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Customer Story

iBOOD Snags a Great Deal with Google’s Cloud Platform

Europe’s Largest Online Shopping Community expands earning potential and improves customer service through revamping infrastructure with Google Cloud Platform

Related services
Google Cloud Platform

Industry
Retail

Company
Xebia

iBOOD, “Internet’s Best Online Offer Daily,” is Europe's largest online shopping community platform, pioneering daily and flash deals since 2005. Operating across the continent, each day it offers the best brands at competitive prices. The unique ability to connect with other consumers and product experts directly on iBOOD’s forums, as well as special offers from top brands, caused the site’s popularity to soar. After launching in the Netherlands, iBOOD rapidly expanded to other markets including Germany, Poland, Belgium, and Austria. Dutch consumers voted iBOOD ‘Website of the Year’ in the eCommerce category for eleven straight years.

Why
Increase scalability to meet demand during peak times and have 24/7 infrastructure support
What
Transition IT infrastructure from a data center to a cloud platform
How
Redesign workflow to fully leverage the cloud’s functionality

In High Demand

Traffic patterns on the site fluctuate significantly, especially during quarterly marketing ‘Hunts’ when hundreds of special offers go live simultaneously. Scalability was a challenge, especially during these peak times. The team was unable to provide support around the clock, leaving the company vulnerable to infrastructure failures when the system was overwhelmed. This limited capacity led to a loss of income. iBOOD wanted to scale quickly to meet the demand and not be held back by its technology. Transitioning to a cloud platform was a logical choice and the company needed an experienced partner to guide the process.

When Opportunity Strikes

iBOOD’s contract with their data center was set to expire and the company needed to decide quickly whether to extend the contract or pivot to a cloud platform. Choosing to pivot gave the team only a few months to complete this massive transition. When describing their choice to bring in outside expertise, Rogier van Egmond, COO for iBOOD, said, “At iBOOD we like to plunge into new things ourselves but in this case it was nice for us to involve Xebia as an authority in the field of cloud technology.”

"Xebia’s involvement is very high, the team is an extension of our organization, shares a lot of knowledge with us, and supports us directly during the Hunts."
ibood logo
Rogier van Egmond COO iBOOD

Flexibility and Control Allows Instant Response

With Xebia’s help, iBOOD was able to transition to the cloud within its desired timeframe. The transition required two phases. First, the ‘lift and shift’ method essentially copied all of the company’s infrastructure into the cloud. Second, the infrastructure needed to be redesigned to make it more cloud native. To meet its need to provide 24/7 support, iBOOD opted for one of Xebia’s customer support subscription services. Now iBOOD knows its site can handle traffic during peak times and if any issues arise a trusted team of experts will respond immediately.

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