XenonStack

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the CTO of GINIIS.  We focus on education for technology in several countries. Our offerings include technology for distance learning, live classrooms, and virtual laboratories. We facilitate interaction between parents, teachers and everyone that uses our platform to ensure transparency. Our high-volume clients range up to 10–20 million students nationally.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with XenonStack?

We wanted to build an autoscaling cloud platform primarily based on a Kubernetes architecture. The team had impressively rapid turnaround times for both communications and task execution. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement? 

As one of our DevOps teams, XenonStack supports us with all the work we do. We wanted to take an autoscaling approach to virtualization so we could accommodate as many users as possible. The architecture needed to be scalable based on the needs from changing volume. Portability was the main reason I requested they use Kubernetes.

I had prepared some of the architecture, but XenonStack also contributed and provided insight. We needed to consider a solution that accounted for the cost of autoscaling using AWS. They offered their opinions on how to restructure to maximize the cost-benefit and reliability.

What is the team composition?

Five people from XenonStack worked on our project. They assigned us a main point of contact.

How did you come to work with XenonStack?

At the time of our project, few vendors knew how to build virtualization architecture using Kubernetes. I wanted to work with XenonStack because they understood and could carry out our requirements and specifications. I initially gave them smaller tasks to ensure they had the necessary capabilities. They had the ability to deliver with the accuracy I needed.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working together in May 2017 and have an ongoing relationship. XenonStack is still providing maintenance for us.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

So far, we’ve been happy with everything XenonStack has delivered. Based on the many performance tests we’ve run so far, the platform is responding the way we intended. Whenever there have been issues, the team has had good response times.

How did XenonStack perform from a project management standpoint?

We managed the project using the Agile methodology and used a tool to track progress. Whenever we need something, the team had quick turnaround times. From a project management standpoint, they helped us with planning. While they executed on the tasks we assigned them, we always had the control on our end.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I found it impressive that XenonStack had the ability to deliver the new technology we requested so accurately. We needed to satisfy an audience with a high volume of users, and they put the platform together for us.

Are there any areas they could improve?

So far, XenonStack has been able to deliver on everything we’ve asked them for. I don’t have any complaints.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I encourage potential future clients to give XenonStack a chance. Personally, I have been very satisfied during the entire period of time we've worked together. I don’t think we would be where we are today without XenonStack.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder of a South California-based IT services company called Delphync. We provide services to a variety of clients, in DevOps, big data, infrastructure, cloud, and mobile apps.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Akira Analytics?

Together with our hardware partner, we were trying to prove that we could run a certain big data and DevOps load on their hardware at a much faster scale, compared to some traditional hardware.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The project was run on behalf of a large media company. Akira helped us set up some use cases, which involved a lot of big data and DevOps. Certain benchmarks were collected based on those, and we used them to draft several white papers to prove our hypothesis. That involved big data workloads and DevOps tools like Ansible, Chef, and Puppet.

The second piece was creating a proof of concept. They helped us provision Oracle Enterprise Manager (OEM) using Ansible. We automated that entire environment. They provided one-command automation—we could stand up our entire environment with one command, talking to another service, ServiceNow.They proved that we could provision OEM through modern DevOps toolsets, and also integrate with ServiceNow.

What is the team composition?

We worked with three individuals on the DevOps side—one architect and two specialists. I worked with them on a day-to-day basis, and they also worked directly with the customer at times, to get requirements.

How did you come to work with Akira Analytics?

We spoke with a few different providers and chose Akira after speaking to some of their in-house technical folks. They seemed to have good technical breadth, especially when it came to DevOps and big data. We found them to be experts, specifically on different DevOps toolchains. They knew the entire landscape, and they were also very good at handling big data—storing and analyzing it.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent $25,000–$50,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked with them between June–December 2016.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The end-client was extremely satisfied with the use cases set up by Akira, so it was definitely a success. On the proof-of-concept side, the customer really liked the implementation.

Before we engaged them, we weren’t sure if this would mean something that could work in a customer environment. But, in collaboration with Akira, we demonstrated that this was something that was possible, and received more business with the customer as a result of this project.

How did Akira Analytics perform from a project management standpoint?

Even though we didn’t have a dedicated project manager, we used Jira. The team was self-managing and were diligent in ensuring that Jira statuses stayed up to date, documenting their activities on the platform. This helped immensely on the project management side.

We had daily phone calls with them, where we reviewed what they’d done the previous day, and the action plan. We discussed any impediments that might have appeared and how to resolve them.

I felt that the communication was good, even though there were some challenges that came up—some technical, and some access-related. We were able to resolve them in a timely fashion.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They have in-depth knowledge when it comes to DevOps, big data, and technical things. It’s not just one tool; they have knowledge of the entire ecosystem—different DevOps tools and big data ecosystems. This is where they distinguished themselves from other competitors. There are a lot of people out there, and a lot of buzzwords like “DevOps” and “big data”. We don’t often come across teams that know a whole lot about these things.

Are there any areas they could improve?

During the project, I felt they had a small team. I don’t know what the scene is now but having more people would’ve helped. At times, it felt that some of them were putting too much effort in; having more people might have alleviated that pressure.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

Clients should discuss their approach upfront and agree on what they’re attempting to do. Before implementation, they should do some requirements gathering, and make sure both parties are on the same page.

I felt they were fairly technical people, and technical people tend to come up with solutions, which a business might not want sometimes. It’s better to collaborate, come up with a proper scope, and agree on the approach beforehand.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the CTO at Shryne LTD. We’re on a mission to turn passive social data into a personal resource for millions of people. Our service empowers users to organize and preserve their most important memories from every social channel, including texts, email, social networks, and instant messaging. Shryne is also developing AI tools to help people better understand their relationships and their impact on mental and social health.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire XenonStack?

We engaged XenonStack to manage a microservices infrastructure on Amazon Web Services (AWS).

What were your goals for this project?

We needed to conduct real-time analytics for millions of data streams that come through the system.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

I found some companies by searching online and gave each candidate tasks to complete. XenonStack produced the best results.

Describe the project in detail.

The first version of the product was an MVP. It had a monolithic design that was unable to scale. XenonStack helped us move the new microservices infrastructure to the AWS cloud and provided support.

What was the team composition?

We worked with two backend developers, one data scientist, and two frontend developers from XenonStack. As the CTO, I led the project from our company’s side.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Since XenonStack applied the autoscaling, we haven’t received any more error messages about unavailable resources.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

XenonStack’s method is straightforward and direct. We use Slack for communication.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

I appreciate XenonStack’s daily support for any of our requests.

Are there any areas for improvement?

The team has noticeably improved in the past few months. I am happy with the services they’re offering.