ClickIT DevOps & Software Development

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the VP of Support Operations for Bebop Technology. We provide custom software development, DevOps, and support for cloud based applications primarily for the Media & Entertainment industry.

For what projects/services did your company hire ClickIT Smart Technologies?

We had the need to quickly expand our DevOps Managed Service team with 3 DevOps engineers dedicated to an existing project. The project is for the continued support and updating of the software development and DevOps CI pipeline for a cloud based OTT Web app.

What were your goals for this project?

I would describe the project as an Agile project that has less a specific goal, but rather an overall goal of continuous progress and meeting constant weekly deployment schedule.

The challenges change on a weekly basis so a standard processes for troubleshooting and change management were needed to continue the software development.

How did you select ClickIT Smart Technologies?

I had worked with Alfonso prior to the start of ClickIT and we have maintained contact since. He was great to work with before & that hasn't changed since we began working with ClickIT.

Describe the project in detail.

The project scope is limited to the setup, support, and 24x7 monitoring of cloud infrastructure, CI pipeline, and Backend services for the customer's custom OTT Web App.

The customer provides all the planning (weekly meetings), task assignment (JIRA), and other 3rd party teams that work together to develop, deploy, & support the OTT platform that reaches close to 1M subscribers.

What was the team composition?

After the initial introduction of the 3 ClickIT team members to our customer, the task assignments were directed to the ClickIT team directly. We have 2 weekly status calls; one just with the ClickIT engineers and Bebop Management for internal discussion & one with the customer to plan the week.

The ClickIT team has 3 DevOps engineers that manage/split the tasks between the group members.

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

I am limited in the specifics I can discuss as the work is under NDA but I can say the team was quick to learn the particulars of the project and has met all expectations on troubleshooting and deployment deadlines since day 1.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

The workflow has been simply and easy. We use a combination of Slack/Jira for most DevOps related discussion with a sprinkle of MS Teams for meetings.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

I was most impressed that on the 1st round of candidate selection we had 3 amazing talented people to work with. ClickIT found exactly what we needed... and fast.

Are there any areas for improvement?

I really enjoy working with the ClickIT team. The engineers are great to work with. I really cannot think of what could be better.

Please describe your company and your position there.

We are a SaaS company that provides an embeddable blog to our customers for their website. I am a co-founder and cto.

For what projects/services did your company hire ClickIT Smart Technologies?

Our network is built in AWS. We wanted to bring them in to help optimize our network and make sure we were following best practices.

What were your goals for this project?

Our primary goal was to address some instability with our network during traffic spikes. We also wanted them to review our general architecture to make sure it was optimized and secure.

How did you select ClickIT Smart Technologies?

We heard good things from a networking group we belong to and were impressed with our initial conversations.

Describe the project in detail.

ClickIT started out with an audit of our network and provided suggestions. We prioritized these suggestions starting with them setting up auto scaling to handle network spikes and implementing some different security measures. During the second phase they helped us get our backup procedures in place.

What was the team composition?

We had a project manager and engineer helping us.

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

Since auto scaling has been put in place we have not had any downtime.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

It was very smooth. The three of us were able to communicate through Skype for the most part. Once in a while we would jump on a call to discuss things in more detail.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Their knowledge of AWS was very apparent from the start. They quickly understood our network issues, came up with a plan and executed flawlessly.

Are there any areas for improvement?

No

Please describe your company and your position there.

Wicket is the world's first Member Data Platform. We are revolutionizing member management and engagement for associations by giving them access to world class software and integrating it with their member data. Wicket is a SaaS-based software. I am the Co-Founder and COO.

For what projects/services did your company hire ClickIT Smart Technologies, and what were your goals?

We hired a software developer through ClickIT Smart Technologies to work with our internal team of developers and help move the product along.

How did you select ClickIT Smart Technologies and what were the deciding factors?

We had come across ClickIT as a referral. Their reputation was good and the process we went through to find the right fit for our team was thorough.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

Key Responsibilities: Lead development of features, improvements and bug fixes across the full stack of development (database, back-end and front-end) and according to specifications delivered by the UX team.

Analysis of requirements to recommend solutions based on technical expertise and in collaboration with members of the UX team and product management. Works closely with the CTO to make strategic recommendations to the technical architecture and undelying tools and systems that allow the product to operate as a SaaS platform.

Maintains a healthy hosting infrastructure through DevOps. Technologies involved: Object oriented programming MVC Pattern and related frameworks Ruby on Rails Framework React and/or Redux

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

There were a few different contacts but the one we work with closely is a Project Manager.

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

The software developer we are working with is a great addition to our team. He actively participates in daily standups and contributes to the development and support of our software product on a daily basis.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timelines.

