Greg Solutions

About The Client: DERMPRO is a hosted e-commerce and marketing platform designed specifically for the aesthetics services industry.

The Challenge: The client’s eCommerce system was based on a complex cumbersome infrastructure, which required plenty of time and resources to support. They were looking for a reliable DevOps consultant, who would help them set up a much more efficient process. Specifically, they needed our assistance to automate some of the tedious routine operations, reduce deployment time, and enhance application build and release process to make the system more resilient and transparent.

Goals: 

1. Reduce the infrastructure maintenance cost

2. Handle the complexity of infrastructure operation.

3. Decrease application builds and release time.

4. Automate routine processes.

5. Save time for troubleshooting and improve visibility.

Results:

1. Decreased infrastructure cost by 70%: Migrated the AWS infrastructure from AWS ECS to a Kubernetes cluster provisioned by Terraform and Packer.

2. Increased build speed by 60% using an optimized CI process with Jenkins, lightweight Docker images, self-hosted Composer repository, and parallel functional tests execution.

3. Automated provision & deployment for new client shops: the provisioning of a new shop now takes 2 hours instead of a few days.

4. Improved the audit and monitoring process: integrated centralized logging and monitoring (AWS infrastructure, Kubernetes clusters, technical and business metrics from the client’s applications).

5. Provided automation for critical operations, such as database backups.

6. Simplified infrastructure management, provisioning and improved disaster recovery with Packer and Terraform as an Infrastructure as Code tool.

Client's Feedback:

"Greg Solutions team provides high-quality DevOps and Cloud engineers that help to speed up the development, decrease infrastructure costs and improve our platform. They’ve delivered a great improvement to our process and scalability."

Jay Oyakawa Managing Director at DERMPRO

Technology stack: AWS, Docker, Terraform, Rancher2, Kubernetes, OpenVPN, Amazon EC2, AWS Directory Service, AWS RDS, AWS CodeBuild, AWS Code Deploy, AWS CloudTrail, Jenkins, MySQL, PHP, Nginx, Apache, Grafana, Prometheus, Packer, Magento, Sphinx, Varnish, Composer, Redis, Elasticsearch, Git.

Read more: https://greg-solutions.com/cases/dermpro, see on SlideShare.

About The Client:

Virtido is an entrepreneurial Swiss-based business process outsourcing and IT company. The client implements ideas and projects — from strategic concepts to technical implementation.

The Challenge: Since the client operates in multiple areas, they needed our help with several projects, which required expertise in different technology stacks and a flexible process in place. Their main task was to build multiple infrastructures from the ground up, infrastructures that would be cost-efficient and support their business objectives. In addition, Virtido needed to improve their software development lifecycle with the right tools for system administration and team communication.

Goals:

1. Design multiple cost-effective and stable infrastructures.

2. Increase the development speed and streamline time-to-market of new features.

3. Configure tools for software lifecycle development and team communication.

4. Implement role-based access control.

5. Provide a qualified and proactive system administration.

Results:

1. Set Up AWS & GCP Infrastructures: Designed and managed a range of infrastructures based on Amazon and Google Cloud Platform.

2. Decreased Infrastructure Maintenance Expenses by 60%: Designed and built a cost-effective Google Kubernete Engine cluster using Terraform, saving our customer about 60% of infrastructure costs compared to the existing setup.

3. Increased Development Speed: By means of implementing a set of automated CI/CD processes using TeamCity, GoCD, GitLab CI, and BitBucket pipelines.

4. Increased Monitoring Visibility: Implemented CI and CD pipelines with auto-deploy to development environments.

5. Simplified User Management: By building a centralized user access management system with the help of LDAP.

6. Assisted on Multiple Occasions: Working successfully on several projects utilizing different technology stacks and providing a flexible process.

Client Feedback:

“Over the years they have accompanied many Virtido projects with their experience and professional implementation of practical solutions. We strongly value our partnership and are happy to have such a great team to support our DevOps needs whenever they arise.”

