IT Svit

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Founder of LoyalCards

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

LoyalCards is a company that provides digital loyalty card solutions, enabling businesses to easily create, manage, and track customer reward programs through a user-friendly app.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire IT Svit to accomplish?

• Cost-effective solution
• Improving current infrastructure
• Support and maintenance

SOLUTION

How did you find IT Svit?

Referral

Why did you select IT Svit over others?

• Close to my geographic location
• Good value for cost
• Referred to me

What was the size of IT Svit’s team?

2-5 Employees

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

The project involved several phases, including planning, testing, implementation, and post-migration validation. We formed a cross-functional team of IT professionals, including system administrators, DevOps engineer, network engineers, security analysts, and cloud architects, to ensure a comprehensive and collaborative approach to the project.

Overall, our migration from a dedicated server to AWS cloud was a success (90%, ongoing project). We achieved our goals of improving scalability, reliability, and security while optimizing costs and minimizing disruption to our operations. We also gained new capabilities, such as automated scaling, improved disaster recovery, and enhanced security features.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We have already felt the acceleration of our service, especially on mobile devices. We also updated our backup plans and have tested them

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

Our communication is built through Sales manager (Nick), Project manager (Alex) and DevOps architect (Slava) We receive daily reports and have weekly phone calls

What was your primary form of communication with IT Svit?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

Similar cases, recommendations and the best proposal. We chose between five companies

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

It's hard to answer. All companies have room for improvement. Let it be additional services

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I' the lead developer and software architect at Yousty AG. Our mission is to help young students to find their perfect apprenticeship.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire IT Svit?

Our goal is to outsource our DevOps needs. For that we hired IT Svit to come up with a plan and implement a test task, concerning our cloud server infrastructure.

SOLUTION

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

IT Svit impressed us with their comprehensive set of questions about our Infrastructure before making an offer. Their team was friendly and made a competent impression.

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

Their team worked on securing our server infrastructure.

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

We mainly worked with a DevOps engineer, a DevOps architect and a project manager.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

IT Svit successfully completed a key element of improving our server infrastructure.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

We talked in Google Meet, but some times key participants like the dev ops engineer did not have audio and or video or did not actively participate, which was not ideal. We also communicated and planned the project mostly via Slack which worked reasonably well, but lead to scattered estimations. A more central place for all estimations and actual implementation times would have helped a lot. Also, during key operations on our server, faster response times of their DevOps engineer would have been desired.

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

Despite the horrendous circumstances in the Ukraine, IT Svit delivered solid solutions for our server infrastructure needs. They were responsive, friendly, always flexible and helpful.

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

Communication and project management could be improved (see answer about workflow). We would also have liked to see a more proactive approach to our dev ops setup with more concrete advice / suggestions.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm an IT director of Global Credit LLC (fintech company).

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire IT Svit?

We were looking for a reliable and knowledgeable team to perform a migration of our website.

SOLUTION

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

It was a recommendation from our partner. Once I got their feedback, I searched for information by myself and found a lot of positive reviews about IT Svit. They seemed to have great expertise in everything related to the cloud, especially migrations.

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

First of all, they performed an audit of the infrastructure. After that they worked on the tooling and CI/CD processes in the AWS. They moved our app and database to Amazon. The second phase included testing and optimization, setting up monitoring and logging.

We still work with them - engineers monitor our system, assist developers with their requests and suggest improvements as our product grows. Thanks to IT Svit, our customers no longer experience timeouts on our application.

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

4 people from their team usually work with us, including:

• DevOps Architect who was leading the overall migration process
• DevOps engineer who implemented everything and now provides support for our infrastructure
• Project manager
• Business development manager

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We are happy with our new setup and even managed to reduce the infrastructure costs, as soon as IT Svit finished the migration.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

We are always aware of their progress and next steps. We’ve never had any troubles in terms of meeting deadlines and communication.

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

We were impressed with the quality of their service and with the level of their expertise. Communication is also their strong side.