Project management has been on top of things with regular check-ins and communication.

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

They are always on top of things in terms of the quality of the work they have given us.

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

Nothing to add here.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the founder and CFO of BUUZ, the first AI driven cloud based data collecting platform (app and web based) to connect the hospitality industry (bars & brands) in a full targeted way with consumers.

For what projects/services did your company hire ClickIT Smart Technologies?

Server maintenance, structural setup, development environment server setup & admin and access and security services.

What were your goals for this project?

To build a reliable development environment for a fast growing platform with the ability to provide a secure server setup for all involved parties. Developers for web and app, consumers using the apps and businesses benefiting from the platform around dating in- and output.

How did you select ClickIT Smart Technologies?

ClickIT ST provided the knowledge, expertise, ability to adapt and investigate and to solve issues that every server faces sooner than later. We were also provided recommendation as an effort to pro-actively setup the system to prevent issues from happened in the future.

Describe the project in detail.

ClickIT was able to setup a sophisticated and complex while stable development environment known as Sandbox, Staging, Production to enable companies with a secure and controlled line of production. Examples include the developers to provide a code on web and app that then can be tested by beta testers and finally approved and pushed to a live server or the app stores to avoid consumers and customer facing issues.

What was the team composition?

The communication was primarily with Alfonso Valdes.

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

We successfully launched the development environment in 2016, the website updates in 2017 and 2018 along with security updates and just launched the BUUZ app as well as BUUZ Connect app for both iOS and Android that communicate with our server through more than 60 custom APIs. All that was and is only possible because ClickIT provided and still provides their service when needed to assure flow, security and performance control.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Very responsive, pro-active and professional.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

There was no issue that couldn't be resolved within a few hours or a day, that's rare in the IT world.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Not in regards to our project or anything we were able to identify.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am currently the Project Manager for a fintech company that has been in operation for around 20 years. We offer world-class technology to the masses.

What challenge were you trying to address with ClickIT Smart Technologies?

We’ve had various projects with them over the last five years. 

What was the scope of their involvement?

Running mission-critical workloads means that we need to provide 24-hour support. We have teams in multiple time zones now, so we can offer true 24-hour support for our platforms, regardless of what’s going on. Specifically, we like to do a lot of our infrastructure maintenance, upgrades, and deployments at times of low utilization, and that works out well with the time zone difference between us and ClickIT Smart Technologies.

We started small and gathered a bit of momentum and trust. ClickIT Smart Technologies has been working on a select few projects since then, handling them from start to finish. There’s no end date for our relationship. ClickIT Smart Technologies is now a full-time resource within our company.

What is the team composition?

We currently have one full-time engineer from ClickIT Smart Technologies, who’s basically embedded into our organization remotely. We’ve been working with him for the last eight months.

How did you come to work with ClickIT Smart Technologies?

The relationship really kicked off, not just because of my trust in ClickIT Smart Technologies but also because of their ability to provide services outside of working hours and always going above and beyond.

We’ve identified trust as one of the most critical aspects of working with third parties, and we can't overstate how much we trust ClickIT Smart Technologies.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent at least $50,000 with them to date, and this will increase substantially over the coming years as we tie in more and more services.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our relationship started at the end of 2015 and is ongoing. 

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

Everything’s working well, and we love what they’re doing. We want to give them more work to get more value out of the relationship. They handle security and customer compliance, and we’ve never failed third-party compliance test.

The collaboration has been a resounding success; they're able to deliver quality work in a professional and ethical way. Their work is high-quality, and our services to end customers reflect that.

What we value the most about our partnership with ClickIT Smart Technologies is that they don’t necessarily work to industry norms in terms of relationships. They absolutely go above and beyond. ClickIT Smart Technologies always keep the bigger picture in mind.

We've taken on 100% of their recommendations to date because they're aligned with our goals and understand the importance of compliance to industry standards at all times.

ClickIT Smart Technologies is hitting all the metrics we need them to hit!

How did ClickIT Smart Technologies perform from a project management standpoint?

We have very good project management tools, and we communicate with them effectively. They haven’t failed to deliver on any deadline or task.

We communicate effectively over voice and other messaging services. They’ve consistently impressed me with their service delivery and project management ethos. They work within our timelines, and they give us feedback that we then integrate into our platform pipeline.

I don’t need to micromanage any of their team members. They give me detailed plans for the work, and they’re extremely strong in terms of internal processes and client communication.

ClickIT Smart Technologies is extremely transparent about what they can and can’t do, and they won’t take on anything they feel won’t be delivered up to the security and time-frame requirements.

