate testing and deployment of the new platform features and integrate multiple external tools and services. The ultimate goal was migrating the legacy infrastructure to AWS and ensuring its ultimate cost-efficiency
Results
Technologies and libraries of object PHP are actively used in developing the main platform at the server and backend application level. We use MS SQL Server, Redshift, ElasticSearch and the Lambda architecture at the database storage organization level, using Node.js as the basic technology. Stored procedures, functions, etc. from the databases are actively used, as part of the logic is shifted specifically to them.
In the working databases, all large accounts and posts for all key social networks are collected and aggregated, with a capacity from hundreds of gigabytes to dozens of terabytes. Search is built on ElasticSearch 6 and consists of 7-8 indexes which contain more than 1 TB of data each and is still growing. A lot of work was done with third-party APIs: Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google+, Pinterest (and new ones are added regularly).
We started integration with IBM Watson AI services and API. In the daily routine of organizing and automating Agile SDLC processes, we use GitLab, Jenkins, automating Continuous Integration + Continuous Deployment practices and consistently implementing the Continuous Delivery concept. We prepared the infrastructure for the implementation and coverage of new feature functionality with automated tests. In the near future, we plan to cover the entire platform code with unit, integration and performance tests.
The main application hosting is located in Amazon Cloud using its services (S3, Route53, CloudFront and many more).
The back-end is a Laravel API. The database is MS SQL, where stored procedures, functions, etc. are actively used. The database contains all the major accounts for all key social networks.
We work through Git to consistently implement Continuous Integration + Continuous Deployment. We use AWS Lambda through working with Node.js.
Challenges and solutions
The customer required a full-scale transformation of their infrastructure and processes:
- application containerization and deployment,
- load balancing and autoscaling,
- ensuring security,
- k8s cluster maintenance and troubleshooting,
- routing and network configuration,
- smart alerting and monitoring implementation.
Due to our extensive expertise, we were able to deliver all the expected results, as described above.
Conclusions
This was not the first enterprise-grade project for IT Svit, but it definitely was quite a large one. However, through employing our knowledge and AWS architecture design best practices, we were able to deliver the expected results and exceed customer expectations. CreatorIQ was fully satisfied with our performance, which is described in a 5-star IT Svit customer review on Clutch.