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

There’s nothing that’s worth mentioning. You can always make something better, but finally we’re very happy with their deliverables and will recommend their service to our partners and friends.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the general manager at a SaaS platform providing inventory management and price database to art collectors, advisors, and financial professionals.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with IT Svit?

We acquired a software platform in raw code form, and we needed help rebuilding the solution. We were looking for a DevOps partner. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

IT Svit is providing us with DevOps support. First, they’ve set up all the necessary infrastructure for the project from scratch. They’ve helped me create the required AWS hosting environment and MySQL database. From there, they’ve supported installing the code using JavaScript. 

IT Svit is also scraping and parsing data, installing all the necessary programs. They’ve put into place the necessary tools so we can deploy new code using Jenkins and Kubernetes while setting up a GitHub environment.

Currently, IT Svit is helping me with the necessary AWS updates and with certain deployments. They also do ad hoc assistance to resolve issues. Whenever we need additional resources, they make some introductions.

What is the team composition?

I’ve worked with a project team lead and a DevOps developer.

How did you come to work with IT Svit?

A personal contact recommended IT Svit to me.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent around $25,000–$50,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve been working since January 2021, and our relationship is ongoing. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

IT Svit has successfully created a scaleable infrastructure that allows us to develop our product further and onboard sizable users. They’ve been instrumental in building our production and development environment. 

I’m 100% satisfied with IT Svit’s work — they’re highly responsive, good communicators, and accurate with their timelines. They’ve exceeded my expectations. 

How did IT Svit perform from a project management standpoint?

IT Svit has done really well from a project management perspective. They even came in under when it comes to time and cost. We collaborate through Slack and Jira. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

IT Svit is a true expert in DevOps — they’re able to help small and new teams access best-in-class and difficult-to-find resources. Additionally, even though English isn’t their first language, they’re excellent communicators. They’re also very responsive, and they address issues quickly. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

IT Svit has been so easy to work with that I wish they have services outside of DevOps. I’ll like for them to handle all my tech needs.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Have a clear sense of deliverables at the outset so you can have a smoother process and they can deliver estimates more accurately.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the CEO of a blockchain platform. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with IT Svit?

We were looking for a company to assist us with DevOps.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

IT Svit is helping us develop some aspects of our blockchain platform. Their developers are working on cutting-edge technologies — focusing on speed, resilience, scalability, privacy, and avoiding vendor lock-in. 

What is the team composition?

We worked with 4–5 members of the IT Svit team, including a project manager, a DevOps architect, and a DevOps expert.  

How did you come to work with IT Svit?

I initially found IT Svit on Upwork, but I also saw them on Clutch.co. They had a lot of good reviews — we’re building an incredibly complex technology, and there aren’t many firms that are great at developing it. However, we hired IT Svit because they were very good at a piece of what we wanted to build.  

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested $30,000–$50,000 with IT Svit.   

What is the status of this engagement?

Our partnership began in April 2021 and it's ongoing. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

This project is hard to develop, so it’s impressive that IT Svit has successfully developed this much and ensured it works. Their success is more than just their quality of work — they have an attitude of continuous improvement. They’re constantly troubleshooting the development because this platform is so new.  

How did IT Svit perform from a project management standpoint?

Communication with IT Svit is great, and they usually meet their deadlines. If they aren’t going to meet a deadline, they tell us in advance and explain where the issue is and if there is an additional cost to the delay. We use Monday.com and IT Svit uses Trello internally for project management. IT Svit sticks to the budget and provides daily updates on budgets and timelines. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

IT Svit has a great work ethic and communicates well — they have a very positive attitude and never lose their cool. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

I have a different preferred project management tracker and file storage than IT Svit, and they can be a little slow to update my tracker. While they always keep theirs up-to-date, I would appreciate it if they would update my tracker faster. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

IT Svit is very sophisticated and will think out of the box to deliver for the client. However, if clients want a specific development process, they need to be very specific and tell them in advance. 

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm Head of Back End at Express 24. We're a food delivery service from Tashkent. Today we deliver in 4 cities around Uzbekistan.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire IT Svit, and what were your goals?

