Groupon, the multinational company that brings potential customers and local businesses together with daily deals, chose for CloudVPS in order to migrate its services to a flexible cloud platform. To the great satisfaction of all the parties involved*.

What does Groupon do?

Since November 2008, Groupon has been offering daily deals on the best things to do, eat or buy. They now do this in 48 countries and the number keeps on growing. Groupon employs around 10,000 people, working at its Headquarters in Chicago, a growing office in Palo Alto (California) plus in local markets in North America and around the world. The company’s philosophy is simple: treat the customer as you would like to be treated yourself. This of course calls for rapid service and response times, as many millions of people look at these offers each day.

The Challenge: A flexible cloud with increased capacity

Partners and customers use a CRM system to manage the Groupon deals they have offered or purchased. In the Benelux this CRM software was designed by Neacon and optimized by SupportDesk. This is an important system, that has already processed more than five million orders by more than a million customers. One of the improvements that Groupon still needed to implement was a migration to a fast and flexible cloud platform. The solution that they had used up to that point did not offer sufficient flexibility or capacity. Groupon also felt that there was significant room for improvement in the levels of service and support that their then current partner was offering.

“We were chosen as their cloud provider for this project because multiple tests had shown that CloudVPS offered good performance and support. Groupon had initially ordered products from various different providers anonymously in order to make a fair assessment of both performance and support. In setting up the required infrastructure we faced a major challenge, as external circumstances meant that the system’s migration had to be carried out in just a few days. We are proud to be able to say that we set up a complex environment in a single day, meaning the migration could be carried out quickly and with minimal downtime,” explained Lennard Zwart, Managing Director of CloudVPS.

Collaboration with SupportDesk and Neacon

The configuration was done in collaboration with SupportDesk. This is a partner that CloudVPS works with regularly to optimize important sites and applications. Many improvements were implemented at this stage. For the web server, Apache was replaced with nginx, an open source, high performance HTTP server. Using PHP-FPM, web server processes were also separated from the application-related processes, which helped to increase performance further. The MySQL configuration on the database servers was also optimized.

Neacon subsequently performed the migration in under three days. CloudVPS made its engineers available at all times throughout the process in order to help with any problems. In the end the total downtime was limited to a single hour on Easter Sunday.

Speed and flexibility

The migration went smoothly and all the parties involved are satisfied with the quick and professional way this complex process was executed. Since Groupon’s CRM cluster moved to CloudVPS, its pages now load 3 to 4 times faster. The daily occurrence of unavailability during peak-times is a thing of the past.

Joris Vanderlinden, Groupon Benelux Project Manager says of the process: “Since the Groupon CRM cluster moved to CloudVPS, the system has become noticeably faster and more flexible, which has directly resulted in an improved service for our customers. CloudVPS is also a very proactive partner for our engineers and the external parties involved to work with.”

The future

The new cluster is now significantly faster and more stable than the previous solution, but the developments don’t stop there. We have now created a stable base on which to build further improvements. Extra redundancy will be built into the system and message queueing will be included in the cluster, probably using Redis. Message queueing allows activities to be processed whenever a specific server or service has time to do so. This makes it harder for servers or services to become overloaded and therefore makes them more stable. Redis is a key-value store, meaning data can be easily stored until it needs to be used.

== Parties involved ==

Groupon

Since November 2008, Groupon has been offering daily deals on the best things to do, eat or buy. They now do this in 48 countries and the number keeps on growing. Groupon employs around 10,000 people, working at its Headquarters in Chicago, a growing office in Palo Alto (California) plus in local markets in North America and regional offices in Europe, Latin America and around the world. The company’s philosophy is simple: treat the customer as you would like to be treated yourself. http://www.groupon.com

CloudVPS

CloudVPS is one of the top cloud providers in the Netherlands. Its network is spread across three Class A data centres and serves a range of demanding, high profile clients. CloudVPS has a large public cloud providing users with flexible capacity. A large number of private clouds and customized clusters have also been implemented. CloudVPS leads the pack in cloud-related certification and open source cloud technologies such as Open Stack. http://www.cloudvps.com

Neacon

Neacon makes made-to-measure software, guided at all times by the business procedures that the company aims to achieve. Neacon first looks at the existing procedures and formulates a strategy on that basis: the process is mapped out, interdependences flagged, and whenever possible the return on investment is calculated. Neacon is convinced that automation only makes sense if it is beneficial to the efficiency of operations and makes employees’ work easier. This approach has been seen to work particularly well with companies that have complex processes in logistics and other areas. http://www.neacon.eu (Dutch)

SupportDesk B.V.

