ClearScale

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I was the VP of technology of a private utility company in the San Francisco Bay Area. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with ClearScale?

We needed to update our website’s CMS.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

ClearScale migrated our website’s CMS from ExpressionEngine into Drupal. They also integrated our site to AWS, and they provided end user support after. They were then in charge of the daily operations of our AWS environment. 

What is the team composition?

We worked with their CEO, project manager, and a few project engineers. The project manager was our primary point of contact.

How did you come to work with ClearScale?

We found ClearScale on the AWS website for partners in the San Francisco Bay Area. We chose them primarily because they engaged us despite our relatively small budget for the project. It was difficult to find other partners to work with us. 

How much have you invested with them?

For the actual migration, we had spent $75,000; for the AWS environment support, we paid them around $40,000 a year, with the cost changing depending on the year.

What is the status of this engagement?

The actual project lasted from March–June 2014, but they continued providing maintenance for the AWS environment until 2018. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

It was a successful project, since our site went live after it was migrated into Drupal. For us, that was the biggest success indicator. 

How did ClearScale perform from a project management standpoint?

ClearScale met deadlines. They definitely pushed themselves and there weren't any concerns about our timelines. Whenever we have concerns, we reach out to them and we handled communications through email and Skype.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We were impressed with their willingness and eagerness to work with us, despite our relatively small budget.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Their biggest area of improvement would be to understand the client’s requirements and take those into account when making actions. They need to empathize more with the business and not just rely on the black and white requirements. 

They also didn't have a lot of experience in Drupal, and so their CMS migration was not conducted with the best practices. We encountered concerns with the maintainability of the site and sometimes it doesn’t perform correctly. As we were looking at the evolution of the site, we noticed from a CMS standpoint it wasn’t behaving as it should.