Our client delivers outcome-based learning solutions that improve employee skills for increased productivity by employing our robust learning methodology. The underlying quality of an organization’s workforce and their knowledge of leading-edge technologies are critical factors in any IT organization’s success. Proficiency in building, sustaining and growing workforce skills is a crucial competitive advantage for these organizations.
The organization designs software platforms and applications for online curricula, examinations, evaluations, and other education-related tools for its target market. Its outputs are used by educational institutions and multinational corporates globally. The Client is a Silicon Valley-based learning and development system having locations throughout the USA, Latin America, India, and Singapore.
Migration to the AWS Cloud
Why Amazon Web Services
The client has been using Amazon Web Services (AWS) for more than three years – incorporating AWS’s cloud architecture into its eLearning product architecture and interactive books products, and other solutions.
Currently, the client utilizes AWS for 70 percent of its computing necessities. The other computing needs are managed through co-located servers, the infrastructure used before moving to AWS technology.
The AWS solution includes a variety of products:
• Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) is used for computing requirements and database storage;
• Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) stores static files;
• Elastic Load Balancing to manage end-user load;
Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS) along with Amazon Elastic MapReduce (EMR) is used to processes enormous amount of data and support in assisting indexing and search. The below figure illustrates the architecture.
The decision to use AWS was based on many factors, with the anticipated goal of increasing processing efficiency and cost-effectiveness.
• Upfront capital investment is not required because costs involved are operational, resulting in significant cost savings.
• The pay-as-you-go philosophy is cost-efficient because payment is based on computing capacity used.
• The dynamic scalability automatically adjusts to accommodate changes in usage.
• Elastic Load Balancing distributes incoming application traffic for peak processing efficiency.
The Benefits
The Client has had success with AWS, and the company has measurably increased its bottom line since
switching to AWS and has experienced other benefits including the following:
Cost Savings: Because of the AWS technology, our client could drastically reduce its management costs. With AWS, the price to deliver one online assessment is about ten times lower than the value associated with using the physical hardware (co-located servers).
Development Hours Saved: Because deployment is efficiently managed with AMI creation and bundling,
AWS has enabled the client to reduce the total developer time required for implementation and associated tasks to about 15 percent of its team’s focus. This is a marked decline from the 75 percent demanded to complete the same functions on the physical hardware.
Reduced Time to Market: AWS solutions allow the company to deploy its products to clients very instantly. Now, it takes only a day or two to give product service a new brand, where deployment before took at least a month using powerful hardware.