DevOpsi

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of a consulting company. We provide cloud infrastructure, DevOps, cloud engineering, data engineering, analytics, and business intelligence consulting services.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with DevOpsi?

We had an incoming client for which we didn’t have enough capacity. We needed someone to fulfill some of the services we were offering, mostly DevOps services.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

DevOpsi helped us with a client that had legacy applications for internal purposes. A biotechnology company had their applications deployed in traditional legacy formats, so the hosting and deployment services were antiquated. DevOpsi migrated the apps to more modern deployment and hosting methods.

Initially, we discovered the client needs with DevOpsi. We came up with a plan to suit the requirements, and they implemented all the solutions using the Pulumi framework. We used Kubernetes in the beginning, then Amazon ECS. They also used GitHub for version control and GitHub Actions for pipelines.

What is the team composition?

We used one of their engineers.

How did you come to work with DevOpsi?

We found them through a marketplace.

How much have you invested with them?

We paid roughly $7,000–$10,000 per month, so we spent between $25,000–$30,000 in total.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from February–May 2022.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

In the beginning, our client wanted to use one type of infrastructure code, so the requirements changed. DevOpsi’s engineer was able to learn the new technology framework really fast, which was key to the project’s success.

How did DevOpsi perform from a project management standpoint?

They were very autonomous in their project management; there was no need to monitor the engineer constantly. We went through sprint planning and assigned work to them, and they did everything independently.

We used Asana for project management and Slack for communication.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They were very resourceful and knowledgeable about their services; they delivered quality work. Overall, it was a pretty positive experience.

Are there any areas they could improve?

The only thing that was a bit difficult was the language barrier. Our engineer didn’t speak English as his first language, but his communication skills were excellent. Sometimes we had to explain things a couple of times, but the depth of the communication was good overall.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

You should provide clear requirements and instructions; they’ll do a good job meeting those requirements.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a business development director at Novaris, a leading IT outsourcing company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with DevOpsi?

One of our clients needed help with building a custom application.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

DevOpsi has initially led the documentation and conceptualization phases of the project. They've created an architectural draft and submitted it for our client's approval. Once they've finalized the mockup, we've proceeded with the implementation stage. DevOpsi has built the web- and mobile-friendly app using T-Clock, PostgreSQL, and Kubernetes clusters. They've also executed solutions that authenticate database exchanges between our customer's two main applications.

What is the team composition?

We work with five resources from DevOpsi, with their CEO as my main point of contact.

How did you come to work with DevOpsi?

They were recommended to us.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with their team in May 2021, and they offer ongoing maintenance services.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

DevOpsi has built an ideal platform that has highly satisfied our client. We've seen how committed they are to meeting our standards and making us happy throughout the engagement.

How did DevOpsi perform from a project management standpoint?

We communicate via Microsoft Teams and rely on Jira for project management. DevOpsi definitely tops the list of the most accommodating, timely, and budget-oriented providers that I've ever collaborated with. My team and I can't wait to hire them again.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We're most impressed with their commitment to delivering what they promise.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They can consider refining their communication skills by making an effort to converse with our customer.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Trust their ideas and allow them to improve yours.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Respect Energy is a mid-sized company in the energy industry. We trade energy in a couple of countries. We also produce and sell green energy, including solar and water energy.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with DevOpsi?

Our company was bought by a brokerage house with the objective of having fewer traders in the space. DevOpsi was hired to create a custom-developed system for the brokerage house’s in-house use and for its clients.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

DevOpsi developed our solution from scratch. On this platform, clients can see the quotes for energy or gas, as well as the CO2 documents on the market. Clients can also find graphical data on the prices of energy products as well as send their orders for units of energy to their brokers. Brokers can also buy or sell energy on the exchange market.

Additionally, there’s some compliance reporting and other features. It’s the first version of our system for our brokerage house. The solution will go live in about three weeks.

What is the team composition?

This depends on the workload, but we’ve regularly had 8 people on board and up to 11 when the workload is heavy.

How did you come to work with DevOpsi?

We looked online and found their CEO. They had fair pricing, so we gave them a test project in which they had two days to create a proof of concept. It passed our criteria so we went ahead and hired them.

How much have you invested with them?

We invested over $200,000 on this project.

What is the status of this engagement?

We officially started the project in September 2020. Now, we’re at the end of the project and the development and the user acceptance testing phases have ended. We’re now waiting on approval from the exchange market’s system. We will probably be wrapping up in March 2021.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Their development work was very good and I’m satisfied with it. They produced quality code and had a good DevOps process with continuous iterations and continuous development. It was quite a good project.

How did DevOpsi perform from a project management standpoint?

I was the project manager from our side and the people at DevOpsi were hired as our team members. They met our deadlines.

Back when we started, they mapped out the development and estimated that they would finish by January 21st. We finished three days after. For five months of development, that’s very good.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I have 15 years of experience as a project manager in IT and I can say that DevOpsi is one of my top 5 favorite providers. They’re quite good architects—the system is very stable, elastic, and safe. They were also very involved and engaged in the project, working on weekends several times and I didn’t ask for it.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They could provide more accurate time estimates. For example, some days they’d estimate two days for a feature and it would take five. In other cases, they’d estimate five days for user stories and the actual work took one day.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Future clients should be prepared to manage the difference in time estimations from DevOpsi and their own team. From my perspective, they are quite a good company and very friendly. I highly recommend them.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Restect Energy is an alternative energy trading startup. We buy energy from different sources and sell it to institutions. I’m in charge of in-house software development. We have big data and machine learning platforms.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with DevOpsi?

We were developing a trading platform

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

DevOpsi helped develop our trading platform. We divided the project into two phases, the first one being planning and requirements analysis. We used the agile methodology in order to show the stakeholder gradual results.

The platform is intended for external users, and it has internal administrative and reporting functionalities. Our requirements were to build a low-latency, reliable, and easy-to-use platform with a nice look and feel.

DevOpsi developed it in Java Spring Boot and AngularJS. They proposed Keycloak for security and identity management. We hadn’t used it before, but we were very happy with it. Security was one of the most important aspects of the platform. They used Kubernetes for continuous deployment and deployment automation.

What is the team composition?

We worked with 10 people at peak, including analysts, UI/UX designers, and mid-to-senior developers.

How did you come to work with DevOpsi?

I found them on LinkedIn and looked at the resources they had. I asked for an offer and compared it to other ones I'd received. DevOpsi had the best experience and price point, so we decided to work with them.

How much have you invested with them?

The cost was 5 million Polish zloty (approximately $1.2 million USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with DevOpsi in September 2020. The project was scheduled for one year, but it was put on pause after six months due to a business decision. Phase one has been completed, and we’re looking for potential customers. The platform isn’t fully functional, but it can be used for demonstration.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We looked at code quality and coverage. As the person responsible for delivering the solution, I was happy with DevOpsi’s work, in terms of analysis, design, and development.

How did DevOpsi perform from a project management standpoint?

DevOpsi started the project from scratch, and it was quite difficult. Their ability to work in agile was helpful. Everything went smoothly and without any problems. It was a good collaboration.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The integrity of their team stood out to us. They acted with integrity in relation to the working terms and the solution that was delivered. We had no significant development issues. They were good at asking questions and thinking critically about the requirements.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They could implement templates for different reports, task scheduling, and estimates.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

I recommend looking at their portfolio and list of technologies. DevOpsi can adapt to different Java frameworks and DevOps practices like containerization.