TraceRoute42

Please describe your company and your position there.

PONS Langenscheidt GmbH is an established German publishing house founded in 1978 in Stuttgart, Germany. It is a publisher of printed traditional dictionaries, word and text Machine Translation, and books and cross-channel materials devoted to language learning. Under the international PONS and Langenscheidt brands, we offer about 900 products for learning over 40 languages. My Role: Head of Technology.

For what projects/services did your company hire TraceRoute42?

The main challenge we posed to the contractor was to merge decentralized databases. Due to the nature and the multiplicity of our products, this was quite a complex process and required the utmost attention to all details. Throughout the entire process, the most important thing was to keep operations running smoothly and ensure continuous availability of services.

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

We were looking for a reliable and proven contractor. We knew the TraceRoute42 team from another project and knew this choice would be a good one. We were primarily concerned that all the work would not affect the availability of our services/products.

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

After reviewing our infrastructure, the TR42 team prepared a complete plan for implementing the changes with a detailed breakdown of the costs and time required for implementation. The whole process went off without a hitch, and as a result we extended our cooperation for maintenance and development activities of our infrastructure.

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

The first initiating meeting was held with the company's CEO - this highlighted the company's approach to our co-partnership. We then worked with the TR42 team, particularly the one SysAdmin assigned to us. The process was overseen by the Project Manager, who conducted meetings between our teams and prepared detailed reports.

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

All objectives have been achieved and tasks have been carried out in accordance with the previously outlined plan. Efficient implementation of the main task resulted in further permanent cooperation with TR42.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

The cooperation was very successful. The flow of information was smooth and concrete. The TR42 team worked agilely and adjusted their time to the availability of our specialists. Communication between the teams was based on direct contact on the Slack channel, tasks and events were recorded in Jira. Everything was transparent and clear to all parties.

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

It was first and foremost the quality of work and proactive approach. Also the highest safety standards and the confidence that accompanied us throughout the cooperation. Finally, it was also important for us to monitor the infrastructure 24/7 by the TR42 team.

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

I think there will still be fields for optimization, but nothing comes to mind at the moment.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of a telecommunications company.

What challenge were you trying to address with Traceroute42?

They’re helping us with outsourced Linux management and development. Our team is developer-focused rather than infrastructure-focused.

What was the scope of their involvement?

I didn’t have the ability to manage our Linux and security components that we deploy to customers. Thus, I decided to outsource the infrastructure management. They’ve been helping us with dependencies, packaging, and things like that. I pass specific maintenance issues or functionalities that I want to be addressed. We need to test and make sure it works before it’s released.

What is the team composition?

I predominantly work with two members of Traceroute42.

How did you come to work with Traceroute42?

We were referred to them.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested around €15,000–20,000 ($16,200–$21,600 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

The project started in August 2019 and is ongoing.

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

While it’s difficult to measure, it’s much easier for me to outsource these things without having dedicated resources. It’s been good from our perspective. Every challenge I’ve given them, they’ve been able to solve.

How did Traceroute42 perform from a project management standpoint?

They’ve been good with project management and communication. We fold them into our internal management. We set the priorities, and they deliver on everything.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’ve been able to solve every problem I’ve thrown at them. I had spent a lot of time on these problems, but they solved it. If there’s an issue, we discuss it and resolve it in a timely manner.  

Are there any areas they could improve?

I’ve been happy with the service so far.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I wish I had more clearly specified the tasks. That’s a problem of not passing across accurate information.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of Skin Wallet, a fintech platform.

What challenge were you trying to address with Traceroute42?

We needed cloud consulting services.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Traceroute42 provides operational services. They manage our server’s infrastructure and handle our traffic. Their team provides the best possible service for our users. They also mitigate all security-related risks to our servers.

Their team provides extensive knowledge of various cloud services, especially AWS and Google Cloud. In other words, they provide cloud consulting services and DevOps. Some development is required, but projects are mostly related to server operation.

Most of the work is focused on the cloud. For AWS, it’s Relational Database Service (RDS), Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), and Elastic Container Service (ECS). On Google Cloud, they help us with Kubernetes Cluster. There’s much more involved as well. Adding on to that, Traceroute42 also offers monitoring services for the cloud and databases like MySQL.

How did you come to work with Traceroute42?

We trusted their experience. They have very helpful, experienced workers, and their pricing fits our budget.

How much have you invested with them?

We invest $65,000 a year.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in January 2019, and the work is ongoing.

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

The metrics we measure are based on the number of incidents and the time it takes to solve them. It’s internal work.

How did Traceroute42 perform from a project management standpoint?