SupportDesk BV provides professional support for the Magento and Joomla! platforms. They use standardisation and consolidated workflows to help clients support, maintain, and optimize their Magento webshop or Joomla! website. SupportDesk also offers a lot of Magento and Joomla!-related training. In addition to their specialism in Magento and Joomla!, they can also provide bespoke advice on complex set-ups. SupportDesk is the ideal partner for website owners, system administrators, web hosts, web designers and programmers. http://www.supportdesk.nu (Dutch)

We are working hard on our new OpenStack based cloud platform. OpenStack will allow us to offer you a host of new products and functionalities. In order to allow our customers to control all of this we are currently building an easy web-interface for our OpenStack offering. We believe the standard OpenStack interface, called Horizon, does not yet offer the functionality and ease of use our customers deserve.

In order to give you an impression of this new interface our developers have produced a cool preview. It shows how easy it will be to create and manage servers, snapshots, images and disk volumes.

We will keep you up to date with respect to our OpenStack project. We expect to start beta testing shortly after the summer.

PW Webdevelopement's first project with the CloudVPS Object Store was a web application for the distribution and modification of price cards for airport shops in different international airports. PW Webdevelopment has been using an object store to store media files of their applications for a couple of years now.

Peter Wiggers, founder of PW Webdevelopment: “The biggest advantages of using an object store for the meda files are scalability and the high level of built-in redundancy. The extra security compared to maintaining a separate file server also plays its part.”.

The media files related to this application were placed on Amazon S3 in the past. PW Webdevelopment recently decided to move their data to the CloudVPS Object Store, however.

Peter Wiggers: “Our customers have reported that the fact that the data is stored in the Netherlands is a big advantage. In the first place they have experienced a significant improvement in performance. Secondly, the larger degree of privacy protection is also perceived as very important.”.

The Application

Within the application pre-designed price cards are stored in the object store. These can be downloaded, adapted and printed by a large number of airport shops. The price cards are subsequently placed on shelves and display furniture.

The application is written in Python and uses the Django framework. The Django module that takes care of the connection with the object store is django-storages, which supports the S3 API. Because the CloudVPS Object Store emulates the S3 API, almost no code had to be adjusted.

Implementation CloudVPS Object Store S3 Emulation

The below instructions assume that a CloudVPS Object Store is available and that a container has been created in the account. We also asume that a S3-token has been generated in the CloudVPS Interface.

In order to integrate the CloudVPS Object Store in an existing Django web application, the following packages are required:

• boto
• python-dateutil (noodzakelijk voor collectstatic)
• django-storages

The first two can be installed from PyPl's repositories, but this is not recommended for django-storages. In the version on PyPl the possibility to configure a custom host is not yet possible. Use Bitbucket to install the latest version:

pip install -e hg+https://bitbucket.org/david/django-storages#egg=storages

And add 'storages' to the INSTALLED_APPS tuple in the Django settings.

A large advantage of the CloudVPS Object Store is that it is largely S3 compatible. That is why the built in S3 libraries of boto and django-storages can be used and why it is easy to connect existing apps to the object store. Open the setting.py (or similar) and add the configuration below:

DEFAULT_FILE_STORAGE = 'storages.backends.s3boto.S3BotoStorage'
STATICFILES_STORAGE = 'storages.backends.s3boto.S3BotoStorage'
AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID = '{input_objectstore_access_token}'
AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY = '{input_objectstore_secret}'
AWS_STORAGE_BUCKET_NAME = '{input_objectstore_containernaam}'
AWS_S3_HOST = '{input_objectstore_id}.objectstore.eu'
AWS_S3_CUSTOM_DOMAIN = "%s/%s" % (AWS_S3_HOST, AWS_STORAGE_BUCKET_NAME)

All variables between brackets can be found in the CloudVPS Interface under object store > S3 API Tokens.

That's it! Your Django app now works with the CloudVPS Object Store!

In case you want to use the Swift backend for new Django apps: this has not yet been incorporated in django-storages. There is a fork of this package available that does support the Swift API however.

