Alan cuts deployment time by 85% and boosts reliability with Qovery!

Key Results

• Reduced deployment time from over 1 hour to 8 minutes
• Improved deployment reliability
• Decreased operational overhead
• Empowered developers with simplified infrastructure management
• Enhanced flexibility and scalability

#Overview

Alan, a French unicorn transforming the insurance industry with a digital-first approach, faced significant challenges in scaling their application deployment process. Starting with Heroku, they encountered limitations that hindered growth. A move to AWS Elastic Beanstalk offered temporary relief but introduced new obstacles. Seeking a lasting solution, Alan partnered with Qovery to streamline their infrastructure, dramatically reduce deployment times, and empower their developers.

By migrating to Qovery, Alan not only cut deployment times by 85% but also improved reliability and scalability, efficiently managing over 100 services, enabling them to deliver value to customers faster than ever before.

#The Challenge

#Outgrowing Heroku

Alan began their journey on Heroku, which provided simplicity for early development stages. However, as they grew, several hard limitations became apparent:

• Technical constraints: Maximum dyno sizes limited scaling for applications needing more memory.
• Deployment issues: Exceeding slug size limits led to deployment failures, blocking production pipelines.
• Network control limitations: Inability to control network configurations made meeting security and compliance requirements difficult.
• Cost and contracts: Rising costs and inflexible contracts with pre-committed consumption hindered financial planning and scalability.

“Heroku served us well initially, but we began hitting hard limits that affected our ability to scale and comply with regulations,” said Jean-Baptiste Barth, Infrastructure Lead at Alan.

These challenges prompted Alan to seek alternatives that offered greater flexibility, control, and scalability.

#Transition to AWS Elastic Beanstalk

In an effort to overcome Heroku’s limitations, Alan migrated to AWS Elastic Beanstalk. While this move addressed some issues, it introduced new problems:

• Reliability problems: Deployments were long and unpredictable, sometimes taking over an hour and failing midway.
• Deployment failures: Steps executed out of order caused significant disruptions.
• Lack of control over probes: Limited ability to define health checks led to services being incorrectly marked as unhealthy.
• Opaque system: Elastic Beanstalk’s proprietary nature made debugging and customization challenging.
• Expertise bottleneck: Few team members understood the platform deeply, increasing operational risk.
• Operational overhead: Managing infrastructure consumed significant time and resources, hindering productivity.

“We faced reliability issues with Elastic Beanstalk. Deployments could take over an hour and fail unexpectedly. It became clear we had reached the limits of what Beanstalk could offer,” Jean-Baptiste explained. 

Moreover, the complexity of managing approximately 50 Elastic Beanstalk environments, each potentially containing multiple components like web servers and asynchronous workers, made scaling and maintenance increasingly difficult.

Alan needed a solution that could:

• Decrease operational overhead: Reduce the time and resources spent on infrastructure management.
• Adapt for the future: Provide a scalable platform that could meet their needs for the next five years.
• Avoid vendor lock-In: Maintain flexibility to host services across different cloud providers if necessary.
• Maintain simplicity: Ensure the platform was accessible so more engineers could operate it without specialized expertise.

#The Solution: Partnering with Qovery

#Seeking a Lasting Solution

Recognizing that Kubernetes could offer the scalability and flexibility they needed, Alan looked for a way to leverage it without the associated complexity. Qovery emerged as the ideal partner, providing a simplification layer on top of Kubernetes and AWS.

“Qovery provided an easy-to-use interface that allowed us to manage our infrastructure within our own AWS account efficiently. It abstracted the complexities and let our developers focus on providing value to our customers,” said Jean-Baptiste Barth.

#Simplifying Infrastructure Management

Qovery enabled Alan to:

• Reduce deployment times: Streamlined processes cut deployment times from over 1 hour to just 8 minutes.
• Improve reliability: Deployments became more predictable and stable.
• Empower developers: Teams could deploy services quickly without deep infrastructure knowledge.
• Efficiently manage 100+ Services: Consolidated and streamlined the management of their services.
• Maintain flexibility: Leveraged Kubernetes’ power while keeping operations simple.

#Key Features that Made a Difference

• Terraform provider: Allowed Alan to manage infrastructure as code, aligning with their existing workflows.
• Robust SDK: Facilitated advanced use cases and integration with internal tools.
• Support for Helm Charts: Enabled hosting of third-party applications and advanced configurations.
• Seamless integration with existing AWS setup: Enabled Alan to integrate Qovery within their existing AWS infrastructure, including their VPC, maintaining static IPs and meeting compliance requirements without disruption.
• Exceptional support: Qovery’s responsive team addressed issues swiftly, often within 24 hours.

