A Case Study on Simplification of Database Management, Achieving 99.99% Uptime on AWS

Softech ERP Solutions., an India–based software-as-a-service startup dubbed the “operating system for business operations,” offers companies a no-code, enterprise-grade solution that simplifies the orchestration of complex business processes. To support this solution, Softech needed a reliable way to run, manage, and scale open-source MySQL. Built entirely on the cloud, Softech ERP Solutions Pvt. Ltd. was experiencing problems with its original cloud service provider. The service was difficult to manage and required too much time from its small development team, which was busy safely scaling the database, protecting the network, and adding new product features.

Softech was using Redis for caching to improve performance, but it would frequently crash when it reached peak load. Restoring Redis was challenging as the standby server in the cloud service didn’t initiate a failover, halting database updates and resulting in data loss. So the availability and reliability of Softech’s product suffered. “Our customers trust us to be available. If our database is down, Softech’s application cannot run—it’s the heart of our company,” says Afik Udi, senior manager of production and infrastructure at Softech ERP Solutions.

In 2023, Softech migrated to Amazon Web Services (AWS) with the help of Infiflex team and began using Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS) for MySQL, which enabled it to set up, operate, and scale its database on the cloud.

Addressing Reliability, Availability, and Scalability Issues

Infiflex Technologies Pvt. Ltd. suggested the option to migrate to a cloud service that would lessen the burden of management on its developers. Infiflex has decided to use Amazon RDS for MySQL, enabling it to manage quick MySQL deployments in the cloud with cost efficient and resizable hardware capacity. The managed service would also provide high quality and accessible support documentation and direct support from the Infiflex team of experts. To facilitate rapid and secure scalability, Amazon RDS offers the ability to create read replicas, a feature that was unavailable in the previous cloud solution.

Transitioning to Managed MySQL on Amazon RDS and Redis with Amazon ElastiCache

Infiflex has migrated Softech’s on-premise database to Amazon RDS for MySQL in 2023. With support from Infiflex, Softech completed the migration in just 8 days, and the process was smooth and painless. After the development team connected to the Amazon RDS database, downtime was nearly eliminated. The team now relies on Amazon RDS as its primary data storage, which currently holds 750 GB of data. “All the data that drives the engine at Softech is inside Amazon RDS,” explains the customer. “We rely heavily on the performance of our database and the stability of the service housing it. And we’re fully confident in AWS.”

Infiflex has suggested the use of Amazon ElastiCache, which enables developers to seamlessly set up, run, and scale popular open-source-compatible in-memory data stores in the cloud. Using Amazon ElastiCache for Redis, which combines the speed, simplicity, and versatility of open source Redis with manageability, security, and scalability from AWS, Softech ERP Solutions Pvt. Ltd. can achieve the stability and reliability it needs. “Following the migration, Redis has outperformed our previous cloud setup and has maintained data integrity," the customer states. Infiflex is using a managed Kubernetes cluster on Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (Amazon EKS) for Softech. Amazon EKS gives developers the flexibility to start, run, and scale Kubernetes applications in the AWS Cloud or on premises, and it supports Softech by freeing its development team from managing and deploying Kubernetes servers.

Since Infilex migrated their existing database to Amazon RDS, Softech has seen an increase in availability. Data integration uptime improved from an average of 99.76 percent prior to the migration to 99.94 percent afterward. The uptime of its web applications increased from 77.96 percent to 99.99 percent. Softech can also safely and quickly scale as needed, using Amazon RDS Read Replicas and Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2), a web service that provides secure and resizable compute capacity in the cloud. The whole setup has been done by Infiflex. Leveraging Amazon EC2 Spot Instances, the company benefits from unused EC2 capacity at discounts of up to 90%, enabling rapid scaling when needed. Scalability became notably important when some Softech’s customers faced disruptions during emergency situations. “We had a travel-related company receiving thousands of support tickets when customers began canceling travel,”. “We facilitated the significant surge in traffic, and managing this without AWS's scaling capabilities would have posed much greater difficulties.”

Softech’s production environment is operating at its largest size to date, peaking at 9 million rows per second and 120 million requests daily to Amazon RDS. Yet the Infilex team has managed to save 15 percent on costs since the move. Because Softech is devoting limited resources for running the infrastructure, self-managing the database isn’t feasible. And now that Softechis using managed services on AWS, self-managing isn’t necessary because everything is set up, deployed, and managed by Infiflex including timely support.

Benefits of AWS

• Increased uptime of web applications to 99.99%
• Increased uptime of data integrations to 99.94%
• Saved 15% on costs by migrating to AWS
• Increased staff productivity by using managed services
• Improved scalability
• Improved reliability
• Improved performance