Tempesta Technologies

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Kinescope is a modern full-stack video platform for businesses of any size. We're a SaaS company and I'm one of the co-founders.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Tempesta Technologies?

We hired Tempesta guys to help us find out on the most precise level what we can improve in our caching strategy to reach even higher results

SOLUTION

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

We've heard of Tempesta experience with Ubuntu systems long ago at one of the Highload conferences and were impressed by their level of specialization

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

We run our in-house CDN solution. For edge infrastructure, we have a proprietary algorithm but along with that we thought of possible bottlenecks on OS and network-level which we expected to determine and solve

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

We worked directly with Alexander, founder of Tempesta

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Tempesta did research and provided a detailed report on possible bottlenecks and option to overcome them both in the short and long terms

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

It was fast and transparent, we provided all required access data in just one day and they did start to do the job

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

I was impressed with their level of focus and knowledge and ability to search for science database and take business-oriented decisions

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

Everything looks perfect for us at least for this particular project.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the Founder of an email management company based out of Dover.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We engaged Tempesta Technologies to develop a system that automatically sending email addresses and generates suggestions on email outreach

SOLUTION

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

I met their CEO at a conference, where we have discussed the machine learning technologies beneficial for our project. During the conversations, we realized that the team has significant experience in the areas required for our project.

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

We went through the onboarding process with their team, then they spent a few days preparing requirements specifications for the project. After a short review of the proposed solution, we were fully satisfied with the proposed solution and we started the project.

Tempesta Technologies developed the server-side solution for our cloud, which comprises email outreach and an AI module for recommendations on how to improve the key factors for deliverability. The solution was developed in C++ and Python, it can easily scale and doesn’t require much hardware resources.

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

We worked with a team of 4 developers and the CEO performing the management role.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We were very concerned about launching the system in production and letting the first users try it, however, everything went smoothly. There were rare bug reports from the users, but the Tempesta Technologies team was reacting quickly and in most of the cases the bug fixes were deployed within a couple of days.

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

Alexander (CEO) was answering our emails shortly and answered all our technical questions. We were using Slack and Zoom for day to day and weekly communications. The team was always available during European and US working hours.

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

Their expertise. The team has proposed several cutting-edge technologies in machine learning to get the system accuracy much higher than for the competing solutions. They also suggested to us the most suitable cloud provider and guided us on how to scale the solution.

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

There is nothing that stands out.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

TryHackMe is an online platform for Cyber Security and I'm one of the co-founder there.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Tempesta Technologies?

We hired Tempesta technologies to give us recommendations on how to our OpenVPN infrastructure more reliable.

What were your goals for this project?

We wanted to improve the speed and reliability of the OpenVPN servers to ensure that our users had a good experience.

SOLUTION

How did you select Tempesta Technologies?

We used Freelancer to higher Tempesta Technologies. After reviewing their description (where they had experience working with highly technical projects), we saw that they were the right fit for our project.

Describe the project in detail.

We started out by explaining the problems with our current configuration and what our desired outcome is. The team from Tempesta then provided a direction to follow and this kicked off the project.

What was the team composition?

We worked with 2 main people. One of them had experience working with OpenVPN and the second person (Alex) would also keep in touch to ensure that we've been kept on track.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The Tempesta team was extremely thorough with their solution. They not only provided great recommendations but also carried out performance testing and explained the underlying principles behind their recommendations. With their recommendations, the speed of our server increased.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

The team was great at communicating with us - they were in touch constantly and responded to our queries with great depth.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Their level of technical knowledge was really really great - they always came back with detailed responses to our queries and they did not hesitate to help us if things were not working.

Are there any areas for improvement?

No areas of improvement - they were great!

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We’re the steward foundation of a community-developed fork of a MySQL database software. We get code contributions from member companies and other contributors.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Tempesta Technologies?

The challenge was a lack of capacity. We needed to find people that knew the database, and we knew from earlier situations that Tempesta fit that requirement.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We have open-source code, so it’s free for everyone to see and we work through a GitHub interface. Tempesta is working on several features of the database.

What is the team composition?

We’re working primarily with Alexander (CEO), who’s in charge of coordination. I believe there are 2-3 other individuals helping out.

How did you come to work with Tempesta Technologies?

They’d worked with our corporate entity earlier on, and they did a good job.

How much have you invested with them?

The cost so far is around €20,000 (approximately $24,200 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Tempesta in February or March 2020, and it’s ongoing. We assign them work based on our budget and review capacity. We’re not working at peak capacity right now.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Users can ask for new features and vote on which are the most important through our Jira. We have a huge backlog of requests, and we’ve been able to close more of them with Tempesta’s help.

Picking requests is not a trivial thing because they need to be closable with a limited amount of experience on the code base, and be beneficial to a large portion of the user base. It’s a bit too early to say how Tempesta’s work has panned out, but we’ve released a number of features with their help.

How did Tempesta Technologies perform from a project management standpoint?

