Improving reliability, security and performance by improving the cloud platform

About the Client

Our client is a global leader in robotics and innovative solutions for the dairy farming industry. With a wide range of products and services, they help farmers worldwide make their operations more efficient and sustainable. One of their core offerings is a SaaS platform that allows farmers to monitor and improve the performance of their farms using data from robots and sensors.

The Challenge

As the SaaS platform rapidly grew, significant challenges emerged within its cloud environment. The platform initially ran on Azure’s App Service, a solution that met their needs in the beginning but eventually reached its limits. This resulted in multiple daily outages, severely impacting the user experience and undermining the end-users trust in the platform.

The client urgently needed a cost-effective solution to restore the reliability, security, and performance, ensuring that farmers worldwide could confidently rely on technology to manage their daily operations. At the same time, the client wanted a flexible and innovative cloud environment that would enable them to continue innovating without hindrance.

The Solution

Our team began with a thorough analysis of the existing cloud environment. It quickly became clear that the current Azure App Services had reached their limits. The first step in our approach was to implement full-stack monitoring. 

Implementing the comprehensive monitoring solution allowed us to quickly resolve several critical issues. This not only improved performance but also balanced costs with performance more effectively. However, the new insights made it clear that a fundamental change was needed: migration to a more scalable and reliable solution.

We began by developing a Proof of Concept (PoC) based on Kubernetes. The most unstable APIs were moved to Kubernetes, which immediately resulted in significantly more stable performance. With key metrics supporting our decision, we ultimately opted for a full migration to Kubernetes. The initial PoC cluster quickly became the foundation of their new cloud architecture.

Parallel to the Kubernetes migration, we also implemented significant security optimizations. These included stricter access controls, network segmentation, and leveraging advanced security features within Azure to ensure that the new environment was not only more stable but also more secure than ever.

The final migration involved hundreds of applications, and thanks to smart network routing, this process was completed without any downtime. The entire project was managed using Infrastructure as Code (IaC) with Terraform, ensuring the infrastructure was consistent and repeatable.

Results and Impact

The migration to Kubernetes and the implementation of comprehensive monitoring led to significant improvements in the reliability and performance of the platform. The platform’s daily outages were completely eliminated, and the overall user experience for farmers worldwide improved dramatically.

Monitoring metrics also enabled us to strike a better balance between performance and costs. As a result of these optimizations, cloud spending was reduced to one-fifth of its original level, delivering substantial cost savings without compromising performance.

Additionally, the cybersecurity optimizations increased the overall security level, which was crucial for protecting sensitive data and maintaining the integrity of the environment. This has given the client the confidence to continue innovating and adding new features, knowing that the underlying infrastructure is well-protected.

The client has also benefited from a much more stable and flexible cloud environment, enabling them to continuously innovate and adopt new technologies without compromising performance. The migration has not only solved the current issues but also provided a solid foundation for future growth and innovation.

Reflection and Future Outlook

This project offered valuable lessons, particularly in monitoring, scalability, cybersecurity, and the advantages of Kubernetes as a flexible and robust solution for rapidly growing SaaS platforms. These experiences will undoubtedly be applied to future projects.