Project management is very good. All projects are delivered on time and according to our needs. We use Slack and YouTrack.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They have very extensive knowledge of providing scalability for databases. They also have a lot of experience with various web servers. We’re impressed with their knowledge of these areas. Their team has a high level of availability.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, there’s nothing I would have them improve.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Start a partnership with them because it was very successful for us.

Please describe your company and your position there.

Im the CEO of cloud gaming company Remotemyapp sp. z o.o., working on the product named vortex.gg

For what projects/services did your company hire Traceroute42?

We needed support to setup internal networking and infrastrucuture plus advice with handling our cloud gaming infrastructure for our customer base.

What were your goals for this project?

Stable/consistent/scalable networking performance for internal network and our customers playing on the cloud service

How did you select this vendor?

We were recommended to talk with Traceroute and was convinced after the initial dialogue with their team.

Describe the project in detail.

Setup internal network and advise our team in complex infrastructure support for our end users.

What was the team composition?

We work with a project manager which then help redirect our questions towards the right resource within their team.

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

Our team is happy with the cooperation and look forward to continuing solving problems and challenges in the future.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

We have a direct access to project manager which provide fast and reliable feedback.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Their competency with service, monitoring, and structuring complex network configurations is great. 

Are there any areas for improvement?

We need to find bigger challenges as everything currently gets solved fast and efficiently :-)

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of Plum Research, which provides audience measurement data for the film and TV industry.

What challenge were you trying to address with Traceroute42?

Several of our team members are developers, but we don’t have DevOps onboard. We needed to outsource that work to someone else.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Before starting the work, they conducted site surveys and inspections to assess our tech situation. They handle our infrastructure, providing 24/7 threat monitoring for our servers. That bolsters our downtime prevention efforts. If no one is active from our team during a potential threat, they take over and solve problems. Even in the middle of the night, they keep our servers running.

Their team regularly touches code to ensure that they do their due diligence while problem-solving. However, they don’t develop any software for us. Some of our servers are within their database and others are through third-party services. We have Microsoft Azure and AWS servers, all run by their team. The team also takes care of our Cassandra databases, which is critical to our business. They typically work remotely but will assist onsite as needed.

What is the team composition?

We have one main point of contact that has a team working with him in the background.

How did you come to work with Traceroute42?

We worked with some of their team members during prior projects. Our teams are located in the same city. In addition, they’re connected to the same funds that provide us with money. That acted as sort of a quality stamp that assured us to move forward with this.

How much have you invested with them?

So far, we’ve invested around $200,000. This year, we’ll spend an additional $40,000–$50,000. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started the work with them in 2016, and our engagements are still ongoing. Our team will work with them throughout 2020. We just extended our agreement with them.

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

With them, everything goes smoothly. When we started working with them, we used a ticketing system for their services. However, we were later given a dedicated member of their team to work with us directly. When that person is unavailable, other members of their team understand our infrastructure and can help us solve problems. 

We don’t track metrics for them, but they are solely in charge of disaster management and security. They recover data as fast as possible, even if it was in the middle of the night. Sometimes, our company doesn’t even realize anything went wrong to begin with. So, there was never a need to track metrics.

How did Traceroute42 perform from a project management standpoint?

We have a member of their team on a Slack channel for communication, viewing their company as an extension of our team. It’s a close relationship that we’re very happy with. They meet all of our deadlines, sometimes exceeding them. 

It’s been very helpful to have a designated member of their team to our account. They’re an integral part of our company. We used Slack, Jira, and Confluence to communicate while tracking the project. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re taking on a very large job, and I feel like they’re truly part of our team. The team is quick with their responses. We have a special relationship. It’s like having employees that are under a different contract. I no longer consider them a third-party. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

I’m very happy with their work. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

They’re doing a good job and would be good for everyone.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of Shorte.st, a link shortening site. We provide publishers with a solution to monetize the traffic they generate on their sites. 

What challenge were you trying to address with Traceroute42?

They help us with AWS administration. We have users from all over the world and servers in different locations.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We have some services on AWS and some on Google Cloud. Traceroute42 works on those with the admin on our team. We also have physical servers in Amsterdam that Traceroute42 is responsible for maintaining and for all the configurations necessary to keep them alive. Whenever something goes wrong with a machine, like needing to replace a disk, they contact the datacenter and take care of replacing the part.

If we need a new environment to use some new services or to test something, Traceroute42 will provide us those, configure them, and ensure everything’s working as it should. We’ve used them across many different fields, from administration to configuration and DevOps.

Also, our developers have asked them for help with some scripts for databases, engines, or some other administrative solutions. Our main technologies are AWS, Google Cloud, Kubernetes, NGINX, and Docker.  

