ITSyndicate OU

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

 I am the Product Owner of a financial services company 

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

We are a private markets asset management and investment banking company, providing multi-asset investment management services regulated by the Saudi Capital Markets Authority (CMA) for both individuals as well as corporates.

We do Venture Capital, Private Equity, Real Estate, Private Debt, and Commodities investments. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire ITSyndicate OU to accomplish?

• consolidate our scattered infrastructure
• ensure compliance with KSA regulations
• improve development speed
• implement a monitoring and incident management processes
• enhance reliability and minimize downtime

SOLUTION

How did you find ITSyndicate OU?

Referral

Why did you select ITSyndicate OU over others?

• Great culture fit
• Good value for cost
• Referred to me
• Company values aligned

How many teammates from ITSyndicate OU were assigned to this project?

1 Employee

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

ITSyndicate migrated our services to GCP, ensuring compliance with KSA data regulations. They implemented CI/CD pipelines using GitHub Actions, centralized our infrastructure, and containerized applications with Docker.

Additionally, they set up GCP Cloud Monitoring and Logging, integrated tools like Slack, Telegram, OpsGenie, and Jira for incident management, and established secure communication channels with VPNs.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The project resulted in a 35% reduction in operational costs, faster development cycles, and improved uptime, consistently exceeding 99.9%.

It also enhanced our platform’s security and ensured compliance with local regulations.

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

Their project management was great. They delivered tasks on time, maintained clear communication, and proactively addressed challenges, limitations, and requirements.

What was your primary form of communication with ITSyndicate OU?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

Their ability to combine technical expertise with a deep understanding of regulatory requirements was very appealing. And solutions they proposed were tailored to match our specific needs.

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

Id advise them to prepare additional onboarding materials for the proposed and built solutions since it would have significantly simplified knowledge transfer to both new and existing members, who are not that skilled at what ITS guys do.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the CEO of Red Rocket Software

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

We are working on consulting, providing best IT solutions for our clients and partners with huge tech stack and Agile approach.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire ITSyndicate OU to accomplish?

• Build a reliable and scalable infrastructure for our application.
• Automate infrastructure deployment and code delivery processes.
• Build for us a monitoring and logging solution that matches our vision.
• Minimize infrastructure costs when the project is released.

SOLUTION

How did you find ITSyndicate OU?

Referral

Why did you select ITSyndicate OU over others?

Good value for cost, Company values aligned

What was the size of ITSyndicate OU’s team?

2-5 Employees

What was your primary form of communication with ITSyndicate OU?

Virtual Meeting, Email or Messaging App

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

The scope of work for ITSyndicate's DevOps team in this project involved the following key areas:

• Understanding Business Needs: The team engaged with the client to comprehend their business objectives and requirements to tailor DevOps solutions aligned with their goals.
• Implementing DevOps Best Practices: The DevOps team introduced and implemented best practices in the client's software development process, enhancing efficiency and the quality of deliverables.
• Automation:

a. Continuous Integration Pipeline: The team set up an automatic build and test system for the client's software, ensuring that code changes were integrated seamlessly.

b.Software Release Process: The team automated the entire software release process up to production, enabling faster and more reliable deployments.

• Containerization and Delivery: The DevOps team implemented containerization solutions to streamline the software delivery process, ensuring a consistent environment for development, testing, and production.
• Infrastructure Setup: The team automated the infrastructure setup for the project, allowing for rapid provisioning, scaling, and management of resources.
• Monitoring and Logging: The team developed and implemented an effective monitoring and logging strategy, helping the client detect and address issues quickly, which improved application performance and customer satisfaction.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

• The best result is that our goals have been achieved.
• Our site response is really fast, less than one second.
• The cloud infrastructure works with sustained uptime.

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

I would like to say that the management was good, their PM communicated well with ours, had regular meetings and the level of delivery was high.

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

I would say it’s their technical expertise. ITSyndicate OU has a highly skilled team of DevOps engineers and solution architects who are experts in their sphere. Since they are focused only on implementing DevOps practices, they are true professionals in their field.

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

There is nothing to add at the moment. I am looking forward to further cooperation with the team!

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a manager for a software company that offers B2B services. I’m part of the team that manages hosted billing services.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with ITSyndicate OU?

