The Client and the Challenge
The client specializes in furniture warranty plans, offering comprehensive protection for purchases through major furniture retailers. These plans provide nationwide home repair coverage for various damages to fabric, leather, wood, area rugs, and more.
The client’s company faced several issues when trying to modernize its infrastructure:
- Complex infrastructure. Its fragmented, primarily on-premises IT setup was inefficient and lacked the scalability required for growth.
- Operational instability. Frequent system failures and the need for manual interventions disrupted operations and slowed productivity.
- Limited developer productivity. Managing a complex infrastructure overwhelmed external development teams, taking their focus away from building and improving applications.
To move forward, the client needed to adopt a cloud-first strategy that would streamline operations, enhance system stability, and free up the developers to focus on innovation.
The Solution
Since June 2020, DevCom has been working with the furniture warranty company to modernize its IT infrastructure by migrating to AWS and providing ongoing management.
Our team of two DevOps engineers led the project, following a multi-phase approach:
Phase 1: Research and Analysis
The process began with thorough research and analysis. DevCom evaluated the client’s fragmented on-premises systems to identify services suitable for migration and documented all system requirements. This detailed groundwork allowed the team to develop a strategic roadmap that ensured the migration would be seamless, cost-effective, and aligned with the client’s operational goals.
Phase 2: System Architecture and Design
After that, our DevOps engineers focused on designing an AWS-based architecture that could meet the client’s needs for scalability, high availability, and cost efficiency. The new architecture incorporated serverless computing and robust monitoring tools, ensuring streamlined operations and minimized overhead costs.
Phase 3: Incremental Migration to AWS
The migration was carried out in incremental phases to avoid disruptions. During this phase, the DevCom team configured CI/CD pipelines to automate deployments. After that, critical components, such as RDS databases, APIs, and Lambda functions, were set up to enable smooth data integration and efficient processing.
Phase 4: Ongoing Support and Optimization
Once the migration was complete, DevCom shifted to ongoing support and optimization. This includes 24/7 monitoring using tools like AWS CloudWatch and Prometheus. Our professionals also ensure smooth operations thanks to the continuous maintenance and optimization of CI/CD pipelines.
Furthermore, by providing a reliable infrastructure and reducing operational burdens, DevCom has freed up the client’s external development teams to focus on enhancing their core applications.
Results and Impact
With its systems now centralized in the cloud, the furniture warranty company has a single, easy-to-manage platform that scales effortlessly as the business grows. Furthermore, the client can now track system health in real time, get instant alerts, and resolve issues before they become problems.
APIs and RDS databases make data integration seamless, while tools for optimizing AWS resources keep everything cost-efficient. Finally, a custom dashboard gives clear insights into performance, including deployment times, system stability, and scalability metrics.
In practice, this means:
- Faster and more efficient workflows: Deployment times are down, and automation is saving hours of manual work.
- Scalability without stress: The system grows with the business, no matter how much demand increases.
- Improved stability: Proactive monitoring has minimized downtime and kept operations running smoothly.
- Developer empowerment: With infrastructure headaches out of the way, external teams can focus on what they do best—creating great websites.
From a business perspective, the results are just as impressive:
- Streamlined operations: A unified, cloud-based infrastructure replaced fragmented systems.
- High availability: Consistent uptime with minimal disruptions.
- Cost savings: Optimized AWS usage reduced operational costs.
- Minimal maintenance: The maintenance of this system requires minimal support.
With a future-ready, scalable system, the client is well-positioned for growth and continued success.
Technologies used
- Cloud services: AWS serverless computing, RDS databases, APIs, Lambda functions
- Development tools: NodeJS, React Native, WordPress
- Monitoring tools: Prometheus, ELK, AWS CloudWatch, AWS EventBridge