The challenge
Anything Agency wanted to move a client to a cloud-based solution but after researching it, the team realised that the cloud setup was more complex than they had imagined. The agency decided that they didn’t want to be responsible for updating and maintaining servers, instead it would be more beneficial to opt for a fully managed cloud solution.
The tech solution
ClearCloud offered Anything Agency all it needed and more, with fully managed support for Amazon Web Services (AWS). ClearCloud built a highly available and secure hosting environment with support on hand 24/7/365, allowing Anything Agency to focus on innovation rather than infrastructure. After migrating one of it’s clients to the cloud, Anything Agency saw a 100% uplift in traffic to the website with zero downtime.
ClearCloud supports Anything in Cloud move
Anything Agency is a creative digital agency that likes to blend bold creative design with bespoke tech solutions. From their studio in Manchester, the team works with clients of all different sizes and sectors, including Quorn Foods and Netmums, building futureproof websites, helping their clients to stay competitive and ahead of the curve.
When Anything Agency wanted to move a client to a cloud-based solution they soon realised that the cloud setup was more complex than they had imagined. The agency decided it didn’t want to be responsible for updating and maintaining servers in-house and instead agreed it would be more beneficial to opt for a fully-managed cloud solution.
ClearCloud was able to offer everything the agency needed and more. Anything Agency co-founder Jono Brain said: “The team at ClearCloud came up with a technical plan for us which was really impressive. The solution that they suggested is really cutting edge. It feels like we were able to have the kind of setup that big companies are managing to utilise in the cloud, without investing heavily for it. They really took it to another level.”
Anything Agency was working with a client that needed scalability to cope with spikes in traffic but also the ability to scale down and manage costs when traffic to the site reduced. Jono said: “The migration process was a really smooth and painless experience. ClearCloud are like an extension of our own team and their engineers were able to seamlessly slot into our processes, we even use the same project management tools!
“The website has now been live for twelve months and traffic to the site has doubled in that time. It all works as it should, with no downtime. The client is incredibly happy with the AWS solution. The scalability means they’re not paying over the odds for a product when the site isn’t busy, which is a great cost saving.
“The support we receive from the engineers at ClearCloud is second to none. We have a dedicated team who really understand our business and the needs of our clients. This allows them to design and build the right environment but they never rest on their laurels, they are always looking to improve and innovate and take it to the next level. That level of service allows our clients to take their businesses to the next level.”
Anything Agency is now preparing to move to a larger office and is planning expand its team. Jono said: “This was our first experience with ClearCloud and AWS technology, but we are converts. We design largescale futureproof sites that grow with the client. Every project we do from now on will be cloud-based and fully managed, which is where ClearCloud comes in.
“ClearCloud brings a level of technical expertise to a project and, in doing so, our client got something far greater than we could have produced in-house or with a dedicated server.”
AWS Under the Bonnet
The AWS deployment is orchestrated using CloudFormation (IaC) across 3 availability zones within a single region. We use multiple stateless EC2 autoscaling groups to meet traffic demand, where possible leveraging CloudFront for global static and dynamic content distribution.
In parallel we also leverage EKS to service stateless containerised workloads with ECR for storage and distribution for container images.
In line with the Well-Architected framework, application state is stored within multiple Arora clusters (PostgreSQL and MySQL compatible). We also offload the storage of persistent static images to S3 utilising serverless image resizer via a combination of API gateway and node JS lambda functions.
For application notifications we utilise AWS SES (simple email service) to improve the deliverability of transactional emails. We guarantee sender reputation by monitoring bounce backs and spam reports using a combination of AWS SQS and serverless reputation dashboard.