We needed someone to take over and manage our complete system administration and development for our hosted environment.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

ITSyndicate OU helps us with remote IT consulting and SI services. They’re essentially our entire system’s admin and DevOps team for our unit on an ongoing basis. ITSyndicate OU has a dedicated team assigned to our project with whom we work intimately.  

We purchase our hardware and give ITSyndicate OU access to our systems and different pieces of infrastructure. Our team works remotely, and ITSyndicate OU is part of that offsite structure.

What is the team composition?

We currently work with four teammates from ITSyndicate OU, one of whom is an executive with whom we interact on a contractual level. The rest of the team are system administrators and DevOps agents, one works full-time on our project, and the other two teammates work part-time. 

How did you come to work with ITSyndicate OU?

We founded ITSyndicate OU through an online search.  We chose them because they offered competitive rates and were well-reviewed. Our engagement started based on that and has evolved since we started working together. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with ITSyndicate OU in January 2015. We have an open-ended contract that renews each year unless we terminate it. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We feel supported by ITSyndicate OU, which provides quick and proper maintenance and troubleshooting services. Our system has fewer crashes because ITSyndicate OU updates it and provides maintenance when they expire or become unsupported.

Our relationship with ITSyndicate OU has evolved over the years, and they’ve learned how we operate — that’s why we’ve kept working with them. ITSyndicate OU adapts easily and has the resources to learn our system’s updates and changes as needed. 

How did ITSyndicate OU perform from a project management standpoint?

At the beginning of our engagement, ITSyndicate OU’s team rotated, and slowly, we transformed to having a dedicated team assigned to our project. This working model has allowed us to build a knowledge base with ITSyndicate OU’s team members over the years. 

We work on different active projects with ITSyndicate OU and keep communication through a ticketing system on Jira, where we create a ticket for each action or request we ask of ITSyndicate OU. They then assign each ticket to a team member, and we can track the task progress on Jira.

We have open communication with ITSyndicate OU and meet weekly through Google Meet. In these meetings, our engineering teams discuss the week's work. ITSyndicate OU lets us know when they encounter any issue on the system or if they have questions.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I’m most impressed with ITSyndicate OU’s dedication and willingness to adapt. Additionally, ITSyndicate OU’s communication is very clear. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

I have mentioned ITSyndicate OU before that they could be more proactive rather than reactive. Sometimes we find out about a system that requires an upgrade with little anticipation before it becomes unsupported. We would like ITSyndicate OU to be a bit more proactive with that kind of research and propose solutions.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I recommend asking ITSyndicate OU for a dedicated team to work on your project. I know it’s tempting to have an agent available anytime; you can build a lot of knowledge specific to your project with a dedicated team. This will make the service faster and more efficient.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of Connecta Group, a B2B IT company that develops software.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with ITsyndicate Limited?

We hired ITsyndicate Limited to maintain our servers and host our software.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They provide 24-hour service and maintenance. We have a hosting company that takes care of the hardware; ITsyndicate Limited provides us with the remote maintenance for our servers.

What is the team composition?

The three-person team includes one first-level support resource and two people for second-level support.

How did you come to work with ITsyndicate Limited?

I found them through an online search. I hired ITsyndicate Limited because they did their job well for a competitive price.

How much have you invested in them?

We spend approximately $12,000 per year.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in December 2017 and the partnership is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The partnership is cost-effective because we don’t need in-house engineers. The team’s expertise and support benefit our applications’ quality. We’ve only experienced downtime for one brief period.

How did ITsyndicate Limited perform from a project management standpoint?

They are communicative and respond quickly to any emergency tickets. We are very happy with their service.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They are the first company that we outsourced for server maintenance, and we are very happy with them. We are going to transfer more projects to them.

Are there any areas they could improve?

The team could improve documentation for the infrastructure design. They should also communicate the value they’re providing more clearly.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the CTO of a restaurant POS solution.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire ITsyndicate Limited?

We hired ITsyndicate to monitor our servers 24/7.

What were your goals for this project?

We wanted to ensure that our servers were stable and always available to our customers. If our servers are unavailable for any reason, our customers would lose money.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We needed a company that was very familiar with Amazon Web Services Elastic Beanstalk (EB). We interviewed various vendors, but it was ITsyndicate that was able to offer 24/7 monitoring at a reasonable price for a startup.

What was the team composition?

