Premier Insurance Brokerage:
Mendix on AWS migration for enhanced scalability, elasticity, and security
About the Company
With more than 40 years of expertise, this brokerage stands as a distinguished leader in the U.S. wholesale insurance sector. They are renowned for their innovative approach and commitment to technological advancement and their achievements have earned it a spot among the elite Top 10 Largest P&C Wholesalers. This distinction highlights its outstanding workplace culture and its proven track record of success.
As an entirely independent, owner-operated entity, this organization prioritizes long-term strategies and values-driven service, ensuring their solutions are not only advanced but also aligned with the highest standards of quality and professionalism. With a presence in 20 offices nationwide and business operations that span all fifty states, they set industry benchmarks by blending technological innovation with a steadfast commitment to client success and employee empowerment.
Quick Facts
Headquartered in Dallas, TX
Acclaimed as a Top 10 Largest P&C Wholesaler
Independent and owner-operated since 1980
Nationwide operations across all 50 U.S. states
The Challenge:
Building a robust and agile digital ecosystem
For this company, migrating their Mendix applications to AWS was a strategic decision to build a robust and agile digital ecosystem. While the Mendix Cloud offers a robust container solution built on AWS to support most client needs, they are commoditized for the average use case which they no longer fit. The company had unique sizing, uptime, and integration requirements that could be better solved with an infrastructure they directly controlled. They required an AWS infrastructure that excelled in five critical areas:
This approach reflects the company's dedication to a digital environment that's both future-ready and efficient and secure and adaptable, setting a new standard in their industry for robust, value-driven digital infrastructure.
Required a robust, agile, digital ecosystem.
Ecosystem needed to be Scalable, Elastic, Resilient, Cost-Optimized, and Secure.
Emphasized uninterrupted service during high demand periods.
Infrastructure designed for dynamic resource adjustment.
The Solution:
Streamlining the company's AWS migration
The migration of this company's Mendix app to AWS involved using AWS Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS) and Karpenter, ensuring an automated and scalable infrastructure. Karpenter was instrumental in enhancing the scaling of Kubernetes clusters, optimizing resource allocation for smooth application scaling. Several key components, like the AWS Load Balancer Controller and ExternalDNS, significantly contributed to efficient traffic management and automated updates of DNS records. Additionally, integrating the Metrics Server and Horizontal Pod Autoscaler (HPA) was vital. The client ensured the smart use of resources and dynamically adapted the application's scale according to its usage.
Terraform automation scripts were implemented to complement these technologies for streamlined AWS infrastructure provisioning and maintenance, enhancing consistency, and reducing errors. AWS Managed Grafana was also included to bolster monitoring capabilities with real-time data visualization and insights. This robust solution architecture, tailored to the brokerage's requirements, marked a significant step towards an efficient, automated, and scalable cloud infrastructure.
Working closely with our Rapid App Development team, we pinpointed the company's specific needs and crafted a tailored, cutting-edge solution. Our approach involved upgrading their system to the advanced Long-Term Support (LTS) version of Mendix, essential for implementing the necessary features. Leveraging a multidisciplinary approach that encompasses a wide range of service offerings, with a special focus on AWS solutions, EPI-USE distinguishes itself by providing rapid, superior solutions tailored to the unique needs of our clients.
Outcomes & Benefits:
Achieving scalability and security in AWS migration
EPI-USE's expertise was instrumental in successfully migrating the Brokerage's Mendix application to AWS. This transformation has yielded a robust application that excels in scalability, elasticity, cost-efficiency, and security, fully utilizing AWS's advanced security services. The newly established AWS infrastructure is fully automated, simplifying future modifications and enhancements. Moreover, the deployment of state-of-the-art monitoring, alerting, and backup solutions has equipped the company with unparalleled performance insights and significantly improved operational efficiency.
TCO Analysis:
Key steps for the Client
To understand the most cost-effective and efficient AWS infrastructure, a detailed Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) analysis was conducted. This analysis was crucial in mapping out the financial landscape of the proposed infrastructure, ensuring that it met both performance and budgetary requirements.
1. Load testing:
Simulated real-world traffic, including peak usage, to accurately estimate resource needs for different scenarios.
2. Resource sizing:
Automated tests determined precise resource needs, including instance types and database configurations, for optimal performance.
3. Traffic scenarios:
Tested across various conditions, from daily operations to peak and surge loads, ensuring readiness for all scenarios.
4. Cost estimates:
Calculated costs for each scenario from testing and sizing data, providing the client with clear financial insights for decision-making.
These steps collectively proved that the client's AWS infrastructure was not only efficient and robust but also financially optimized for their specific needs.
Lessons Learned:
Key insights from AWS migration
The migration of the client's Mendix application to AWS yielded significant insights, particularly in WebSocket scaling and connection management. A critical aspect of the project's success involved understanding and managing the complexities of WebSocket scaling within AWS. This process was essential to ensure seamless, real-time interactions. Managing WebSocket connections was also crucial, encompassing the initiation, ongoing maintenance, and orderly closure of these connections to maintain stable and reliable communication channels.
However, scaling WebSocket services presented a major challenge, especially in ensuring compatibility with auto-scaling. The team successfully enabled auto-scaling for WebSocket services, integrating it with Horizontal Pod Autoscaling (HPA) in Kubernetes. This adaptation was vital for handling variable workloads. This project also highlighted the importance of graceful pod termination in Kubernetes. Proper termination processes were key to preventing data loss and ensuring seamless transitions during updates or scaling operations.
Additionally, employing the Flood Load Testing tool proved vital in rigorously testing the AWS environment. This tool was key in pinpointing bottlenecks, fine-tuning resource distribution, and confirming the application's capacity to manage heavier workloads effectively. The experience of identifying and resolving scalability challenges highlighted the critical need for an infrastructure that is both adaptable and robust.
Enabling auto-scaling for WebSocket services and integrating with HPA was essential.
Implementing graceful pod termination in Kubernetes prevented data loss during updates.
The Flood Load Testing tool was instrumental in identifying and addressing AWS environment bottlenecks.
About EPI-USE Services for AWS
EPI-USE Services for AWS offers robust and scalable hosting solutions, based on AWS. As a Next-Gen Managed Services Provider (MSP) we provide managed services and consulting services for AWS, including assessment, development, migration, management, and optimization, allowing our clients to focus on their core business. By providing a flexible cloud migration methodology, we tailor our migrations to each client’s unique requirements. This allows any business to move from traditional server environments to AWS quickly and efficiently, with little to no impact on existing environments.
About EPI-USE Rapid App Development:
EPI-USE and Mendix have formed a strategic partnership to offer customers cutting-edge solutions in the low-code development space. By combining EPI-USE’s deep expertise in enterprise applications and the Mendix™ powerful low-code platform, we can deliver custom, scalable solutions at lightning speed.