For the last 4 years we been focused on trying different models and features and made a lot of features for our users. This year we've decided to work on the tech debt related to disaster recovery and reliability.

So our road map was something like this: we must have the ability to deploy our infrastructure in 3-5 mins using any server; create DB "master-master" replica; setup Jenkins and create pipelines for our services; setup logs analytic system

SOLUTION

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

Selection factor was focused on the quality of communications. These guys are super punctual.

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

They used Ansible to deliver the solution for the first task. For MySQL they proposed to use Percona xtrabackup for database backups - this worked great. When database replication was ready we've faced with a few performance issues hence the problems were fixed fast.

Jenkins pipelines are great we don't use Bitbucket pipelines anymore (this was annoying due to Bitbucket reliability problems). We also asked to make a replica for our app server to balance the load.

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

We mainly worked with 3 people: account manager, senior DevOps engineer and second DevOps engineer.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We don't pay Bitbucket or Github for pipelines. Since we have two app servers and two DB servers, we were able to set everything up so that the avg load during peak hours was three times lower.

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

We use ClickUp to track task for all of our apps. So we asked ITSvit to use the same app. No problems at all — all of the tasks have proper statuses, descriptions and estimates. We also use Slack to communicate with the guys.

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

We like their transparency and good communication skills. ITSvit has both of this. There were a couple of cases when we decided to change priorities for the tasks — no problem, the guys easily switched to these urgent tasks.

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

So far so good

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

My name is Eugene. I’m a co-founder of Internet and web-hosting company UKRFAST.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire IT Svit?

We needed to migrate our legacy infrastructure to AWS and K8s. Also set up CI/CD pipelines and IaaC. Working with their team trumps any rigid process. The goal was always the same – to consistently deliver on time. They did it. We look forward to continue our collaboration with next cluster establishment.

What were your goals for this project?

To get efficient, redundant and scalable infrastructure in the cloud.

SOLUTION

How did you select IT Svit?

Recommendation of a friend.

Describe the project in detail.

IT Svit squad helped us migrate from our legacy infrastructure to AWS by Kubernetes. So we can run the entire stack on Kubernetes with automated deployments, end-to-end application and infrastructure monitoring, and graphical dashboards. Everything is 100% Infrastructure as Code and deployed using GitOps style CI/CD pipelines.

What was the team composition?

DevOps engineer, Project Manager, Solution Architect.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The team implemented such crucial parts of the infrastructure as deployment automation, dockerization, monitoring and alerting. Our Infrastructure now is redundant, I’m especially happy with loadbalancing.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Communication and planning was on-point.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

We are impressed with their level of competence and the really wide range of DevOps tools these guys can operate.

Are there any areas for improvement?

I would want to see training offers for developers and engineers.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

My name is Jorge, and I'm a cofounder of Digital Samba. We've been in the web conferencing business since 2002. We develop and run a web conferencing platform known as Samba Live.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire IT Svit, and what were your goals?

We wanted help transitioning from a non-standardized VM deployment infrastructure to an automated containerized approach. Given the complexity of our platform, we know that we would need to take a phased approach. Initially, our goals were simply to be able to deploy standardized containers without having to triple check every little aspect of the deployment.

SOLUTION

How did you select IT Svit and what were the deciding factors?

We found IT Svit on Upwork. They had great reviews, and after an interview with Konstantin, we were convinced that they were the right partner for us.

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

We were looking to expand our existing team of developers and system administrators with a Docker and Kubernetes expert. Traditionally, we developed and deployed applications based on PHP, MySQL, MariaDB, Apache, Nginx, and various media server technologies.

We were looking to transition to a container-ready microservices model and needed expert support with some key challenges:

1. Challenges around persistent data: DB, file uploads, user-generated content
2. Redis for PHP sessions
3. Best practices on creating Dockerfiles
4. Best practices on passing a large set of config data to PHP container runtime
5. Setting up Kubernetes
6. Monitoring
7. Managing dependencies

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

We had weekly meetings with a very capable project manager (who was also an excellent developer). We also worked with a DevOps engineer on a daily basis.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We can't imagine going back to deploying the way we used to. This project has vastly improved the confidence we have in our deployments. We continue to work towards full automatization, but if for some reason, we were to stop striving for that, I'd be happy with what we have already achieved.