OpenStack and CloudVPS Object Store

CloudVPS aims to offer the best possibilities of the cloud to its customers. That is why we have decided to implement OpenStack across our entire infrastructure. OpenStack is a fast expanding collection of open source cloud infrastructure components that is supported by important players like HP, NASA and VMware. The use of OpenStack will yield our customers a lot of new functionality as well as a popular API that can be used to communicate with our infrastructure.

The first OpenStack-based product has already been launched: In april 2013 we launched the first object store in the Netherlands. The CloudVPS Object Store is a cheap, open and privacy-conscious alternative to first generation services like Amazon S3.

An object store is a modern way to serve files for an application or website. With an object store files can be stored, managed and requested in the cloud by easy API-calls or a URL. The technology is extremely suitable for larger files like images and other media types. Data is stored three times on three different machines in at least two different datacenters.

When you use an object store you only pay for the actual usage. This usage consists of the following elements: storage, outgoing traffic, heavy requests (like writes) and light requests (like reads). On our site you can find more information about the CloudVPS Object Store.

PW Webdevelopment

PW Webdevelopement is a young, dynamic company that develops web applications in order to help companies work more efficiently and more innovatively. The company exclusively works with motivated Master of Science (MSc.) students of the renowned University of Technology Delft. With 150 completed projects PW Webdevelopment is a reliable partner for every digital improvement. PW Webdevelopment is a one stop shop for its customers: From the first brainstorm session to the eventual maintenance and hosting of the custom-built web application.

www.pw-webdevelopment.nl (Dutch)

CloudVPS

CloudVPS is one of the top cloud providers in the Netherlands. From a network that is spread out over three tier-one datacenters they provide services to a large number of well-known and demanding customers. CloudVPS has a large public cloud that can be used to acquire flexible capacity. A lot of private cloud and custom solution experience is available as well.

By combining their own software with existing solutions CloudVPS is able to offer High Availability solutions at an attractive price level. CloudVPS has an international orientation and has a prominent position in the areas of cloud certification and cloud-related open source projects.

www.cloudvps.com

PW Webdevelopement's first project with the CloudVPS Object Store was a web application for the distribution and modification of price cards for airport shops in different international airports. PW Webdevelopment has been using an object store to store media files of their applications for a couple of years now.

Peter Wiggers, founder of PW Webdevelopment: “The biggest advantages of using an object store for the meda files are scalability and the high level of built-in redundancy. The extra security compared to maintaining a separate file server also plays its part.”.

The media files related to this application were placed on Amazon S3 in the past. PW Webdevelopment recently decided to move their data to the CloudVPS Object Store, however.

Peter Wiggers: “Our customers have reported that the fact that the data is stored in the Netherlands is a big advantage. In the first place they have experienced a significant improvement in performance. Secondly, the larger degree of privacy protection is also perceived as very important.”.

The Application

Within the application pre-designed price cards are stored in the object store. These can be downloaded, adapted and printed by a large number of airport shops. The price cards are subsequently placed on shelves and display furniture.

The application is written in Python and uses the Django framework. The Django module that takes care of the connection with the object store is django-storages, which supports the S3 API. Because the CloudVPS Object Store emulates the S3 API, almost no code had to be adjusted.

Implementation CloudVPS Object Store S3 Emulation

The below instructions assume that a CloudVPS Object Store is available and that a container has been created in the account. We also asume that a S3-token has been generated in the CloudVPS Interface.

In order to integrate the CloudVPS Object Store in an existing Django web application, the following packages are required:

• boto
• python-dateutil (noodzakelijk voor collectstatic)
• django-storages

The first two can be installed from PyPl's repositories, but this is not recommended for django-storages. In the version on PyPl the possibility to configure a custom host is not yet possible. Use Bitbucket to install the latest version:

pip install -e hg+https://bitbucket.org/david/django-storages#egg=storages

And add 'storages' to the INSTALLED_APPS tuple in the Django settings.

A large advantage of the CloudVPS Object Store is that it is largely S3 compatible. That is why the built in S3 libraries of boto and django-storages can be used and why it is easy to connect existing apps to the object store. Open the setting.py (or similar) and add the configuration below:

DEFAULT_FILE_STORAGE = 'storages.backends.s3boto.S3BotoStorage'
STATICFILES_STORAGE = 'storages.backends.s3boto.S3BotoStorage'
AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID = '{input_objectstore_access_token}'
AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY = '{input_objectstore_secret}'
AWS_STORAGE_BUCKET_NAME = '{input_objectstore_containernaam}'
AWS_S3_HOST = '{input_objectstore_id}.objectstore.eu'
AWS_S3_CUSTOM_DOMAIN = "%s/%s" % (AWS_S3_HOST, AWS_STORAGE_BUCKET_NAME)

All variables between brackets can be found in the CloudVPS Interface under object store > S3 API Tokens.

