Out.Cloud

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

 I'm the CEO of Visor.ai, a no-code AI platform that automates and optimizes customer service interactions through chatbots and virtual agents, helping businesses handle high volumes of contacts efficiently and improve customer satisfaction.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Out.Cloud?

 Our previous AWS infrastructure was a complete mess and full of inefficiencies. We needed help creating a new one and migrating all our clients and products to it.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

 Out.Cloud has created a new AWS infrastructure in the EU and the US, tailored for scaling and different products and client needs. The team has handled the design, implementation, and migration. Out.Cloud has allocated two senior DevOps engineers and one team lead to the project. The team has suggested everything, our CTO has approved most of it, requested some changes, and Out.Cloud has moved forward.

What is the team composition?

 We've worked with two senior DevOps engineers and one team lead.

How did you come to work with Out.Cloud?

 Out.Cloud was recommended by another client. We had worked with a competitor before working with Out.Cloud, and the experience wasn't good. By changing to Out.Cloud, we found a professional and dedicated partner in our mission to migrate an old AWS infrastructure to a brand new one.

What is the status of this engagement?

 We started working with Out.Cloud in May 2023, and our engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

 Out.Cloud has fully migrated our infrastructure and created a new infrastructure in the US. The team has also accommodated new products and VPC clients in the new infrastructure. Last month, we saw some cost reductions in our AWS bill. Hopefully, it will decrease every month. Moreover, we've noticed improvements in performance, reliability, and capacity to implement a VPC to a client in just a few days.

How did Out.Cloud perform from a project management standpoint?

 Out.Cloud has delivered on time. The project is taking longer due to the fact that we've kept opening the scope. We communicate via chat and email.

What did you find most impressive about them?

 Out.Cloud's delivery and knowledge of what they're doing are impressive.

Are there any areas they could improve?

 I can't think of anything for Out.Cloud to improve.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Director of Infrastructure of Sigtech

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Proving AI solutions to Financial services firms.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Out.Cloud to accomplish?

• Migration from AWS to AZURE
• Migration from Jenkins to Github Actions
• Set-up Github Actions runners on Kubernetes
• Building out Jupyterhub for Hedge Fund client
• Supporting the re-writing of our SaaS from monolithic to micro service based.

SOLUTION

How did you find Out.Cloud?

Online Search

Why did you select Out.Cloud over others?

• High ratings
• Pricing fit our budget
• Great culture fit
• Good value for cost
• Company values aligned

How many teammates from Out.Cloud were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

The work was very dynamic as a startup we move very fast and directions usually change abruptly, however there were some key deliverables. These would have not been possible without Moises and Paulo from Out.Cloud.

1. Refactoring of IaC code base:

Our codebase was initially scattered across several repositories with cyclical dependencies. Out.Cloud drove the refactoring to a single repository and adopted Terragrunt. Implementing IaC best practices.

2. Migration from Jenkins to Github Actions

As Jenkins does not fit startup requirements. We needed to migrate all CI workloads to Github Actions. This meant the deployment of self-hosted runners for cost optimised workloads. This was not straight forward and yet was completed in time with the Out.Cloud team of 2-3 engineers.

3. Minolithic to Microservices

This was an extremely difficult project, which lasted a year. This required new technologies to be deployed such as Istio, ArgoCD, Redis and RabbitMQ. These were all self-hosted and came with their own challenges. 

4. Migration from AWS to AZURE

A bold project, this required our team which was 50% Out.Cloud to upskill in AZURE and delivery a platform that was at parity with our AWS performance with no down time. It must be noted that this was done on a blank canvas. This was accomplised on deadline. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

Meeting deadlines

Reduction in costs

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

They always delivered and if I felt like something was taking longer than usual I was able to give constructive cristism. This was always well received and immediately acted upon.

What was your primary form of communication with Out.Cloud?

Virtual Meeting

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

Quality of Engineers.

Are there any areas for improvement or something Out.Cloud could have done differently?

No, Out.Cloud has been perfect.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

DreamShaper is an education technology company which provides a project based learning tool that guides students through practical and engaging learning experiences. I'm the CTO of the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Out.Cloud?

