Case Study

ArangoDB’s Journey to Cloud Cost Optimization and Improved Visibility with DoiT

Client
ArangoDB
Industries

Technology

Technologies
AWS, AWS EC2
Region
EMEA, North EMEA
Country
Germany and United States

Meet ArangoDB

ArangoDB is a leading provider of native multi-model database systems with a product that combines graph, document, and key-value models in a single database engine. The ArangoDB platform enables organizations to handle complex data challenges and build high-performance applications efficiently. ArangoDB serves various industries including e-commerce, finance, healthcare, and more.

ArangoDB operates in a multicloud environment, utilizing services from providers such as Google Cloud and Amazon Web Services (AWS). It has separate teams responsible for managing its cloud offering, setting up infrastructure, managing customer accounts, and handling internal tests. Additionally, its internal cloud teams are structured with different responsibilities, including infrastructure management, financial oversight, and cost allocation.

The challenge

In scaling its business, ArangoDB experienced increasing challenges in managing its IT infrastructure to deliver that growth. ArangoDB had several key areas of challenge:

Driving revenue: To accelerate sales and new customer growth, the team identified the need for a presence on cloud provider marketplaces from AWS and Google Cloud. However, building that presence can be complex and time-consuming for the product and engineering teams. ArangoDB needed a way to build these integrations without compromising the resourcing needed to continue to build its own flagship product.

Understanding customer usage and costs: ArangoDB lacked clear visibility into the costs associated with its customers’ usage. It needed to map customer usage metrics, such as network usage, server size, and compute power, to actual costs to bill its customers accurately.

Managing cloud costs: ArangoDB relied on resource-intensive manual processes like spreadsheets to track costs, which hindered its ability to analyze spend patterns and optimize costs. It needed proper tooling and automation to allocate and track costs effectively across different environments, customers, and teams.

Managing and optimizing commitments: Fluctuating workloads prevented ArangoDB from effectively utilizing compute commitments, such as Reserved Instances (RIs) or Savings Plans (SPs). It required assistance forecasting usage and optimizing commitment deals with cloud providers.

Technical configuration: ArangoDB lacked in-depth training to configure its systems and make the most of analytical platforms and gain deeper insights into its cloud spend and usage. ArangoDB needed to either acquire that training firsthand or leverage a partner with that kind of expertise.

The solution

DoiT began by leading ArangoDB through a series of technical reviews and workshops. These reviews were critical to informing DoiT’s recommended plan to help the database engine provider tackle ArangoDB’s stated cloud challenges:

Marketplace integration: Leveraging their extensive experience with Marketplace, DoiT provided a tailored approach to AWS and Google Cloud Marketplace integrations. “DoiT has done marketplace for tons of companies, it was easier to leverage their expertise than allocating a whole team to work on this project” says Jason Heine, CFO

Enhanced reporting and visibility: DoiT’s reporting capabilities enabled ArangoDB to gain comprehensive insights into its cloud spend. The consolidated reports offered detailed cost breakdowns by teams, CI/CD tooling, and other relevant categories. This improved visibility empowered ArangoDB to make data-driven decisions.

Automated cloud cost management: DoiT’s experience helped ArangoDB implement cost allocation best practices, using Attributions to map costs to different environments, customers, and teams. This eliminated the manual and time-consuming process of tracking and grouping costs in spreadsheets, resulting in more accurate cost attributions.

Reduced cloud costs: ArangoDB harnessed the power of DoiT Flexsave to automate the management of Savings Plans, significantly reducing on-demand EC2 costs while freeing up valuable engineering resources for other crucial tasks.

Anomaly detection and quota monitoring: To answer its need for insights and analysis, ArangoDB leveraged the DoiT’s Anomaly Detection to identify any unusual spikes or unexpected cloud costs early on to minimize its impact on their monthly bill. Additionally, it enabled DoiT’s out-of-the-box cloud quota monitoring to stay updated on and within its resource quota limits, avoiding excessive usage charges.

The result

Working with DoiT provided significant benefits and measurable outcomes for ArangoDB:

Marketplace integration: ArangoDB followed its tailored Marketplace integration plan and was able to launch its new sales channel in only a few weeks.

Cost savings and optimization: By implementing cost optimization techniques and utilizing Flexsave, ArangoDB managed to lower its monthly expenses for on-demand EC2 usage by 25%. With the assistance of DoiT’s proficiency in negotiating commitments and analyzing costs, ArangoDB successfully harnessed cloud commitments, leading to a notable reduction in unforeseen expenditures.

Improved visibility and reporting: DoiT’s reporting capabilities and cost allocation practices provided ArangoDB with enhanced visibility into its cloud spend. It gained insights into customer costs, resource utilization, and internal cost allocation, enabling better decision-making and cost optimization.

Time and resource savings: By utilizing DoiT’s platform and services, ArangoDB significantly reduced the time spent monitoring and managing its cloud usage. Automated reporting and cost analysis tools simplified the process and freed up valuable time for its internal teams.

Strengthened partnership: DoiT’s holistic partnership approach, encompassing support, consultancy, and marketplace integrations, proved invaluable to ArangoDB. It leveraged DoiT’s expertise in various areas such as infrastructure planning, marketplace expansion, and financial planning, helping them grow their product and optimize their cloud operations.

What's next?

DoiT played a crucial role in helping ArangoDB overcome its cloud challenges and optimize its cloud costs. With DoiT’s support, ArangoDB achieved significant cost savings, gained better visibility into their cloud spend, and improved its overall cloud management practices. The partnership between ArangoDB and DoiT continues to thrive as they work together to refine cost optimization strategies, enhance product efficiency, and drive business growth.

Jason Heine, CFO
We could reach out to our cloud providers, but it’s much easier to talk to DoiT. They have done marketplace integrations for numerous companies, saving us valuable time and effort. With extensive experience and knowledge from over 3000+ customers, they shared best practices and guided us in making informed decisions. By partnering with DoiT, we can focus on providing the best-managed service and dedicate our attention to solving business problems rather than getting caught up in cloud management.

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