We use Jira and GitHub for specifications, pull requests, and tracking what’s been done. We review their code internally and communicate through Zoom, WhatsApp, and email.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The most important part is Tempesta’s ability to deliver what we really need. It’s not easy for anyone to contribute to a huge existing codebase. We have hundreds of thousands of lines of code, parts of which are over 10 years old, coming from multiple contributors.

From a process standpoint, communication from Alexander is very good. He answers promptly and is available on the channels we need. He coordinates with the contributors on his team to identify and solve issues as expected.

Are there any areas they could improve?

It would be hard for them to do things any better. The friction points we’ve had are related to our internal approval process. Some areas of the code can be approved by only a few people, so Tempesta has had to wait for that a bit. They could improve by learning our codebase better, but that’s a difficult ask. We’re happy as is.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

It’s important to provide good specifications and to communicate clearly and early.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I’m the co-founder and CTO of a database company. We develop a high-performance variant of MySQL server and varies of tools for database administration.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We had several projects, which required deep modifications of the MySQL/InnoDB engine, Percona XtraDB Cluster, and Galera cluster replication.

SOLUTION

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

We’ve met the Tempesta’s CEO at a technical conference, where he gave a talk about MySQL and Galera performance and scalability improvements. Later, when we needed expertise in Galera replication, Tempesta Technologies was an obvious choice.

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

We have engaged the Tempesta team for several C++ projects in the core database development area. The notable example of the projects is performance and reliability improvements of the MySQL synchronous replication based on the Galera cluster.

The project required deep modifications of the sophisticated InnoDB and Galera Cluster code and required a deep understanding of the underlying computer science in group communications. In most cases, we worked in time & materials contracts.

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

We worked with different Tempesta teams, from 1 to 4 developers in size. Tempesta’s CEO was always involved in technical discussions and project management.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Tempesta provides us quick access to highly skilled development resources. We quickly engaged a developer with rare skills in clustered databases without long negotiations. All the tasks were completed in time and with high quality.

They also provided us a development team when we needed to quickly deliver a MySQL project for our client, one of the largest Internet companies in the world. Thanks to the team, we delivered the project much earlier before the deadline.

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

In all the cases our development team communicated with the Tempesta developers in Slack. During the project negotiations we could quickly set up phone/Skype/Zoom calls with their management and they always reply quickly to our e-mails.

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

They have unique skills in high-performance system programming and can solve sophisticated technical tasks quickly.

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

We didn’t find any areas for improvement.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the co-founder of an IT company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Tempesta Technologies?

We were looking to outsource the development of a module for traffic analysis.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We explained the way we wanted it to work, and Tempesta Technologies developed the module, fully implementing the functions using the programming language C.

The module does algorithms to analyze traffic, and it is connected to our web application. They currently continue to make modifications as requested.

What is the team composition?

We work with 3–4 people.

How did you come to work with Tempesta Technologies?

I met Alexander (CEO) at a conference. Tempesta Technologies is known for working in C, and they care about their performance.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent less than $100,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working together around May 2019, and it’s ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The metrics we track are confidential. They did meet milestones regarding schedule, and their code quality is good.

How did Tempesta Technologies perform from a project management standpoint?

There were a few meetings in the beginning to set the scope and milestones of the project. We communicate via Slack several times a week. They are responsive, meet deadlines, and communicate well.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Tempesta Technologies are experts in developing software in C with high performance, with no additional overhead allowed.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, not really. They do very well.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be aware that they are a small outsourcing company. They can’t easily scale up for large projects.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We are a telecommunications company. We provide the industry with data services that they need for operations.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Tempesta Technologies?

We were looking for a company to help us create new software for our telecommunications company.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We hired Tempesta Technologies to write some software for us which they did. They are experts in database technology, and we needed to build an extension for our MariaDB which is an open-source database. It was C code. After I tested and installed it on different computers. They fixed any issues that we came across. 

What is the team composition?

We worked with a manager and a developer.

How did you come to work with Tempesta Technologies?

I found them through a MySQL company. I sent them an email and described what I needed. They replied with a quote, and we went ahead with them. 

How much have you invested in them?

We spent less than $10,000 which was a bargain. If you had someone with the same qualifications in the United States, it would be more expensive.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked with them in May 2020. It wasn’t a complicated project, so it took seven or eight days for everything to be tested and delivered. We are now in the production phase.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The job was done perfectly, and we are very happy. We’re waiting for some regulatory things before we can put it out in the market, but from a technical standpoint, it is working well. We just have to get it to the market and until we get the green light from the government, we can’t do that, so we are waiting.

How did Tempesta Technologies perform from a project management standpoint?

The manager was in touch with me, and they passed on the requirements to the developer. It was smooth. They never objected to my comments or critiques.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I didn’t have to spend hours explaining what I needed. They just got it right away and they knew what to do.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I’d pay them double what they ask because they deserve it.