We hired out.cloud for:

• containerization of legacy systems
• development of devops pipelines
• setup of infrastucture as code processes
• cloud/devops best-practices advicing

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

Out cloud had a very straightforward and clean approach to devops/cloud services. Also, the fact that they're a company specialized and focused in this area, instead of being generalists, was very important for us.

Describe the project in detail and walk through the stages of the project.

• Learn: the engineer had to meet with all of our engineers and get to know our systems, and had to learn about our stack at the time. 
• Design: the engineer had to design his plan to improve our cloud.
• Develop: the engineer implemented his view for our cloud improvement.

How many resources from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

We had a cloud engineer.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

The project gave us exactly what we asked for. At the end of the project, we had ready-to-production code and knowledge about new technologies and frameworks and more specifically on how to improve our infrastructure.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Outcloud was always present. We treated the outcloud team member as a dreamshaper team member, and he behaved like a dreamshaper team member. We were actively and daily involved in discussions and decisions.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

The level of expertise. If the engineer wasn't sure of some matter, he would find a way to be sure. The company had a lot of knowledge inside itself.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

None.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a manager at a renewable energy company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Out.Cloud?

We were in need of DevOps to automate our infrastructure; we needed a path to migrate our on-premises infrastructure to the cloud. A department within our company was already running our AWS, and we brought in Out.Cloud.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We’ve explained our needs to Out.Cloud. Although we didn’t initially provide documentation, I gave them my notes during a kickoff meeting. They’ve offered some technical expertise and proposed a resource for the project. We’ve explained our existing infrastructure and architecture to the team. From there, they’ve provided a roadmap, covering what we needed to change and the direction we should take.

Out.Cloud currently handles the execution of automation on the infrastructure. The team has deployed Terraform to create recipes for automating caching in our machines to deploy the necessary services. Throughout the project, Out.Cloud has been focused on our operating systems and the services that go on top of those, as well as the application deployment pipeline.

What is the team composition?

Initially, Out.Cloud assigned one resource to the project. After one month, we determined that this person was too junior, and they brought in someone more experienced for the position. 

How did you come to work with Out.Cloud?

Out.Cloud was already working with another arm of our company, and the engagement was going well. I didn’t actively search for providers.

How much have you invested with them?

The cost of the project is €83,000 (approximately $92,000 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together around February 2021, and the engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

I appreciate OutCloud’s professionalism and commitment to the project. Moreover, the team takes ownership of the deliverables and makes sure we’re getting the best possible service. They offer advice to ensure we’re successful instead of just charging me for extra services. When we’ve been stuck or had a question, we’ve received coaching from experienced people at Out.Cloud. We’ve benefited from the managers’ and founders’ expertise to make sure we have a successful delivery.

How did Out.Cloud perform from a project management standpoint?

We use Jira for project management, and we communicate through Microsoft Teams and email.

After switching teammates, Out.Cloud didn’t charge us for the first month because they realized we weren’t happy with the initial service. The second person is very good; we’ve been working with them for nine months, and we’re very happy.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I’m impressed by Out. Cloud’s follow-up. With other companies I’ve worked with, I hired them to do a job, and their attitude indicated that whether they succeeded or not wasn’t their problem. With Out.Cloud, management follows up with us, ensuring that we have a success story at the end. They’re more than just people we hired to work for us; we’re getting expertise from a real company interested in our success. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

Any issues we’ve had have been related to the fact that I’m managing the project, and I’m a perfectionist. On occasion, I’ve had to spend more time with them to better scope the work. That’s related to my side, though, not theirs.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

Clients can trust Out.Cloud with the work. They’re professionals and commit to the task. If there’s something they can’t deliver, they’ll communicate it.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

DevOps teamlead

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Out.Cloud?

- Devops expertise to setup pipelines, configure cloud resources for different clients

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

- We heard of out.cloud via another contact - We had a good first contact and they where very flexible

Describe the project in detail and walk through the stages of the project.

• Setup CI/CD (gitlab, azure, aws) 
• Setup Cloudservices (Elastic search)
• Spread the devops expertise (blog posts, personal contact with different teams)

How many resources from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

- 1 FE DevOps

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

1. Successfull delivery of the projects
2. Quality dramatically improved

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

- Super well integrated

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

They are very transparent and willing to find a solution together with our team.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

Not really