Cloud Migration Case Study
Edpiresse key challenge was to ensure the stable operation of the infrastructure. They had to do it within a tight timeframe set by the management. At the same time, they wanted to get rid of technical debt.
Edipresse Polska is an international media company which intensely develops its portfolio of websites (such as: polki.pl, wizaz.pl, party.pl, niania.pl, mamotoja.pl and viva.pl) and publishes magazines (e.g. VIVA!, Party. Życie Gwiazd!, Uroda Życia, Mamotoja).
The high popularity of the websites (up to 100 million views per month) as well as their number and diversity present challenges to the IT infrastructure. The challenge Edipresse had to face was to prepare the infrastructure for the enormous website traffic and to ensure its stability, scalability, and security.
Before the complete migration of the websites to the Oktawave cloud, the infrastructure of Edipresse was running mainly on the company’s physical servers with auxiliary services scattered across multiple cloud providers. That sort of decentralized architecture was hard to manage efficiently, both in terms of technology and costs.
Aware of those problems, Edipresse wished to focus its energy on website development, not on a constant struggle for the maintenance of IT infrastructure stability. Cost-effectiveness and the desire to get rid of the technical debt were also important. The company needed a combination of high-quality infrastructure solutions with migration and maintenance services that would yield the best TCO possible in three years.
The biggest business challenge turned out to be the migration itself, and in particular, the time constraints. Edipresse had less than 3 months to migrate 250 servers running a tech stack that hadn't been updated for years. A comprehensive migration like that required a team of specialists who understand the challenges, suggest a new architecture, and carry out the migration safely.
Looking for a cloud provider, Edipresse spoke to numerous teams of engineers. They wanted to engage specialists who would work with them side-by-side on the migration project. Eventually, it was the Premium Support & Cloud Masters specialists at Oktawave that proposed the best migration strategy. They creatively tackled the infrastructure design while taking care of the financial aspect. Consequently, they proposed a holistic approach that turned out to be the best fit in terms of technology, operations, and finance.
What problems we faced and how we solved them:
The migration process was completed. Certainly, a well-defined goal contributed to it - Edipresse presented clearly defined requirements and the Oktawave team tailored the service. High motivation of teams, professionalism and knowledge of technologies (both cloud-based and those from the distant past), and most of all effective communication between Oktawave and Edipresse proved to be a guarantee of the project's success.
The biggest benefits of Edipresse from migrating to the Oktawave cloud include:
I envisioned an architecture that would allow us to build any website in any way we want, operating within the same infrastructure framework. And it was one of the more difficult tasks but we managed to do it. – summarizes Dymitr Mażar, CTO of Edipresse Polska