Infrastructure Modernization with Serverless Technology and Microservices

Serverless Technologies

We showcase the innovation introduced by the serverless services implemented by NowSignage, a leading company in the software industry, renowned for its innovative solutions. NowSignage offers a cloud-based digital signage CMS with features such as content triggers, screen synchronization, social media integration, and remote device management.

Challenge

The primary challenge that led NowSignage to seek new cloud technologies was overcoming the limitations and drawbacks of its existing infrastructure, which had been in use for eight years. This infrastructure was based on AWS OpsWorks and EC2, managed with Chef and Puppet. Although this solution had served them well, they faced several issues:

• The operations team was responsible for managing the infrastructure, which was time-consuming and prone to errors.

• Chef recipes were difficult to write and often stopped working, adding an additional burden to the operations team.

• Managing EC2 instances and applying security patches consumed significant time and resources, affecting responsiveness and infrastructure security.

• Slow server creation impacted their ability to scale efficiently to meet demand spikes or changes in traffic patterns.

• The limitations in auto-scaling prevented them from fully utilizing available resources, negatively impacting the user experience.

• As a software company, they needed to continuously innovate at the computing resources level.

Solution

Compucloud, leveraging its expertise in infrastructure modernization, implemented serverless and microservices technology:

• The adoption of container technologies, specifically Amazon ECS and Fargate, provided a modern and effective solution to address operational challenges. ECS's ability to manage and orchestrate containers at scale, combined with Fargate’s serverless nature that eliminated the need to manage EC2 instances, simplified cloud operations and improved responsiveness to demand changes and business requirements.

• The automation of CI/CD processes through the integration of ECS with CodePipeline accelerated the development and deployment cycle of applications. This enabled NowSignage to bring new functionalities to market more quickly and reliably.

• A Well-Architected Review facilitated the deployment of security services such as AWS KMS, AWS ACM, and AWS WAF.

• To optimize databases, Amazon Aurora MySQL, DynamoDB, AWS Secrets Manager, and AWS Parameter Store were implemented, ensuring high availability, security, and data resilience.

• Terraform was implemented to ensure the proper integration of all required services and to maintain development, QA, and production environments, enabling experimentation, testing, and streamlined service delivery.

Results

The main business benefits NowSignage achieved by migrating to container-based technologies and adopting a serverless approach were:

• Improved operational efficiency:

  • Reduction in the operations team’s workload, enabling them to focus on higher-value tasks.

  • More efficient use of resources and optimization of internal processes.

• Cost reduction and predictability:

  • Lower operational costs by eliminating the need to manage and maintain servers directly.

  • Through AWS’s different billing schemes such as Savings Plans, Reserved Instances, and automated shutdowns, they achieved a 20% reduction in operational costs, allowing reinvestment in innovation and business growth initiatives.

  • Greater cost predictability.

• Enhanced scalability and agility:

  • Automatic scaling of applications to efficiently adapt to changes in traffic and business requirements.

  • Increased agility in responding to market needs and delivering high-quality service to end users.

• Improved reliability and security:

  • Easier infrastructure management.

  • Improved security posture at the infrastructure and network level, along with encryption of data at rest and in transit.

  • Highly available applications, even in the event of failures or interruptions.

• Faster feature deployment:

  • Development, QA, and production environments for experimenting, testing, and streamlining the delivery of productive services.

Conclusion

The key success factor in this case was the modernization of infrastructure through the implementation of AWS serverless and microservices technologies.

NowSignage’s adoption of Amazon ECS and Fargate improved operational efficiency, reduced the workload on the operations team, and optimized costs. The automation of CI/CD processes with CodePipeline, along with the implementation of AWS security tools and databases, ensured a more secure, resilient, and scalable infrastructure.