That's it! Your Django app now works with the CloudVPS Object Store!

In case you want to use the Swift backend for new Django apps: this has not yet been incorporated in django-storages. There is a fork of this package available that does support the Swift API however.

OpenStack and CloudVPS Object Store

CloudVPS aims to offer the best possibilities of the cloud to its customers. That is why we have decided to implement OpenStack across our entire infrastructure. OpenStack is a fast expanding collection of open source cloud infrastructure components that is supported by important players like HP, NASA and VMware. The use of OpenStack will yield our customers a lot of new functionality as well as a popular API that can be used to communicate with our infrastructure.

The first OpenStack-based product has already been launched: In april 2013 we launched the first object store in the Netherlands. The CloudVPS Object Store is a cheap, open and privacy-conscious alternative to first generation services like Amazon S3.

An object store is a modern way to serve files for an application or website. With an object store files can be stored, managed and requested in the cloud by easy API-calls or a URL. The technology is extremely suitable for larger files like images and other media types. Data is stored three times on three different machines in at least two different datacenters.

When you use an object store you only pay for the actual usage. This usage consists of the following elements: storage, outgoing traffic, heavy requests (like writes) and light requests (like reads). On our site you can find more information about the CloudVPS Object Store.

PW Webdevelopment

PW Webdevelopement is a young, dynamic company that develops web applications in order to help companies work more efficiently and more innovatively. The company exclusively works with motivated Master of Science (MSc.) students of the renowned University of Technology Delft. With 150 completed projects PW Webdevelopment is a reliable partner for every digital improvement. PW Webdevelopment is a one stop shop for its customers: From the first brainstorm session to the eventual maintenance and hosting of the custom-built web application.

www.pw-webdevelopment.nl (Dutch)

CloudVPS

CloudVPS is one of the top cloud providers in the Netherlands. From a network that is spread out over three tier-one datacenters they provide services to a large number of well-known and demanding customers. CloudVPS has a large public cloud that can be used to acquire flexible capacity. A lot of private cloud and custom solution experience is available as well.

By combining their own software with existing solutions CloudVPS is able to offer High Availability solutions at an attractive price level. CloudVPS has an international orientation and has a prominent position in the areas of cloud certification and cloud-related open source projects.

www.cloudvps.com

CloudVPS believes cloud assurance and certification are very important in order to get serious parties comfortable with cloud-based solutions. This is why we took a leading role in the CloudControls project. The CloudControls are a series of measures that can be implemented by a cloud provider in order to mitigate cloud-specific risks for its customers. The controls are based on a comprehensive list of cloud-related risks that was defined together with KPMG in 2012. The framework also includes a list of questions that a cloud customer should ask their (prospective) provider.

We have implemented version 2.0 of the CloudControls which was released in September of 2012. In January of 2013 we successfully concluded auditing the CloudControls alongside our ISO 27002 audit. Now version 3.0 of the controls is available which we will use from now on. The CloudControls have also been translated into Dutch. You can now download a Dutch version of the cloud risks, questions for providers and the actual controls.

Scope of the CloudControls

The CloudControls aim to cover the cloud-specific risks related to outsourcing to an Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) provider. This means the controls assume that the customer takes responsibility over the software configuration of its cloud environments and the connection to the cloud. In addition to this, the internal security policies and availability-enhancing measures of the cloud provider are also not considered cloud-specific risks because these risks also occur within in-house IT organisations. A lack of information regarding the security policies and the status of the infrastructure is considered to be a cloud specific risk however.

The controls are based on a comprehensive list of 61 cloud related risks. The CloudControls are the measures needed to control these risks. They consist of 39 controls related to the outsourcing risks and 5 controls for multi-tenancy risks.

Next Steps

We will continue to further improve the CloudControls as well as invite more parties to use them. We will also use the CloudControls as input for interesting developments in the field of cloud assurance. We intend to use them as input for the work we are doing with the NEN commission for Distributed Application Platforms and Services for example. This Dutch-based commission is part of the efforts the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) is currently undertaking in order to facilitate cloud standardisation. We expect to give you an update on these developments soon.