How did you come to work with Traceroute42?

We considered a few factors and contacted multiple companies, trying to gauge the experience of their resources. From what Traceroute42 showed us, they worked with high-traffic companies. Given the number of users we have and the number of ads we serve each day, that was a very important factor for us. We needed to work with people who knew how to handle traffic and how to implement security at a high level. They also needed to help us with video ads if we went in that direction.

The size of their team and the level of their experts was the first thing. We met with them and had a discussion, and they looked very professional. Based on their past experience, the way they structured their company, and the services they could provide to us, we decided to work with Traceroute42.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent about 200,000 Polish zloty (approximately $55,000 USD) in 2019.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Traceroute42 around the beginning of 2018. The collaboration is ongoing.

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

Response time is critical. If there are critical errors—a machine is down, a zone on AWS isn’t working, or we have some problems with scalability—the response time is the most important thing to us. Traceroute42 is very fast within working hours, and they have a dedicated person whom we can contact 24/7. Pricing is important for us as well. However, if we know that the site is working correctly and we can generate money, we can focus on our business. To summarize, we appreciate their response time and the quality of their work.

How did Traceroute42 perform from a project management standpoint?

We have a dedicated person that we contact through email, tickets, or calls whenever we have an issue. He takes care of resolving the issues on their end. and he’s available for us almost all day. He’s very good, and I’m pretty happy with working with this project manager.

Traceroute42 uses a dedicated project management solution which I believe they’ve developed internally. It’s a ticket system where we can put all our requests and see their statuses. It’s a very simple tool, but it keeps us on top of everything that’s going on with the cases we’ve reported. We use Trello in addition to it.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The most important thing for me is that they know how to handle high-quality traffic. Link shortening is the initial thing someone sees when looking at us, but there’s an advertising network underneath. We have global users from almost every country in the world and millions of ad impressions per hour. That generates a lot of traffic.

Traceroute42 knows how to work with high-traffic sites and to scale services. They know how to deal with different problems, and they’re on top of new technologies. They constantly find new ways to optimize the servers and the environment we’re working with. Whenever they propose changes to us, we always know how something will impact the business, the costs we have on the server side, and whether there will be any security issues. We’re always informed by them.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I can’t think of anything.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

It’s important to be very detailed when communicating with them: we fully describe the need, the situation, and what we’re looking for. Based on that data, Traceroute42 can get back to us with a solution. If we don’t know what solution we need, but know what problem we have, describing it will allow Traceroute42 to quickly respond and come up with ideas to solve it.

Please describe your company and your position there.

My name is Mateusz Płatek and I am a Guild Master at nomtek, a mobile app design and development agency founded in 2009 with a track record of several applications topping the application store listings. Our goal is to become a valuable contributor to the business by efficiently delivering and maintaining mobile applications that astonish users with usability, reliability and beautiful graphics in a process that agilely adapts to your resourcing and communication needs.

For what projects/services did your company hire TraceRoute42?

We were looking for a company that could help us to maintain the SysOps projects for our internal needs as well as for our clients. We hired TraceRoute42 to design infrastructure per project, monitor the infrastructure development and containerization implementation on both - native and Cloud Kubernetes including DigitalOcean solutions.

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

Cooperation with TraceRoute42 was possible due to the research on Clutch. Knowing the portal, we were listing the companies that could become our long-term partner. It was vital for us to work with a company that was experienced in Kubernetes and DevOps operations. TraceRoute42 seemed to be a good partner for that based on their contemporary reviews and since November 2020 they are supporting our day-to-day IT operations.

Describe the project in detail and walk through their service package.

The service includes supporting our daily IT operations. TraceRoute42 is supporting us with the project's maintenance from the SysOps perspective - they prepare the infrastructure, monitor and develop it. They work with us on both types of the projects - dedicated Kubernetes environment as well as Kubernetes services based on the Cloud provider such as DigitalOcean.

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

We cooperated with a fixed team of a couple of administrators from TraceRoute42.

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

Thanks to cooperation with TraceRoute42 we knew that all our daily issues are well taken care of. In the beginning, our client expected a trust based relationship as well as direct and uncomplicated discussions about problems with problem-solving attitude and the same was expected from TraceRoute42. As our cooperation is ongoing, we consider them as a solid partner of nomtek that with each day and each task makes another progress with the work on our side.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

The workflow between our companies is very effective. TraceRoute42 is flexible and agile and the whole cooperation is smooth and productive. Both teams are a part of one great squad working together on achieving common goals.