Sebastian Flückiger, Partner & CTO at Virtido

Technology stack:

AWS (Amazon Web Services), GCP (Google Cloud Platform), Rancher, Amazon ECS, Amazon EC2,  Istio, Kubernetes, Docker, GKE, Terraform, Grafana, Prometheus, LDAP, Redis, Nexus, Jenkins, BitBucket Pipelines, GitLab CI, TeamCity, GoCD, MySQL, PHP, Nginx, Apache, Java, Node.js

Read more: https://greg-solutions.com/cases/aws-gcp-infrastructure

About the Client:

Brainbean Apps is a full-cycle software company with a core expertise in building full-fledged digital projects in the domains of Internet of Things, Maps & Navigation and Business Automation.

The Challenge: The client was struggling with IT infrastructure maintenance and required our DevOps expertise to optimize the existing system that they used to host their iOS and Android apps. Brainbean Apps realized they needed to replace their hosting platform and were actively searching for more reliable and cost-efficient alternatives, looking to also streamline the time-to-market for new features and build unified delivery and deployment pipelines for their mobile app development process

Goals:

1. Reduce the cost of cloud services.

2. Provide a user-friendly platform for applications hosting.

3. Decrease time-to-market of the developed features.

4. Build unified pipelines for mobile applications.

5. Provide IT infrastructure maintenance and team support.

Results:

1. Built and supported various infrastructures on AWS, GCP, Digital Ocean and VMware ESXi.

2. Unified CI/CD processes for mobile applications

Unified CI/CD processes for mobile applications: implemented boilerplate Jenkins files for iOS & Android mobile applications.

3. Containerized applications with Docker, built pipelines for Node.js applications and increased resource utilization

4. Decreased time-to-market of the developed features: implemented CI and CD pipelines with auto-deploy to development environments.

5. Built deployment pipelines to deliver mobile applications to GCP Firebase.

6. Provided daily DevOps support: troubleshooting, user access management, ensuring stability of the environments.

Client's Feebdack

"They adjust to the specifics of the needs quite fast, and the work has been very professional. The team has always focused on building out highly reliable infrastructure and delivery pipelines. I highly appreciate that and can recommend Greg Solutions as a reliable team."

Alexey Pelykh, CTO @ Brainbean Apps

Technology stack:

Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud Platform (GCP), VMware ESXi, Digital Ocean, Rancher, Amazon EC2, Amazon ECR, GCP Firebase, Docker, Jenkins, Gradle, Groovy, Fastlane, GitHub, Xamarin, Python, Node.js, RabbitMQ, iOS, Android.

Read more: https://greg-solutions.com/cases/bbapps

About The Client:

Inventify AG is a Swiss software startup, focusing on the development of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and cloud solutions for businesses across various industries.

The Challenge: The client provides cloud-based software development services to businesses across industries and they needed our DevOps assistance for one of the projects. Our engineers were expected to expand their team’s capabilities by building a platform-independent infrastructure. Since the project involved dealing with sensitive user data, a special emphasis was put on security, the client needed us to introduce role-based access and reliable data backup management procedures.

Goals:

1. Build a reliable infrastructure to store sensitive user data.

2. Automate the client’s CI/CD process.

3. Implement data backup management procedures.

4. Provide tools to measure code quality.

5. Automate integration and unit-tests.

6. Deploy and configure software development tools

Results:

1.  Built a platform-independent infrastructure using Rancher & Docker.

2.  Introduced the fully automated CI/CD process. The offers one-click deployment and streamlined disaster recovery time.

3.  Integrated role-based access using LDAP to manage access to all software development tools, like Jira, Confluence and TeamCity.

4.  Enabled code quality measurement: automate the performance of unit and integration tests, integrated SonarQube for code quality checks.

5. Ensured system stability by building advanced monitoring and centralized application logging.

6. Automated daily operations, such as backups, Docker images clean-ups and others.

7.  Configured VoIP telephony using FreePBX running in Docker as solution VoIP telephony.

Client Feedback:

"Their team constantly on top of the latest technologies and approaches, which helps us to take advantage of those techniques in turn. 
They view their jobs more as a passion than a profession, and that attitude sets them clearly apart."

