Case study: Maildroppa.com
Building a Scalable Web Application for Maildroppa.com
Introduction
Building a Scalable Web Application for Maildroppa – a powerful email marketing system that helps businesses grow by driving engagement and conversions. To continue scaling and serving their growing user base, the company recognized the need to migrate their application to the cloud. In collaboration with a CloudPanda’s DevOps team, they successfully deployed Maildroppa.com in Digital Ocean, a reputable and cost-effective cloud provider. By leveraging technologies like Terraform and Ansible, the team ensured scalability, high availability, and optimal performance for the application.
Choosing Digital Ocean for Scalability and Affordability
Digital Ocean emerged as the preferred choice after careful evaluation of various cloud providers. Renowned for its excellent quality and competitive pricing, Digital Ocean offered the perfect balance of features and affordability. This made it an ideal solution for Maildroppa.com’s production environment, where scalability and high availability were paramount.
Infrastructure Setup with Terraform and Ansible
The DevOps team employed Terraform and Ansible to define and deploy the infrastructure required to support Maildroppa.com. The setup included a load balancer, multiple web servers, and a robust database server. The load balancer efficiently distributed incoming traffic across the web servers, guaranteeing optimal performance even during high traffic volumes. The database server played a crucial role in storing user data and facilitating horizontal scaling by allowing the addition of more web servers as needed.
Streamlined Deployment and Monitoring
Terraform proved invaluable in defining the necessary infrastructure resources, while Ansible seamlessly configured the servers and facilitated application deployment. To ensure the system’s reliability, the team implemented comprehensive monitoring and alerting mechanisms using tools like Nagios and Grafana. This proactive approach enabled them to promptly identify and address any issues that might arise.
Benefits of Deployment in Digital Ocean
The decision to deploy Maildroppa.com in Digital Ocean, alongside the utilization of Terraform and Ansible, delivered several notable advantages. Firstly, it ensured high availability and scalability, enabling the company to handle the increasing demands of their user base with ease. Additionally, this strategic move resulted in significant cost savings for Maildroppa.com, optimizing their overall operational expenses. The expertise of the DevOps team in managing cloud infrastructure and leveraging automation allowed Maildroppa.com to focus on their core business of driving engagement and growth for their clients.
Technologies Utilized
Digital Ocean
Digital Ocean, chosen for its remarkable balance between features and prices, served as the production environment for Maildroppa.com. The high availability support provided by Digital Ocean ensured reliable and uninterrupted service for the application.
Oracle Cloud
To meet specific client requirements, the DevOps team deployed a staging environment in Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI). Their flexibility and familiarity with multiple cloud providers facilitated the seamless fulfillment of this request. Notably, the infrastructure in OCI was automatically frozen during periods of inactivity, resulting in significant cost savings.
Docker
Employing a microservices architecture, the entire Maildroppa.com project was converted into Docker images. This approach facilitated effortless deployment across multi-cloud environments. Additionally, Traefik served as a reliable proxy for local development, further enhancing the development workflow.
GitLab
With a focus on continuous integration and delivery, each microservice implemented its own build and test pipelines. Docker images, the artifacts of the build process, were stored in GitLab’s registry. The deployment pipelines seamlessly propagated appropriate tags to the staging and production environments, ensuring smooth and reliable releases.
In conclusion, the deployment of Maildroppa.com in Digital Ocean using Terraform and Ansible has empowered the company to scale effectively and cater to their expanding user base. The expertise of the DevOps team, coupled with the robust capabilities of Digital Ocean, has fostered confidence in the system’s scalability, high availability, and cost efficiency. By allowing Maildroppa.com to concentrate on driving engagement and growth, this strategic deployment has laid the foundation for continued success in the email marketing landscape.