They’re a bit smaller as an organization, so they’re extremely flexible and agile. Like ourselves, they’re willing to go the extra mile for their customers, and they’re extremely flexible. If we need support at certain times or ask them for support on things that aren't their specific expertise, they’ll work it into their pipeline.

What did you find most impressive about them?

So far, everything ClickIT Smart Technologies has done in terms of management and interactions with us has shown that they have the interests of our company integrated into their ethos.

Their team is professional, and they communicate really well. They’re fluent English speakers, and there are absolutely zero language barriers.

They’re extremely knowledgeable on their services, and they’re always looking at integrating the latest and greatest features of AWS and general cloud infrastructures. They’re always looking at new certifications and actively pushing different products.

Are there any areas they could improve?

We face some challenges due to the time difference, but I can’t think of a single scenario where I was let down or there was something disconcerting about how they were operating.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the CTO and founder of a fintech startup. We're developing technologies for two main areas: remittances from Europe and the US mainly to Latin America, and a digital marketing tool that allows us to market to the recipients of the remittances in a more efficient and cost-effective manner. 

What challenge were you trying to address with ClickIT Smart Technologies?

They’ve mainly been providing DevOps services.

What was the scope of their involvement?

ClickIT Smart Technologies is managing our AWS infrastructure, making sure that it's secure and that it meets different international financial compliance requirements.

For example, know your customer (KYC) is a market standard that applies to anyone facilitating money transfers abroad. We have to know who our senders and recipients are, and whether or not they’re on any blacklist.

They’re managing our VPNs, ensuring that our data is kept in a safe environment. We have employees across different countries, and ClickIT Smart Technologies makes sure that their computers have anti-malware software installed and updated.

They’ve also helped us with architecture.

What is the team composition?

I’ve worked with two DevOps specialists from ClickIT Smart Technologies, including Alfonso (CEO).

How did you come to work with ClickIT Smart Technologies?

I don’t like to hire people I don’t know, so ClickIT Smart Technologies came as a reference from an outsourcing house in Peru that had worked with them before. I talked with Alfonso and found that he had what we needed, so I hired them.

How much have you invested with them?

The cost so far is $25,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with ClickIT Smart Technologies around July 2018, and it’s ongoing.

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

ClickIT Smart Technologies is a knowledgeable team. I had a third party review ClickIT Smart Technologies' work to secure my infrastructure, for the purpose of getting certified under payment card industry and ISO/IEC 27001 compliance.

I was told that we could probably get the first certification in about a month, and the second would take about half the time it usually does. Getting the product certified was a major milestone, and reaching it was due to their work.

How did ClickIT Smart Technologies perform from a project management standpoint?

I communicate with them via Slack, and they respond very quickly. They're based in Mexico, while I’m in Japan, my partner lives in Boston, and our main office is in Madrid. We’re working across three different time zones, but ClickIT Smart Technologies is able to deliver anything we ask from them within a 24-hour period.

I’ve just requested them to send me an architectural background of the IT services for our two products, and they did it very quickly.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their knowledge base truly impressed me. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

They didn’t respond to some of my requests in a timely manner at one point, but I discussed it with them, and they were proactive in addressing the situation.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

Clients should make sure they have written down their specs. It's important that both parties agree on the scope of the project from day one so that there are no misunderstandings.

I’m able to communicate with them in Spanish, and Alfonso also speaks English very well, but the other team member doesn’t. Clients should make sure that the communication is done in written form and that it’s clear.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of CRiskCo. We provide credit analysis for small and medium-sized businesses.

What challenge were you trying to address with ClickIT Smart Technologies?

We needed support for cloud services with Azure and AWS. We also needed to make sure that we were compliant in the financing world.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They reviewed what gaps we had in our current infrastructure of our cloud services in order to comply with industry standards. We needed to be able to meet the challenges our clients need from a security perspective. After reviewing our platform, they planned how to roll out the changes. The plan included a  timeline, schedule, and steps to complete everything.

Connecting to the Azure servers, AWS cloud services.

What is the team composition?

We work with one person doing dev-ops for us.

How did you come to work with ClickIT Smart Technologies?

We connected at a conference last year.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent about $20,000 so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in February 2020 and it’s ongoing.

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

They’ve delivered one milestone after another with minimal interference with my tech team. They’re still working on the infrastructure. They delivered everything as requested. They’ve been a tremendous help.

How did ClickIT Smart Technologies perform from a project management standpoint?