Martin Polasek, CEO at Inventify AG

Technology stack:

Terraform, Kubernetes, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE), Apache CloudStack, GoCD, TeamCity, Docker, Rancher, Helm, Let's Encrypt, Rocket.Chat, Elastic Stack, Grafana, Prometheus, CAdvisor, Apache Kafka, MongoDB, LDAP, OpenVPN, Nexus3 Sonatype, .NET Core, Git.

Read more: https://greg-solutions.com/cases/saas-startup

About The Client: eSign Genie is a US-based HIPAA-compliant company which provides a platform for digital signatures. Embedded into the customer’s software or used independently, it allows to create documents/reusable templates, share them securely and obtain fast and secure legally binding electronic and digital signatures.

The Challenge: The customer provides a platform for electronic legally binding signatures. To safely store private keys they needed to use a highly secure and HIPAA-compliant Hardware Secure Module (HSM) provided by Amazon (AWS CloudHSM). The deployment and configuration of the service, as well as the creation of properly secured private keys and integration of applications with HSM are not some easy tasks. Greg Solutions applied our extensive experience to support the customer every step of the way, starting from the configuration of CloudHSM till the generation of a proper CSR (certificate signing request) for the Certificate Authority (CA) and integration of the application with CloudHSM using the Client HSM daemon, HSM SDK and Java libraries and providers, such as Cavium.  

Goals: 

1. Deploy and configure AWS CloudHSM clusters for multiple environments to securely store private keys. 

2. Pass the workflow of generating non-exportable private keys to retrieve a certificate from the certificate authority.

3. Enable the automation of document signatures using the Java and private keys from CloudHSM.

4. Provide comprehensive documentation and support for the client’s development team to help them migrate the system from the hardware HSM to AWS CloudHSM.

Results:

1. Deployed Cloud HSM clusters: Deployed and configured highly secure AWS CloudHSM clusters in multiple AWS environments using Terraform for the initial steps. 

2. Connected Java Web API server and Cloud HSM: Implemented a Java Web API server that interacts with CloudHSM using PKCS 12 and Cavium providers and helps to securely sign user documents.

3. Document the Cloud HSM setup and configuration: Provided the documentation helping to deploy, configure and connect applications to the highly secure AWS CloudHSM clusters 

4. Ensured system stability: Added Cloud HSM monitoring using AWS Cloud Watch

5. Provided maintenance & troubleshooting support: Supported the client’s development team, assisted with the system’s configuration, debugging and troubleshooting.

Client's Feedback:

“Greg Solutions demonstrated deep expertise in AWS CloudHSM, private keys management and Java development. They were able to deliver a secure and reliable solution under a tight deadline and provided invaluable automation support to our in-house dev team. ” 

Mahender Bist, Founder and CEO at eSign Genie

Technology stack: AWS, Terraform, AWS CloudHSM, Amazon EC2, Amazon CloudWatch, Java, PKCS 12, bash.

Read more: https://greg-solutions.com/cases/esign-genie

Client: Under NDA

The client is one of the biggest and fastest-growing providers of comprehensive technology and outsourcing solutions for wealth management in Switzerland.

The Challenge:

The client was struggling with a costly infrastructure which provided very low issue response speed. They were looking for a reliable DevOps partner to help them build a new, modern infrastructure with a much more efficient way of utilizing resources, unified builds for their .NET, C++, WPF and iOS applications, and automated testing process. They chose Greg Solutions.

Goals:

1. Build a reliable bare metal infrastructure with the effective utilization of resources.

2. Unify builds for .NET, C++, WPF and iOS applications.

3. Decrease the infrastructure response time and resilience to issues.

4. Automate the performance of unit, integration and functional testing.

5. Support and proactively improve multiple environments.

6. Improve the resource utilization process for CUDA applications.

Results:

1. Built user-friendly environments on Rancher with supported blue-green application deployment.

2. Unified build and deployment processes for .NET, WPF, and iOS applications using TeamCity, GoCD, Fastlane, and Docker.

3. Implemented detailed monitoring of the application and infrastructure with performance metrics, SSL verifications, application health checks, and team alerting.