Our team is composed of three frontend developers, one backend developer, and a part-time database administrator. ITsyndicate provides the admin and monitoring capability.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

In order to ensure that ITsyndicate was focused on 24/7 monitoring, we promised to pay them a bonus for every month that the systems are fully available. Any production downtime would result in a non-payment of the bonus. With one exception, I believe we have paid the bonus every month. ITsyndicate has recently offered value-added services such as cybersecurity audits and monitoring. We are currently working with them to roll this out for our solution.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

This is the best part of working with ITsyndicate. If we identify an issue, we can send them an emergency email and receive a Slack message within 60 seconds. The other thing we love is their proactive monitoring. Typically, they notify us of an issue before we even get an email from EB. It is amazing.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Their responsiveness and initiative are remarkable. They also have a strong knowledge of our different application stack components.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Product Owner of skidochki.in.ua

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

We help users discover the best discounts and deals by aggregating them in one place.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire ITSyndicate OU to accomplish?

• We needed to modernize our platform by migrating from AWS ECS to Kubernetes, optimizing infrastructure costs, improving scalability, and enhancing observability and traffic management.

SOLUTION

How did you find ITSyndicate OU?

Referral

Why did you select ITSyndicate OU over others?

Good value for cost

How many teammates from ITSyndicate OU were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

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

ITSyndicate migrated our platform from AWS ECS to Kubernetes on Hetzner Cloud, integrating AWS services like S3 and CloudFront for backups and content delivery. They implemented Terraform for Infrastructure as Code, automated CI/CD pipelines, and enhanced monitoring with ELK Stack and Prometheus. They also set up Cloudflare for traffic management and security.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The migration reduced infrastructure costs by 30%, improved deployment times, and enhanced platform scalability and security. Real-time monitoring minimized downtime and ensured optimal performance during traffic spikes.

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

Their project management was exceptional. They met every deadline, communicated proactively, and addressed any challenges quickly and effectively.

What was your primary form of communication with ITSyndicate OU?

• In-Person Meeting
• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

Their ability to combine deep technical expertise with a customer-first approach was remarkable. They truly understood our business needs and delivered solutions that exceeded expectations.

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

Nothing to add.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm an owner of Proven Chat, a Facebook Messenger chatbot service.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire ITsyndicate Limited?

We wanted to set up cloud-hosted Google servers. They needed to handle 2,000 users and automatically scale beyond that when needed.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

They had excellent reviews and communicated well. From their answers to my questions, I saw that they could meet the needs of our project.

Describe the project in detail.

At the start, they gathered details and laid out a timeline. They kept us in the loop and updated the timeline as necessary.

What was the team composition?

Their team included a project manager and two or three engineers.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They nailed this project! We're happy with the results. Our servers are fast, and the migration from another platform went well.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

The workflow was effective.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

I appreciated their communication, level of knowledge, and attention to detail.

Are there any areas for improvement?

I can't think of anything. I'm looking forward to working with them more!

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I’m the founder and CEO of Clear Clinica, a life science companies that provides clinical trial support. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire ITsyndicate Limited?

We needed cloud service maintenance and support, as well as help with development operations and migrating from Rackspace to Amazon Web Services (AWS).

What were your goals for this project?

We wanted a smooth transition from Rackspace to AWS, to sustain high levels of uptime on AWS, and to quickly resolve issues of performance and reliability.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We initially contacted their co-founder/CTO on Upwork and chose them from among a number of other companies.

What was the team composition?

They had support staff running on shifts that provided coverage for 18 hours every day.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They did excellent work, and I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend them.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

It was good.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Their dedication to quickly resolving issues, in a high-quality way, stood out to us.

Are there any areas for improvement?

They’re fast and high quality, but they could provide us with better online monitoring.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the CTO of a growing hosting company. We host and manage sites and systems for a high number of clients.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire ITsyndicate Limited?

We were looking for a company that could assist us in managing and monitoring our servers.

What were your goals for this project?

We wanted to be ready for growth.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We found ITsyndicate after searching online and testing a few companies.

Describe the project in detail.

ITsyndicate helps us manage, monitor, and improve our servers and set up new ones. They also respond to any issues or challenges in the hosting environment, making sure that everything runs smoothly.

What was the team composition?

Our project manager works with their entire team.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Our system is running better than ever. We are confident that our infrastructure is in good hands.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

It has been great, especially since we have direct access to the team via Slack. There is always someone on call, so we are never left without help if there are issues. They provide quality communication and fast response time.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

We are impressed with their skill.

Are there any areas for improvement?

None at this point.