RIBA wanted to maximise the speed and performance of its website. The main objective of this project was to accelerate response times and eliminate downtime, to effectively sustain high-profile event traffic and ensure a positive user experience.

Through a series of in-depth discovery sessions, DEPT® helped RIBA to define its challenges, priorities and KPIs. Paint points were discussed, and addressing inconsistencies across RIBA’s cloud environments and implementing software and infrastructure best practices were high on the list to tackle. 

Understanding the technical barriers that were preventing RIBA from having a well-architected, scalable and high-performing site, we upgraded RIBA to a more dynamic Sitecore XP 10 solution; laying the foundations for us to implement a secure and scalable DevOps management framework to facilitate zero downtime deployments.

RIBA’s existing solution was built on the AWS cloud platform and did not adhere to Sitecore’s best practices. To achieve standardisation within the organisation, we built RIBA’s infrastructure within Azure.

With RIBA keen to embrace Infrastructure as Code (IaC), we utilised Terraform as the tool to build, change, and version infrastructure safely and efficiently. This allowed RIBA to keep Terraform configurations DRY (‘Don’t Repeat Yourself’), while working with multiple modules and remote states. Another benefit is that Terraform is cloud agnostic and works seamlessly with major cloud hosting providers including AWS, Azure and Google Cloud Platform.

Ansible and Packer were chosen to manage all images and configurations for VPN into the solution as well as SOLR configuration, which were tightly integrated with Terraform. 

Azure DevOps was a necessity for coordinating Sitecore Docker builds for planning and building environments with Terraform. Its suite of Repos, Boards, Wiki, Pipelines and Artifacts provides RIBA with a one-stop solution for continuous integration, delivery workflows, and solution management.

One of RIBA’s main pain points with its existing solution was the inconsistencies between environments. Our experts opted for Kubernetes to facilitate a complete separation of environments. This enabled the containerisation of the server setup and the delivery of a Sitecore solution that allows the team to have complete control of the build environment while minimising the risk of inconsistency. 

Through this Kubernetes approach, DEPT® was able to rebuild entire technical environments programmatically using code in a matter of seconds. It also prepares RIBA for the future, as it lends itself to a microservice-based architecture, which Sitecore is steadily moving towards, as well as increasing efficiency by simplifying developer onboarding.

We used AKS and Helm to manage the containers, while Kubernetes automated the deployment, scaling and management of RIBA’s containerised applications, enabling the team to take advantage of automated rollouts and rollbacks, horizontal scaling, secret and configuration management. RIBA can now run Kubernetes from anywhere while being future cloud agnostic. Adhering to best practices, SOLR, Redis and SQL clusters were built outside of Kubernetes to maximise stability and keep environments in line.

Following rigorous, external penetration and load testing, DEPT® and RIBA identified and alleviated any existing performance issues before going live. After this fine-tuning, the Sitecore upgrade and DevOps improvements have generated incredible results for RIBA, with every objective and KPI being met or exceeded: 

• Average website response time is down 87% from 1.01 seconds to 127 milliseconds
• Maximum response times are down 92% from 52.4 seconds to 4.1 seconds
• Average throughput has increased almost 8x from 131 KB/sec to 1,036 KB/sec
• RIBA successfully hosted the 2021 Stirling Prize Awards with no downtime, while handling more traffic than ever before.

While the immediate threat of the COVID-19 pandemic is over, it has left multiple economies in heavy debt. And subsequent global issues, such as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, have resulted in a downturn of the global economy. In a July update, the World Economic Outlook predicted global growth to slow from 6.1% last year to 3.2% in 2022, and 2.9% in 2023. 

With inflation reaching record levels, significant energy price increases and the rising cost of household items, consumers across the world face a cost of living crisis. And with a less than temporary reduction in household spending power, businesses can soon expect to see the impact on their bottom line. 

We know from experience that in periods of economic uncertainty, digital projects are often canned or stalled. But during times of crisis, the opportunity for businesses to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of budgets – as well as the overall value of their technology investments – is actually huge. 

We’ve outlined two of the best, easiest and efficient ways to do this, as well as the steps to take to get these types of projects over the line.

Cloud software is integral to future-ready business. So if you haven’t already migrated to the cloud, now is most certainly the time. 
The focus needs to be on developing a scalable solution to create an agile framework that enables your business to adapt as your market develops and disrupts.

Not only will it go a long way to reducing the impact of rising energy costs, but connecting your teams through the right cloud-based software enables them to be more agile and harmoniously sing from the same sheet. 

The key benefits of moving to the cloud are threefold. Geo-redundancy is number one, meaning that users in one market access the infrastructure in that location, and if one region goes down users are automatically routed to the other, forming the backbone of your disaster recovery strategy. 

It also offers cost saving benefits, as similarly to mobile phones, there are fixed contracts or ‘pay as you go’ options available. A ‘pay as you go’ serverless approach allows businesses to only pay when the service is used, rather than paying to have a server running 24/7 in a physical location. 

And finally, it provides greater flexibility as businesses can increase capacity when expecting higher traffic volumes, such as around planned sales, campaign or product launches. Plus, once a business understands their traffic volumes through the available data, they can fix their contract at a lower cost to scale capacity in line with business demand throughout the year.

DEPT® has a cloud first approach, and a cloud agnostic mindset. We are able to deliver consultants and engineers that can help you take your cloud platform hygiene to the next level to maximise efficiency. 

Take Triumph Motorcycles as an example. We conducted a full review of its AWS setup, modernised old approaches, optimised configurations and removed unused components to facilitate a 30% reduction of its cloud hosting spend.

It might be easy for an established tech leader to see the value in these suggested approaches. But getting said projects over the line can sometimes be a struggle with final decision makers, as they often require short-term investment before the long-term benefits can be reaped. 

There are two distinct sides of the fence when it comes to making investments during global crises. 

Frustratingly, the instinctive (and often more popular) reaction is to cut costs by postponing projects, reducing ‘non-essential’ spend on digital transformation, and scaling back headcount in order to bunker down and weather the storm. 

But in reality, recessions and economic crises tend to be short lived, and are often succeeded by longer periods of growth. And businesses that seek out ways to maximise their existing investments (or continue to make new investments) can drive growth while competitors are cutting back.

During the 2009 financial crisis, according to McKinsey, organisations that maintained their innovation focus outperformed competitors by more than 30% and continued to grow over the subsequent three to five years.
Acting fast is imperative. The most successful technology leaders won’t wait for a confirmed recession to implement solutions, they will take immediate action to boost stability, efficiency and speed that is necessary for business resilience in this economic climate.