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

We met in our conferencing tool for the weekly meetings and used Slack for day-to-day activities. Our specification was not very detailed or concrete, so it was not always possible to give tight deliverable deadlines. Communication with IT Svit was always clear. The project manager was extremely effective in his communication with us.

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

The project manager's knowledge gave us confidence throughout the project. Whenever we hit a bump in the road, they quickly stepped in to brainstorm alternatives.

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

There is always room for improvement- that's just the nature of things. If I'm nitpicking, at times, it would have been nice to get clearer estimates of bitesize tasks.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm a CTO of a product for personalized news aggregation. We're developing SaaS solution that creates custom feeds of the news based on your preferences.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire IT Svit?

We are expanding our team to improve the automation of our infrastructure. The initial project was to implement Kubernetes and Terraform so that we can expand our infrastructure.

What were your goals for this project?

Scalable and easy-to-use infrastructure on AWS

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We've connected on LinkedIn with one of IT Svit's representatives - Nick.

Describe the project in detail.

Preparing Terraform manifests Migration to Kubernetes Deployment automation Creating dev/staging environments:

Setting up CI/CD processes (Jenkins, travis, GitLabCI etc.) Setting up logging/monitoring/notifications Testing stage/dev environments Creating a prod environment Setting up backups/restore Testing Switch to prod environment Documentation

What was the team composition?

From our side - product owner (myself). from IT Svit's side - DevOps engineer Vladimir, Project Manager Alex.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We've got efficient and redundant infrastructure that is easy to scale and deploy. Automated a lot of processes to speed up development. Thanks to the Terraform infrastructure now is very easy to manage.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

As I'm a technical person, it was easy to communicate and understand the IT Svit team.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

IT Svit has solid expertise in DevOps and Cloud area, these guys really know their stuff. Proactive position is also what sets them apart from other companies.

Are there any areas for improvement?

They have areas to improve. I think they could offer support packages.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Dmitriy, CEO @ Global-DJ Ltd. The world's first wearable MIDI, DJ, Vocal, PC, CAD, Game Controller with Sensors, Keyboard & Video Effects with Gestures for Live Show and Active Video Games - Tornado Gloves Controller were created.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire IT Svit?

Our infrastructure architecture was varied and when something stops working, it’s hard to identify the issue and react immediately. We decided to implement the next features Zabbix-server Prometheus operator Grafana

What were your goals for this project?

The system should afford the following algorithms: Automatic monitoring of diverse cloud infrastructure measurable parameters like CPU usage, bandwidth usage, disk volume usage. Timely alerts if any issues occur Informative notifications with screenshots to simplify troubleshooting

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

Google it

Describe the project in detail.

We simply wanted to be better informed of the various processes within our IT infrastructure in order to be able to identify and solve the issues faster: Automatic monitoring of the infrastructure must be performed by Zabbix Timely alerts sent to Telegram Informative screenshots with the trouble description to simplify troubleshooting

What was the team composition?

DevOps Engineer, DevOps architect

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

With installed monitoring, comprised of Zabbix, Prometheus, Grafana, we always receive alert notifications in Slack and know when something is going wrong with our Linux server or Kubernetes cluster. It permits us to respond instantly and resolve issues swift. Also it allows to save time, as we know where is the issue and could pretty well define it at once.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Their Team lead guided me from the first touch base. He performed a rigorous audit to the system's entire stack and elaborated with a thoroughly designed road map. He was responsible for overseeing the project until completion and participated in all calls and demos.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Communicating with the IT Svit team I had very clear and transparent communication, they supplied me with particular information with every next step. It was a fixed project involving many carefully arranged parts and complicated in design and planning.

Are there any areas for improvement?

I assume more compliant support offering, concerning part time engagement. However I understand this is not their priority this time.