4. Automated functional and integration tests execution checks as part of Continuous Delivery using Docker, GoCD, Newman, and xUnit reports.

5. Implemented a centralized logging system for applications and infrastructure.

6. Integrated LDAP to all software development tools

7. Designed automatic provisioning of Rancher 2 and Kubernetes for vSphere using Terraform.

8. Implemented a centralized logging system for applications and infrastructure.

9. Designed and built the system for investigating errors, including integration with the monitoring subsystem, Sentry, and notifications in communication channels.

10. Built InnoSetup installer and update services for the client applications.

Technology stack:

VMware ESXi, GoCD, TeamCity, Rancher, Fastlane, Docker, Terraform, Elastic Stack, Grafana, Prometheus, LDAP, Newman, Nexus3, .NET Core, .NET WPF, iOS, RabbitMQ, SQL Server, Hashicorp Vault, InnoSetup, PostgreSQL, Redis, BitBucket.

Read more: https://greg-solutions.com/cases/swiss-finance

Client: Under NDA

Our client is a mid-size company located in the US and working on hardware development and provisioning.

The Challenge:
The client was striving to ensure the high quality of their product and needed an infrastructure to help support it. Our engineers were asked to apply an infrastructure-as-code tool to codify the client’s AWS infrastructure and implement automatic pipelines to speed up the updates of the environments and improve code quality. In addition to providing DevOps support, Greg Solutions also consulted the client on improving the components in multiple projects.

Goals:

1. Codify the AWS infrastructure with an infrastructure-as-code tool.
2. Develop automatic pipelines for infrastructure updates.
3. Improve code quality and speed up the updates of the environments.
4. Migrate the applications from Amazon ECS to the Amazon EKS clusters.
5. Improve the components in multiple projects and provide DevOps support.

Results:
1. Migrated the client’s infrastructure from Amazon Elastic Container Service clusters to Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service clusters.
2. Developed CI/CD processes to enable auto-application of infrastructure modifications using Terraform and CircleCI.
3. Improved code quality and accelerated evolving the infrastructure using code quality checks, nightly builds, and custom notifications.
4. Improved security with Amazon IAM features multi-factor authentication and regular security checks.

Technology stack:

Amazon Web Services (AWS), Docker, Kubernetes, Terraform, Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS), Amazon ECS, Amazon SQS, Amazon SNS, Amazon Lambda, Amazon CloudFront, Amazon ECR, Amazon DynamoDB, Amazon CloudTrail, Amazon ACM, Amazon Route53, MongoDB, CircleCI, Jenkins, Node.js, Golang, Let's Encrypt, Nginx, Packer, GitHub, Cloudflare.

Read more: https://greg-solutions.com/cases/ha-aws-eks

Client Name: Under NDA

The client is a US-based software startup working on the advancements in genomics diagnostics and therapeutics.

The Challenge: Healthcare startup turned to Greg Solutions with a request to help optimize their infrastructure cost to reduce expenses. They also needed our assistance with Continuous Integration & Continuous Delivery and other tools that would make their infrastructure more secure and reliable, such as centralized application logging and an advanced alerting system that would notify of the arising issues.

Goals:
1. Decrease the client’s AWS infrastructure cost.
2. Enable Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery for various application types.
3. Improve infrastructure stability & security.
4. Implement centralized application logging.
5. Introduce alerting and notifications for the operational team.

Results:

1. Decreased the client’s infrastructure expenses by 80% using Amazon EC2 spot instances, scheduled background workers and infrastructure optimization.
2. Developed unified Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery processes for mobile and server applications.
3. Improved software stability and audibility by adding centralized logging and enabling error alerts.
4. Improved the disaster recovery process with the help of encrypted snapshots of the client’s critical data.
5. Designed a secure way of running EMR jobs on encrypted storage.

Technology stack:

Amazon Web Services (AWS), Amazon CodeCommit, Amazon ECS, Amazon EMR, Amazon ECR, Amazon CloudTrail, Apache Hadoop, GoCD, TeamCity, Jenkins, Nginx, Microsoft IIS, OpenVPN, Ansible, Java, Maven.

Read more: https://greg-solutions.com/cases/healthcare