User1st is a SaaS technology company developing and delivering solutions to make the internet more accessible to those with permanent disabilities or changing abilities. The challenge of digital accessibility has come to the forefront in recent years as governments worldwide institute regulations governing how companies manage and maintain accessibility on all their digital assets and electronic information.
The User1st mission is to help organizations achieve compliance with ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) via a range of solutions that detect and correct digital accessibility errors in a semi-automated fashion. For front-end developers, User1st technology is a vital tool empowering them to meet regulatory standards in a relatively new area in which they are often lacking in support and expertise. User1st is currently in the process of developing even more advanced accessibility-correction technologies that harness machine learning so developers can use code to resolve accessibility issues in a faster, more efficient way.
User1st, a digital accessibility solution provider, was looking to migrate its data from Microsoft Azure to Amazon Web Services (AWS), in order to reduce errors and bugs in the cloud environment and create a more reliable infrastructure that also provided room for the company to scale and grow.
User1st partnered with AllCloud to plan and implement the migration. The User1st environment was already containerized with Docker, enabling a faster and smoother migration flow, while AWS DMS was used as a stepping stone between Azure and AWS to facilitate the seamless transition of data between environments.
The User1st team was deeply involved with AllCloud’s work throughout the engagement, in order to become fully acquainted with the new AWS environment, gain the ability to manage their cloud operations independently and handle future migrations in-house. This transparency and partnership between AllCloud and User1st was a major highlight of the successful migration.
The User1st was operating their cloud infrastructure in Microsoft Azure, however, the company was not satisfied with the ongoing management of the environment, or the support available to the team when issues arose. The Azure solution was not sufficient to meet the needs of User1st, with too many bugs and errors arising, causing disruption to company operations and ability to scale.
User1st began searching for a cloud solution that could provide an out-of-the-box, flexible approach to minimize errors and support nimble processes of correcting errors should they occur. In addition, the company was looking to expand its technological offerings and scale the business with a new, machine learning-based solution, and therefore would require a cloud environment that could grow with the company, and support further migrations and innovation.
The User1st team also wanted increased transparency in the setup and architecture of its cloud environment, in order to have a better understanding and increased control as it grows and expands. Therefore, the company decided to migrate their cloud environment to the more flexible AWS cloud environment, configured to meet their needs today, and expected growth in the future.
User1st turned to AllCloud for expertise in planning out the optimal AWS infrastructure for their business needs and executing the migration when the time came.
The User1st environment was already somewhat modernized with Docker containers. Having already moved from monolithic to microservices, the transition from Azure to AWS was made smoother and easier. AllCloud decided that Amazon EKS (Elastic Kubernetes Service) was the classic solution for User1st for smooth and easy orchestration of their container environments on AWS.
During migration from Azure to AWS, the AllCloud team took advantage of AWS DMS (Data Migration Services) as a go-between tool for database migration. DMS really shined during this project, as it proved to be the optimal stepping stone, from Azure to DMS and finally to Amazon RDS, reducing the transition time and effort, making it as seamless and successful as possible.
The AllCloud team developed an AWS solution based on best practices for security, performance and cost-efficiency. The complex environment comprises many assets, configured in the right way to ensure smooth cloud operations with minimal errors, and scalability to meet the company’s future needs as it grows and implements new machine learning technologies to its offerings.
After the handover of the cloud environment, the User1st team took responsibility for independent management and maintenance of AWS with assistance and support from AllCloud as needed. The company continues to work with AllCloud to finetune issues of cost efficiency and resolve remaining issues left over from their previous Azure environment.
“I was really involved in what the AllCloud team was doing on AWS as they built out our new architecture. This gave me a full overview and understanding of what’s going on in our environment and how it works. I now have full control over AWS, and know what needs to be done when issues come up. This transparency has been essential to our successful experience with AllCloud, during planning and migration, and now that we are managing our AWS cloud infrastructure largely independently.” Evgeny Khaliper, CTO, User1st