RxVantage boosts efficiency and developer autonomy, slashing deployment times with Qovery!

#Key Results 

• Reduced Deployment Time from over 2 hours to 30 minutes
• Improved Deployment Reliability
• Reduced bugs in production
• Increase dev and QA teams velocity
• Enhanced Security and Compliance 
• Decreased Operational Overhead

#Overview

RxVantage, a leading healthcare technology company, was facing significant challenges in scaling their infrastructure and deployment processes. Their initial setup, based on two Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) solutions, became increasingly constrictive and costly as the company grew. An attempt to transition to Kubernetes introduced complexities and maintenance burdens that hindered developer productivity and operational efficiency. Seeking a unified and scalable solution, RxVantage partnered with Qovery to streamline their infrastructure, reduce deployment times by 75%, and empower their developers and QA team — all while enhancing security and compliance by hosting everything in their own AWS account.

#The Challenge

#Outgrowing Initial PaaS Solutions

When RxVantage was a smaller team, PaaS tools provided a straightforward platform for deploying their applications. They followed a Git flow branching strategy with development, staging, and production branches corresponding to static environments. However, as the team expanded and the number of developers grew, this setup began to show its limitations.

Because of the shared static environments, pull requests had to be merged sequentially. Developers were spending more time waiting for merges and less time writing new code. This bottlenecked the development process and slowed down the team’s ability to deliver new features. Moreover, tests couldn’t run in parallel, as they were dependent on the same shared resources. The lack of isolated environments made it difficult to perform reliable testing without interfering with other developers’ work.

Kyle Flavin, Director of DevOps at RxVantage, recalled:

“We had three static environments with shared databases. If you needed to merge a PR, you had to wait for someone else’s PR to finish first before you could merge yours. It was pretty slow and constricting.”

Attempting to implement more dynamic or ephemeral environments proved challenging with PaaS solutions. Integrating multiple backend components and coordinating deployments across different services became increasingly complex. Custom coding and scripting efforts to bridge these gaps resulted in brittle solutions that frequently broke and required constant maintenance. Cost was another significant concern. The expenses associated with PaaS solutions escalated rapidly, making it financially unviable to expand their environments to meet the growing demands of the development team.

#Transition to Kubernetes

In search of greater flexibility, RxVantage moved their lower environments to Kubernetes, hoping to leverage its scalability and dynamic nature. While Kubernetes had the power RxVantage needed, its complexity required maintenance resources and time that the team would rather not allocate.

Firstly, the production environment remained on PaaS solutions, creating inconsistencies between production and lower environments. This disparity led to frequent deployment issues, as configurations and behaviors didn’t match across environments. Deployments that worked in Kubernetes often failed in production due to overlooked differences.

Managing Kubernetes required specialized expertise that the team would rather not allocate. Developers were uncomfortable dealing with Helm charts and Kubernetes configurations. Simple tasks like adding an environment variable necessitated DevOps involvement, creating a bottleneck and consuming valuable time.

The DevOps team found themselves inundated with maintenance tasks, from troubleshooting deployment issues to managing custom GitHub workflows. 

#RxVantage Shapes the Optimal Solution

RxVantage needed a solution that could:

• Provide Consistent Environments: Ensure that all environments matched, reducing deployment issues.
• Empower Developers and QA: Allow team members to deploy their own environments without DevOps assistance.
• Reduce Operational Overhead: Free up the DevOps team from constant involvement in deployments.
• Enhance Security and Compliance: Host services within their own AWS account to meet healthcare industry regulations.

#The Solution: Partnering with Qovery

#Simplifying Infrastructure Management

Qovery emerged as the ideal solution, offering a platform that abstracts away the complexities of Kubernetes and allows for consistent environments across all stages.
“Qovery provided us with the ability to have all of our environments the same,” said Kyle Flavin. “We wanted everything hosted in the same place, and Qovery made that possible.”