They’ve met their deadlines. They came very organized. With the first week of planning, they quickly understood the challenges ahead. They followed a schedule for work and divided everything into milestones. Six months later, they continue to deliver based on those milestones. They anticipate everything going forward and are very professional.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re professionals and they know what they’re doing. They communicated with me and my CTO on a regular basis. They ensured that the project was advancing based on our expectations and actually cared about our success.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No. They met my expectations very well.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Communication is key. Set expectations, talk about the challenges, and let them learn about what challenges you're facing. Then work together to mitigate risk and solve those problems.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the CEO of web development company specializing in open source platforms. We are a small company but being 100% virtual, it means that we rely heavily on our servers and services.

For what projects/services did your company hire ClickIT Smart Technologies?

We hired ClickIT to help with a server migration after our previous IT contractor vanished mid-way through the process.

What were your goals for this project?

To transparently move all our servers and services without impacting our client base. Also, we took this opportunity to upgrade various software and generally improve reliability.

How did you select ClickIT Smart Technologies?

We narrowed down our picks to several providers. We then conducted online interviews, and Alfonso, just came out on top. Working remotely and with a geographically diverse team is important, it seemed that ClickIT was the best fit for us.

Describe the project in detail.

This project involved moving and consolidating multiple managed servers to more flexible cloud-based VPS servers. These servers hosted a variety of platforms and services and the migration had to be done in such a manner to limit downtime to our client base.

What was the team composition?

We have a small team, and at the time, there were perhaps 4 internal people involved as well as Alfonso from ClickIT.

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

The project was completed successfully. It took a bit longer than expected, but this was primarily due to the complexity involved with the variety of services and software involved and is not a reflection on the competence of ClickIT.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

We use Slack extensively for the vast majority of our team communication. Combined with the occasional text message for out-of-hours communication, it has never been a problem to reach ClickIT.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

In general Alfonso at ClickIT just slotted right into our team. They are always diligent when replying to questions and always seems to find a solution to problems that arise.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Overall there is very few areas of improvement I would suggest. The only minor thing is that with any shared resources such as ClickIT, it is sometimes not easy to get a response as quickly as required for critical issues that need attention ASAP. This is expected as Alfonso is not a full-time employee of ours, so I don't judge him harshly for this.

Please describe your company and your position there.

CTO at an EdTech/Careers Media Startup.

For what projects/services did your company hire ClickIT Smart Technologies?

To develop a scalable, failsafe infrastructure for our platform in AWS, with complete CI/CD pipelines.

What were your goals for this project?

Having a more reliable, scalable and available infrastructure, with reduced costs compared to our previous managed hosting.

How did you select this vendor?

We found ClickIT through a round of interviews, including candidates from several channels.

Describe the project in detail.

We wanted to move away from our previous infrastructure, which was incredible costly and lacked some scaling features, but at the same time we wanted to maintain the incredible CI/CD pipeline it had.

What was the team composition?

On our side we assigned application developers familiar with the various microservices that needed to be ported in assisting ClickIT with implementation details. ClickIT assigned an engineer to architect and implement the solution.

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

We were able to reduce costs to a fifth of what we had while maintaining complete control of the infrastructure and at the same time enhancing it with autoscaling and redudancy features we were previously lacking. A complete success.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

The collaboration was seamless. It really felt that they were part of our team, communicating with us via Slack, using our tools (JIRA, Confluence etc).

What did you find most impressive about this company?

ClickIT really embedded themselves into our process and culture and was true to the way we like to do things, in complete collaboration. It felt like we designed this system together, in an agile and iterative way.

Are there any areas for improvement?

There are things that could have gone better, the project took considerably longer than we predicted, but ClickIT had our backs and ensured everything ended up working to our business requirements.

Please describe your company and your position there.

CEO of BeepQuest Supervise and Perfect your operational Standards. Build a tailor made end to end mobile APP for deploying your supervision and internal communication processes. Design in real time your workflows and create as many Checklists as you want to ensure the fulfillment on your field operational units.

BeepQuest is a completely flexible and self manageable solution that allows companies to create a complete strategy for operational supervision via Checklists, Audits, Inspections and more!

For what projects/services did your company hire ClickIT Smart Technologies?

Google Cloud microservices optimization and cloud architecture. We had a Mess

What were your goals for this project?

Balance workload, defining architecture, migrating to Google Cloud, selecting and configuring the services and then optimizing them to support our traffic and features

How did you select this vendor?

One of my developers found them on Google

Describe the project in detail.

Google Cloud services configuration and optimization in order to support a robust micro-service architecture and deploy our software for our customers una proper way.

What was the team composition?

3 consultants and our CTO where working together on the project

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

Excellent!!! We migrate all our services to Google Cloud and we optimized or Infrastructure as well as our DevOps internal practices to give maintenance to all the services.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

structured meetings with good communication standards an tasks assignments

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Their knowledge of the technology at hand and their professionalism set them apart.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Not that I can remember