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

The biggest impression was TraceRoute42’s proactive approach. They always react quickly and the communication is clear and effective. We know that all our matters are taken charge of by them and we do not have to worry about our infrastructure anymore.

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

There is a minor thing we think that could be improved. We really like the cooperation between our companies but we believe that the everyday communication could be improved a little bit. We expect a partner who will inform us about the progress of the job while with TraceRoute42 we usually find out the final outcome.

Please describe your company and your position there.

We are a venture capital fund and an experienced venture builder, co-creating thriving global tech businesses. We invest up to €1M in early stage projects. Our focus is on innovative industries and emerging technologies and currently includes companies involved in esports, big data, cloud computing, fintech and martech.

For what projects/services did your company hire TraceRoute42?

We had occasion to work with TR42 many times, across our portfolio companies.

What were your goals for this project?

We provide founders with capital to fuel their vision and assist every step of the way, to the IPO and beyond. We actively participate in building the value of our portfolio companies. We need reliable partners to archive our portfolio companies' goals. TraceRoute42 is one of these partners.

How did you select TraceRoute42?

TraceRoute42 was initially a part of RedSky. Later on they have become a separate company, and that's when we started our cooperation which is still in place today, and we want to keep on working with TraceRoute42 in the future.

Describe the project in detail.

The most important is the 24/7 server monitoring. TraceRoute42 has taken over the entire DevOps/SysAdmin part of the work. They have taken care of hardware, services configuration, and monitoring.

What was the team composition?

TraceRoute42 consists of highly experienced and skilled infrastructure experts and system administrators.

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

All goals of cooperation were archived.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Everything was well organised and orchestrated.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Their vast knowledge, professional and dedicated approach, great attitude, and very smooth communication on Slack.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Nothing comes to mind.

Please describe your company and your position there.

My name is Michał Abram and I am a Chief Product Officer at Mindgram which helps employees and companies build strength, resilience and psychological balance. Our goal is to democratize access to psychological care and personal development. In order to implement those two elements, we use the latest technologies and proven scientific methods.

We believe that mentally strong people and companies can achieve anything they dream about.

For what projects/services did your company hire TraceRoute42?

We decided to look for a company as TraceRoute42 once our infrastructure was already fully prepared. We have been working with a software house who prepared the cloud application and then we needed a company that could manage the IaaS infrastructure and further expand it.

How did you select TraceRoute42 and what were the deciding factors?

Some of our coworkers have already been working with TraceRoute42 on other projects. They knew their expertise, capabilities and the way they work so we have decided to ask for support with our new project.

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

The service of TraceRoute42 includes infrastructure management and development. When our application is growing and new features are implemented, then TR42 is responsible for growing our infrastructure simultaneously. They expand everything with new applications and new infrastructure elements that are required by the application.

How many resources from the TraceRoute42 team worked with you, and what were their positions?

At the moment we have one main maintainer who is also onboarding additional admin to the project.

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

Working with TraceRoute42 we know that everything is stable and working. The daily issues are well taken care of. We have an ongoing cooperation with them and from one microservice, during the year, we grew to a couple of them. Right now we will be expanding collaboration with TR42 towards migration from the native AWS solution into a custom Kubernetes cluster to Google GCP.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

The workflow between our companies is great. We have a daily Slack channel where we share our needs and TraceRoute42 is taking care of them. The cooperation is very effective.

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

We appreciate their proactive attitude in the workflow. TraceRoute42 is diagnosing our infrastructure on a daily basis so they usually come with propositions and solutions even before anything may happen. When they see that something could be changed or improved, they simply indicate the issue and all together we can come to the best decision.

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

To be honest, I can’t think of anything at the moment.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am CTO at IamIP, a global leader in patent management software. We are providing SaaS solutions in Intelectual Property collaboration.

For what projects/services did your company hire Traceroute42?

We hired Traceroute42 to bring our infrastructure to the next level of standards and provide us with continuous maintenance.

What were your goals for this project?

The goal was to have the infrastructure build using the newest technologies and with maximum availability and performance.

How did you select this vendor?

We found Traceroute42 as one of the leaders in their area on our local market.

Describe the project in detail.

Traceroute42 are responsible for maintaining our servers and allowing our platform to operate without any downtime. As well as allowing it to scale as it needs.

What was the team composition?

Traceroute42 team is built of highly experienced system administrators and infrastructure experts.

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

They helped us to achieve our infrastructure goals so far, we are very satisfied.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

We are collaborating closely, sometimes it doesn't feel that Tracerout42 is an external team.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Tracerout42 is no just doing what's in the contract they are taking they work on a higher level of providing service, they care about our platform infrastructure as it was their own.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Not that I can think of.