Marketplace
Infrastructure

Modern ecommerce marketplaces are extremely popular, user-packed solutions that are so demanded for the ultimate convenience of bridging the gap between independent vendors and regular online shoppers.

And in order for a marketplace to decently stand the competition today, it needs a sturdy underlying software infrastructure. With the project at hand, we had to work with the extensive software powers of Magento, which granted us lots of infrastructural performance and flexibility potential.

The course of the project as a whole was very diverse, including at different stages integration of DevOps techniques with the client’s Magento-powered ecommerce workflow, deployment of cluster infrastructure in MS Azure, automation of project clusters’ deployment processes, and more.

Challenge

The client approached us with a successfully running Azerbaijan-based marketplace that needed proper scaling for extension outside the local market and over the international arena (namely, over other Asian countries).

The global task was to set up a failsafe marketplace infrastructure with opportunities for flexible scaling in high-load traffic conditions. For this, we set out to create a project architecture from scratch, integrate DevOps approaches with the workflow of backend and frontend development teams, and more.

Going more in-depth, we needed to leverage the powers of Magento to automate deployments at the smallest downtime, work with next to no clear documentation, and absolutely no previous DevOps input for more efficient cluster support, resource management, and automated deployments/updates on the customer side.

This also posed a big task to migrate the internal infrastructure of the project and optimize the cloud management budget.

Work agenda

Client:

E-commerce project

Location:

Team:

1 Lead DevOps + 1 Senior DevOps Engineer

Project Timeframe:

Consulting services and support have been provided since July 2021

Project goal:

Plan out architecture and deploy a virtual environment in MS Azure;

Minimize vendor dependence and implement open-source solutions

Configure CI/CD for fast clusters deployment for new customers

Move an on-premise development project to the cloud dev environment;

Integrate with the ERP and online banking solutions;

Provide a DevOps team that is a universal helper for the client’s dev team

Stack of tasks

Infrastructure development and optimization, which included:

Setting up dev kits with a spot node;

Configuring clusters via a Flux tool;

Configuring all infrastructure components;

Restoring development DB;

Modifying php.env for multi-environment (dev/prod) and deployment manifest;

Deploying Magento development;

Setting up the frontend application;

Integration frontend and with backend;

Setting up MinIO as media storage

Deployment of new dev/prod Kubernetes clusters in the existing Azure project;

Integration of project DevOps fine-tuning approaches;

Implementation of load testing via Jmeter server;

Configuration of autoscaling for Magento;

Configuration of health checks for Magento;

CI/CD automation via Azure DevOps and Flux;

Support of all project infrastructure development and maintenance processes

Client requirements

To provide a universal DevOps assistance and consulting team;
To standardize product deployment processes;
To conduct fast onboarding for dev teams and SDLS projects;
To boost the efficiency of resource utilization and infrastructure costs management;
To centralize access rights management and optimize project security;
To employ the infrastructure-as-code approach without vendor lock-in

Solution

In the course of the project, the whole marketplace infrastructure was rehauled in order to identify, recommend, and implement a set of optimizations that streamlines the dev team workflow and reinforces the overall sturdiness and performance of the system. Currently, we continue assisting and optimizing crucial internal project processes to achieve more software smoothness

How we did it

The project was kicked off with a detailed study of project failproofness requirements to see where we can offer better solutions infrastructure-wise

The initial technical task was to dockerize the project’s backend and frontend pieces

Then, we configured the server for gathering cluster metrics and set up its thorough monitoring via dashboards with respective metrics and a configured logging system

After that, we went on to deploy a Kubernetes cluster in MS Azure and set up third-party infrastructure services like Redis, ElasticSearch, etc. We also configured a Kubernetes-native service for storing and processing media data, adapting Magento to interact with this solution along with the client’s dev team

We employed a GitOps approach to automate CI/CD processes, split up assembly and deployment processes, implemented code version management via Azure DevOps, and configured cluster deployment via Flux

After we successfully deployed the test version of the application and ERP/banking integration configurations, we conducted load testing and implemented basic configuration of tools for infrastructure autoscaling

Among other crucial tasks was also configuration of additional clusters and deployments for different project localizations

Continuing testing, a bunch of solutions for stress testing was also set up in Azure with the testing-on-demand opportunity

We continue maintaining internal development processes and assisting developers

DevOps tech stack

Containers & Cloud Providers

MS Azure

KontaktHome - Complex Deployment of a Sturdy Marketplace Infrastructure

Docker

AKS

CI/CD

Bitbucket

Azure DevOps

Flux

Database

MongoDB

Monitoring & Logging

Prometheus+
Grafana

ELK

Services

Terraform

MinIO

Redis

Varnish

Elasticsearch

Results

Our ultimate task was to grant the client a consistent DevOps input and optimize the project on the internal level in order to enable more efficient and smoother scaling while making the client’s dev team’s life easier and guaranteeing top-notch performance among end users.

And this is what we ultimately achieved via a firm grasp on professional, individually-tailored DevOps – in the long run, technical DevOps work and consulting reduced the internal infrastructure costs by 40%.

We also automated tons of cumbersome manual tasks and implemented SLA that enables reliable tech team assistance and regular project monitoring to keep things top-notch long-term

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Dmitry Vishnyov | Chief Business Development Officer

I am an IT professional with over 10 years of experience. My career trajectory is closely tied to strategic business development, sales expansion, and the structuring of marketing strategies.

Throughout my journey, I have successfully executed and applied numerous strategic approaches that have driven business growth and fortified competitive positions. An integral part of my experience lies in effective business process management, which, in turn, facilitated the adept coordination of cross-functional teams and the attainment of remarkable outcomes.

I take pride in my contributions to the IT sector’s advancement and look forward to exchanging experiences and ideas with professionals who share my passion for innovation and success.

Marketplace Infrastructure