Social Media App Migration to AWS

Transforming an existing legacy environment and building it natively on AWS.

A leading social media company’s apps explore the humanness of people instead of simply quantifying how good they are, or judging how professional their work may be. Users can upload their work directly to their platform, using it to edit photos, with enhancements – including white-balancing, filters and journaling – readily available. One user documented his mother’s fight with cancer, displaying the emotions he and his family felt during a very trying time.

In 2015, the company acquired a platform that creates tangible photo books, prints and gifts for digital photos. The platform was using a non-native environment and didn’t believe it was the right strategic technology in the long term. The combined companies have more than 30 million monthly active users across its platform consuming 5 billion images. Reliable infrastructure users can depend on is essential. The company wanted to work with experts who to help them transform their existing legacy environment and build it cloud natively on AWS.

30 million monthly active users consuming 5 billion images

Reliable infrastructure users can depend on is essential. The company wanted to work with experts who to help them transform their existing non-native environment and build it cloud natively on AWS.

The companies DevOps team is very capable – they had significant experience with Chef, using it to configure their servers and developer machines –  but the transformation to AWS required resources the team just didn’t have.

The transformation to AWS required resources the company’s team just didn’t have.

30 million monthly active users consuming 5 billion images.

Reliable infrastructure users can depend on is essential. The company wanted to work with experts who to help them transform their existing non-native environment and build it cloud natively on AWS.

The Solution

Since the migration to AWS, the company has seen great benefits: “Operationally, AWS is faster and more configurable than what was being used,” said the VP of Engineering at the company. “The new environment is faster, more reliable, and cost efficient. All three are pretty important things!”

Most  importantly, this solution had a big impact on the stability of the company’s platform and by extension, it’s brand. Previously, the platform had experienced random reboots on several occasions. The successful migration to AWS allowed them to have confidence going into the holiday season, their most important quarter of the year.  Confidence in the reliability and performance of their platform allowed the company to focus on maintaining a great experience for their user community.

“The experts had both the attitude and the aptitude, and I feel as comfortable as I possibly could in having AWS as the long-term foundation for our infrastructure.”

Bring in the Experts

With the support of our experts the company was able to seamlessly migrate from its existing environment to AWS. From the start, the company was impressed with our experts knowledge and expertise. “They inspired a lot of confidence, and their team clearly had the technological expertise,” said the VP of Engineering. “We knew they could get the job done.”

Our experts leveraged their extensive experience with Vagrant and Packer to build a strong foundation for the company’s cloud native environment.  This enabled the company to emulate the user experience of their members. The insights they gained helped them improve their product, streamline their operations and deliver an optimized user experience.

“Technology expertise is the number one thing we look for when hiring an outside firm,” said the VP of Engineering. “The experts had both the attitude and the aptitude, and I feel as comfortable as I possibly could in having AWS as the long-term foundation for our infrastructure.”