#Key Features That Made a Difference

• Environment Cloning: Qovery’s ability to clone environments was a game-changer, allowing developers and QA to spin up their own environments effortlessly.
  “My favorite feature with Qovery is just the ability to clone the environments,” Kyle noted. “We have templates within Qovery, and you can just clone an environment and start it up—it just works.”
• Qovery CLI: Access to the Qovery CLI further improved the developer experience, allowing teams to manage environments programmatically.
• Simplified Deployments: Qovery streamlined the deployment process into a single job, automating the order in which services come up.
  “We can just deploy the whole thing with one job,” Kyle explained. “I never used to get the deployments done in under two hours, and now I can do them in 30 minutes.
• Enhanced Security and Compliance: By hosting everything within their own AWS account, RxVantage met compliance requirements crucial for the healthcare industry.
• Rapid Integration of New Services: Qovery simplified the process of adding new services and adapting to architectural changes, significantly reducing the time and effort required.
  “Our stack is constantly evolving. Before Qovery, it took 1-2 weeks to add a new service and get it working in our CI pipelines. Now, it’s just a new Qovery service we add to our pipeline. We recently added a node-based API, and the DevOps team got it up and running for the devs in less than a day".

#Results

#Accelerated Deployment Times

• Deployment Time Reduced by 75%: Deployments that previously took over two hours could now be completed in just 30 minutes.
  “Deployments used to take me over two hours; now I can do them in 30 minutes,” Kyle shared. “It greatly simplified the process.”

#Empowered Developers and QA Teams

• Increased Autonomy: Developers and QA could clone and manage their own environments, leading to greater productivity and faster iterations.
• Improved Developer Experience: The need to interact with complex Kubernetes configurations was eliminated, and developers no longer required DevOps assistance for routine tasks.
  “We’ve been able to give access to people and have them go in and just clone and deploy their own environments,” Kyle said.

#Enhanced Security and Compliance

• Hosting in Own AWS Account: This met compliance requirements and simplified security management, which is crucial in the healthcare industry.

“Hosting in our own AWS account was a big win,” Kyle noted.

#Reduced Operational Overhead

• Freed Up DevOps Resources: The DevOps team could focus on strategic initiatives rather than routine maintenance and deployment tasks.
  “We’ve significantly reduced the involvement of my team,” Kyle remarked. “It’s allowed us to allocate resources more effectively.”

#Improved Reliability and Quality

• Consistent Environments: Reduced discrepancies led to fewer deployment issues and a smoother path to production.
• Fewer Bugs in Production: With QA able to test more effectively in dedicated environments, issues were caught earlier in the development cycle.
  “I think the reliability aspect has been a good improvement,” Kyle mentioned. “We’ve likely reduced the number of bugs we see in production.”

#Future Plans

RxVantage continues to explore ways to leverage Qovery’s capabilities:

• Adopting New Features: Interest in utilizing Qovery’s upcoming features like Karpenter for autoscaling and cost optimization, or AI integration.
  “We’re looking forward to Karpenter. I think that’s going to be awesome for us, just for cost savings,” Kyle said.
• Continuous Optimization: Plans to further optimize infrastructure and costs, and to keep enhancing the developer experience.

#Conclusion

By partnering with Qovery, RxVantage transformed their deployment processes, reduced deployment times by 75%, and empowered their teams to work more efficiently. The move to Qovery enhanced security and compliance, reduced operational overhead, and improved reliability, positioning RxVantage for continued growth and innovation.
“Qovery was a complete success,” said Kyle Flavin, Director of DevOps at RxVantage. “We like working with you guys—you’re doing cool stuff.”

#About Kyle Flavin

Kyle Flavin is the Director of DevOps at RxVantage. His responsibilities encompass a wide range of areas including traditional DevOps tasks, CI/CD pipelines, SRE-related activities, security, monitoring, observability, and managing internal support tickets. Kyle leads the infrastructure and cloud account management, playing a crucial role in ensuring the reliability and efficiency of RxVantage’s technological operations.

#About RxVantage

RxVantage is a leading healthcare technology company that helps healthcare providers access the information they need by connecting them with the right life science experts. By automating and simplifying the process of scheduling educational meetings and interactions, RxVantage empowers medical practices to stay up-to-date with the latest treatments and technologies.

#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!!