“Qovery’s support was unparalleled. They were responsive and helped us overcome obstacles quickly,” Jean-Baptiste noted.

#The Migration Journey

#Planning and Preparation

Alan assembled a dedicated team to execute the migration, focusing on:

• Network Setup: Decided to keep their existing AWS VPC to maintain static IPs whitelisted by partners and meet compliance requirements. Qovery provided early access to features that allowed installation in their existing VPC.
• Migration Procedures: Developed a detailed plan to transition services with minimal disruption, including safety checks and documentation.
• Tooling Development: Created command-line tools to monitor migration progress, integrating with Beanstalk and Qovery APIs, as well as their project management system.

“We had about 50 Beanstalk environments, each with multiple components. By the end, we managed over 100 services on Qovery. Building tools to monitor this migration was essential,” Jean-Baptiste said.

#Collaborative Approach

Regular communication with Qovery ensured a smooth migration:

• Weekly Meetings: Aligned on technical decisions and received expert guidance.
• Beta Features Access: Qovery provided early access to new functionalities essential for Alan’s migration.
• Knowledge Sharing: Leveraged Qovery’s experience to navigate potential challenges.

“Qovery went above and beyond, providing access to new features and supporting us every step of the way,” Jean-Baptiste shared.

#Results

#Dramatic Reduction in Deployment Time

• From Over 1 Hour to 8 Minutes: Deployment times for their largest services were reduced by over 85%.

“Our deployment times went from 55 minutes to 8 minutes. It’s a night-and-day difference,” Jean-Baptiste emphasized.

#Improved Reliability and Stability

• Fewer deployment failures: Streamlined processes led to more consistent and successful deployments.
• Reduced operational overhead: Time spent on infrastructure management decreased significantly.

#Empowered Development Teams

• Increased autonomy: Developers could manage deployments independently, without relying on infrastructure specialists.
• Enhanced developer experience: Simplified tooling and processes made it easier to deploy and manage applications.

“Developers are now more autonomous and confident. The number of issues has decreased significantly,” Jean-Baptiste noted.

#Enhanced Flexibility and Scalability

• Expanded capabilities: Ability to host third-party applications and explore advanced deployment scenarios.
• Leveraging Kubernetes’ power: Gained flexibility without added complexity, thanks to Qovery’s abstraction layer.

“We have all the flexibility of Kubernetes while keeping it simple. It’s a 100% gain,” Jean-Baptiste remarked.

#Decreased Operational Overhead

• Optimized team efficiency: Before Qovery, Alan needed one full-time equivalent dedicated to managing Elastic Beanstalk infrastructure. After migrating to Qovery, this was no longer necessary.
  “We had one full-time person dedicated to managing Beanstalk, which has completely disappeared. Now, we’re able to do more with less,” Jean-Baptiste shared.

#Future Plans

Alan continues to build on their success with Qovery:

• Resource optimization: Fine-tuning infrastructure for optimal performance and cost-efficiency.
• Exploring new features: Leveraging Qovery’s capabilities to further enhance their platform.
• Ongoing collaboration: Continuing partnership with Qovery to innovate and adapt to evolving needs.

#Conclusion

By partnering with Qovery, Alan transformed their deployment process, cutting deployment times by over 85% and boosting reliability. Developers are empowered, operational overhead is reduced, and the company is positioned for future growth.

“Qovery was a complete success. It has transformed our infrastructure and the way we work,” said Jean-Baptiste Barth, Infrastructure Lead at Alan.

#About Jean-Baptiste Barth

Jean-Baptiste Barth is the Infrastructure Lead at Alan, overseeing infrastructure and developer experience. With a focus on simplifying processes and empowering developers, he led the migration to Qovery, significantly enhancing Alan’s infrastructure and deployment capabilities.

#About Alan

Alan is a French company providing a unique service focused on physical and mental well-being and prevention, using technology to simplify access to healthcare, achieving an exceptional customer satisfaction. In addition to its insurance offering, Alan provides innovative services such as personalized prevention plans, a 7/7 virtual clinic, an online optical center, and continuous innovation.

#About Qovery

Qovery is an all-in-one DevOps automation platform that simplifies cloud infrastructure management on AWS, GCP, and Azure. By abstracting the complexities of Kubernetes and cloud services, Qovery enables developers to deploy applications effortlessly.
Ready to see Qovery in action? Discover how Qovery can empower your team and simplify your deployment process. Schedule a Demo Today!!