WHY AWS CLOUD SERVICES ARE AN IMPORTANT PLATFORM FOR THE INVOLVE! ADVERTISING AGENCY

The Involve! advertising agency established itself under its own auspices on Amazon Web Services (AWS) in 2016, with the aim of gaining access to a forward-looking platform for application development and service delivery. Among other things, the platform was used to set up websites through collaboration between internal developers and international partners.

With increased volume and an ever-growing number of advanced, operationally controlled deliveries 24/7, the AWS environment has become a key element of Involve’s business. The credibility the platform provides is also important when marketing the company’s services to new customers.

The challenge

After two years of use, Involve saw the need to take the developer environment (dev), security and operations (ops) a step further. From web development, the business had been moving towards an increasingly comprehensive design and the development of mission-critical cloud solutions. The load and vulnerability were particularly high on evenings and weekends. In order to handle this, the advertising agency had to either increase its operational competence internally (through staffing) or start looking for external partnerships.

Involve also wanted to simplify its operations and facilitate better interaction between development resources in Norway and abroad. The company also saw a need for improved scalability, quality control, security, monitoring and standby personnel 24/7, as well as optimization of its cost structure.

Why Amazon Web Services and Basefarm?

As a cloud provider, Amazon Web Services covers a wide range of customer needs. Involve wanted an experienced partner that could contribute to an optimal service setup and support the company throughout its cloud journey. Involve was looking for an accredited partner (such as an AWS Managed Service Partner), solid customer references and expertise well beyond their own. Their needs applied to existing customer solutions, but the company also wanted to sell to small and large customers with a credible cloud platform as part of the offer.

Initially, Involve was looking for a partner that could be responsible for 24/7 monitoring and operations. This falls within the Basefarm Guided Operations and Frontline Operations service concepts. However, Basefarm proposed to start out with an on-demand analysis performed by the Basefarm Advisory Services team. The analysis covered Involve’s existing AWS architecture, service needs, security, and cost levels.

Involve got what the company wanted. They went from an okay AWS setup to a solution based on the AWS Well-Architected Framework. Guaranteed uptime with full redundancy, GDPR compliance and performance improvements are keywords describing the journey. Services such as AWS ECS Fargate (container hosting) and Amazon Aurora Serverless (database) became key elements. Supporting services include the AWS S3 and AWS EFS file services. Amazon CloudFront provides a content delivery network (CDN) with low response times for users, no matter where in the world they are.

Together with Involve, Basefarm also systemized a DevOps environment with a streamlined value chain across tasks and countries. The systemization includes build, deployment, monitoring, log management and improved change management. Basefarm also helped adapt applications to the new DevOps platform.

Benefits

Basefarm has used its experience from many years of working with AWS cloud services. The framework is built with standardized Terraform-based Infrastructure as Code (IaC) modules. Thus, the deployment of AWS services and user account management in the high capacity solution are controlled by code, like Involve wanted. Just like all Basefarm customers, Involve was able to benefit from a large code repository that could be quickly and affordably adapted to new tasks.

Involve has gained stable operations in accordance with its goal of minimal operational complexity and improved security. The solution is set up with complete transparency. Involve thus has full insight and can even go in and make adjustments themselves. The DevOps environment allows for deployment and rollbacks during office hours, all without operational disruptions. The automatic up- and downscaling features of AWS are still utilized. Monitoring is done with Datadog and other tools that help developers analyze and improve the application processes.

About Involve

As an advertising agency, Involve’s areas of expertise cover communications, advertising, design, PR, social media, content marketing, profile articles, graphic services and digital services. This family-owned Norwegian agency with 44 employees is part of both Nordic PR Partners and Havas, which are among the world’s largest advertising networks. Involve leads international developer teams in major projects that require 360O expertise in communications, serving everything from medium-sized businesses to customers operating in many countries. Øyvind Nedrelid, Managing Director of the advertising agency, was involved in the selection of Basefarm as a partner. He says, “Communication services and operation of the digital solutions we provide in those contexts must work seamlessly at all levels. With Basefarm as a partner, together we can deliver a product that ensures optimal delivery and a good user experience for our customers’ customers.” Click here to learn more about Involve’s services: www.involve.no

About Basefarm

Basefarm is a European managed service provider that creates market leaders by integrating the key competencies for digital transformation – big data, cloud services and information security, into one service offering. The company provides strategic advice, architecture and implementation together with management and hosting of solutions on several different cloud platforms. The company was founded in 2000 in the Nordic region and today there are 760 leading engineers and advisors working in Norway, Sweden, the Netherlands, Germany and Austria.

Basefarm was ranked highest in the IT infrastructure and application management category in Radar’s major customer survey in 2019 and 2018, and in Whitelane’s IT Outsourcing study Nordics 2018, approved by Gartner as Cool Vendor supplier in the European Cloud Computing Market 2015 for our unique methodology in application management. The unbelievable Machine Company *um, part of Basefarm, was named innovator of the year for 2018 by the German business magazine eins Wissen and Data Analytics. Follow us on Linkedin, Twitter and our blogs.

In August 2018 Basefarm was acquired by the Orange Group to reinforce the cloud expertise of its enterprise division Orange Business Services.