orderbird learns to fly - with PCG

orderbird.com was founded in 2011, being the provider of the award-winning iPad POS system for restaurants. The orderbird AG was founded in 2011. With more than 6,500 customers - restaurants, cafes, bars, clubs, ice cream shops and beer gardens - in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, orderbird is regarded among the best POS applications in the restaurant business.

Orderbird is a leading provider of iPad POS (Point of Sale) systems. Their product — a customized WiFi cash register system — is aimed at simplifying and improving the reporting functions of the various players in the hospitality and catering industries. However, on its own, orderbird still couldn’t answer the need for a better scaled IT infrastructure among restaurants, cafés, bars and clubs throughout Europe due to the growing volume of visitors and diners. PCG came along and made a crucial contribution as it assisted Orderbird to migrate from an on-premise data center to into the AWS (Amazon Web Services) cloud.

In general, the traditional data centers providers are limited in their ability to grow and respond to the rapidly-changing business needs. They are the target of the majority of DDoS attacks and for a company aiming to achieve scalability, cost-efficiency and fastest possible response time a migration to the cloud is a must.

In this particular case, the existing deployment processes as well as server and configuration management were not, or only partially, automated (causing occasionally server down-times). Furthermore, with the current solution not enough means had been taken to ensure the cyber security and restoration of the production systems and to efficiently manage developers’ and system administrators’ access rights.

After successfully completing the proof-of-concept phase, we adhered to the predefined deadlines, providing orderbird with a fully migrated IT landscape: from a traditional data center to a state-of-the-art of cloud computing. We isolated the testing, stage and production environments and ringed them with restrictive firewall, turning them into separate VPCs (Amazon Virtual Private Clouds). This was followed by continuous integration and introduction of zero-downtime deployment processes: all the services had been converted into load-based auto-scaling. Lastly, before the final deployment, the guiding safety configuration has been thoroughly revised and prepared for an audit.

Our Contribution

For a fully successful migration, we used several solutions. With a help of Packer we implemented Amazon Machine Image (AMI) based deployment process. Jenkins was used for managing continuous integration builds and delivery pipelines. All AWS infrastructure elements were supported by Terraform.

To ensure a smooth handover to the orderbird’s DevOps team, PCG offered an 24/7 on-call rotation service.

By relocating to AWS, orderbird is now much more flexible in managing the company’s growing needs. Also, the new solution enables dynamic load management. It can respond quicker and more efficiently to DDoS attacks and guarantee full availability and highest quality of orderbird’s services.

The Upshot

Migration of a running system is always challenging. Downtimes are not tolerable (or only to a limited extent, at best). Startups depend on rapid growth in order to establish themselves in the market. For this reason, they cannot afford to have any downtimes, which can literally put and end to their business. By using a market leader in cloud computing combined with professional, full-service support, success is guaranteed.

Public Cloud Group (PCG) supports companies in their digital transformation through the use of public cloud solutions.

With a product portfolio designed to accompany organisations of all sizes in their cloud journey and competence that is a synonym for highly qualified staff that clients and partners like to work with, PCG is positioned as a reliable and trustworthy partner for the hyperscalers, relevant and with repeatedly validated competence and credibility.

We have the highest partnership status with the three relevant hyperscalers: Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google, and Microsoft. As experienced providers, we advise our customers independently with cloud implementation, application development, and managed services.