SaaS Infrastructure Monitoring and 24×7 DevOps Support

Our Customer

LearnCube is a purpose-built SaaS platform dedicated to live online education. Offering a great many e-learning solutions for teaching, tutoring, and training, the platform offers such features as virtual classrooms, class scheduling, integrated payments, eCourses, online assessments, and an administrative management system for streamlined operations.

The Obstacles They Faced

The client faced slow response times, potential service disruptions, and cloud infrastructure unprepared for the future growth of their SaaS. These challenges hampered the application’s performance, stability, and scalability.

How We Helped

After assessing the client’s infrastructure, we devised an upgrade plan. Our approach included setting up monitoring systems for all infrastructure components, refining existing networks, optimizing scaling rules, implementing Terraform for infrastructure coding, and configuring CI/CD processes.

Instability of Managing Computing Capacity

The application confronted an issue with the client’s reliance on EC2 instances managed by auto-scaling groups (ASG). During peak hours, this setup sometimes resulted in instance terminations, which occurred without providing adequate error information.

Potential Service Disruptions

Frequent downtimes could have a direct impact on the application’s performance and reliability. Delays and downtime, encountered by users, not only affected their experience but also eroded their trust in the service.

Scalability for Long-Term Growth

There was a poignant need of the client’s application needed to be agile and scalable so as to adapt to evolving needs in future. However, the existing IT infrastructure and operations failed to meet the expected level of adaptability, thus presenting a challenge in positioning the application for a smooth ascent.

Excessive Infrastructure Expenses

The client’s existing cloud environment wasn’t optimized, which led to unnecessary expenditures. The challenge was to reduce these costs without compromising the application’s performance or reliability.

Overcoming Infrastructure Hurdles

Our first step was establishing a monitoring system to identify areas for improvement and prevent system downtimes. To manage the issue with auto-scaling groups (ASG) and EC2 instance terminations, we deployed Amazon OpenSearch Service. The solution ensured the collection of logs that could provide deeper insights into errors.

Grafana was then configured to visualize dashboards for all core services, alerting our 24/7 support team and clients to potential disruptions. Additionally, Zabbix provided insights into EC2 instance utilization and resource availability, along with checks, such as certificate expiration and automated backups.

Fault tolerance was enhanced by increasing the number of RDS nodes, crucial for maintaining service reliability and data integrity during potential system failures. This approach emphasized the importance of fault tolerance in the infrastructure, preparing us to tackle unexpected challenges seamlessly.

Stability with Proactive Monitoring

A key component of our strategy was configuring robust log collection from the application. This move was not just about SaaS infrastructure monitoring; it was rather about gaining deep insights into the application’s behavior and identifying areas for improvement.

By systematically collecting and analyzing logs, we were able to pinpoint issues at their source, significantly reducing troubleshooting times and enhancing the overall stability of the application.

Improving Security and Efficiency

We bolstered security by migrating the client’s infrastructure from the default virtual private cloud (VPC) to a dedicated VPC spanning multiple availability zones with public and private subnets. Describing the infrastructure using Terraform code enabled rapid and comprehensive changes, including deployment in alternate AWS regions if needed.

Streamlining Deployment Processes

CI/CD processes were established using Jenkins pipelines that were complemented by Packer for building required Amazon Machine Images (AMI). Such a setup enables swift adjustments to infrastructure settings, namely the number of instances in ASG, and ensures flexibility and efficiency in deployment.

Optimizing Infrastructure Cost

Recognizing the potential for the savings, we embarked on optimizing the client’s cloud infrastructure. By purchasing reserved instances and RDS nodes, we were able to lock in lower prices for app’s computing resources, directly reducing the total cost of ownership (TCO).

Additionally, the decision to remove outdated Amazon Machine Images (AMIs) not only decluttered our environment but also eliminated unnecessary expenses associated with maintaining legacy systems that were no longer in use.

Continuous 24×7 DevOps Support

All of the above-mentioned improvements led our DevOps support team to proactively respond to potential infrastructure or application failures, swiftly identifying and rectifying issues to ensure uninterrupted service delivery.

SaaS Infrastructure Monitoring and 24×7 DevOps Support – Architecture Diagram

Significant Incident Reduction

After our comprehensive enhancements to the client’s SaaS infrastructure, the number of incidents decreased by nearly 70%.

Enhanced Application Stability

Proactive monitoring facilitated early issue detection and resolution, ensuring continuous application reliability and enhancing the overall user experience.

Improved Business Continuity

The enhanced app’s operational framework ensured high service continuity which allowed the application to seamlessly handle increased traffic and maintain consistent performance, crucial for business stability.

Increased Development Efficiency

Automated CI/CD pipelines enabled rapid adjustments to infrastructure settings, reducing manual deployment effort and minimizing downtime. This improved resource utilization also resulted in cost savings for cloud environment management.

The Ground for Future Growth

The revamped infrastructure is now primed for sustained growth and scalability, catering to evolving business needs and market demands while maintaining long-term competitiveness and value.