We're Moving our Servers to the Amazon Cloud - SASSIE Mystery Shopping Systems

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We’re Moving our Servers to the Amazon Cloud

By sassieblog | Uncategorized | 0 comment | 16 April, 2013 | 0

In this issue: We’re Moving our Servers to the Amazon Cloud

We’re Moving to the Amazon Cloud!

We’re “Movin’ On Up!”….to the Amazon Cloud!

A recent survey revealed that 29% of the public believes “The Cloud” is actually … IN THE CLOUDS

We sent our most aerial developer up there (in her SASSIE suit), just to make sure:

Andreea Olea, SASSIE Developer & Professional Cloud Surfer

So no, we’re NOT putting your data up there where it can get hit by lightning, struck by a meteor, or fall to earth at business-shattering velocities.

So what is the Cloud?

Currently SASSIE requires over 80 servers – we host them in a data center near Boston. That’s how things have been done for decades.

Now there’s a better way: Rather than go through the immense labor of purchasing, maintaining, upgrading and replacing this army of servers, we will now lease server resources from the the world’s premier datacenter: the Amazon CloudFront.

Is the Cloud good enough for SASSIE?

We know SASSIE is mission-critical to your company’s operations, so we didn’t make this decision lightly. We’ve studied and tested Amazon’s Cloud for 3 years now (it actually has been running parts of SASSIE like AV file uploads, PhotoDNA, Graphing for Reports and other sites like the MSPA’s web systems) for years.

Furthermore major companies like NASDAQ, Yelp, SAP, Spotify (and a little bookstore named “Amazon”) run their technology on the Cloud as well. The fact it’s good enough for THEM helps us believe it’s good enough for US!

Why are we moving to the Cloud?

We believe cloud computing is becoming the standard for state-of-the-art data delivery. Letting Amazon focus on data center infrastructure allows our developers and engineers to focus strictly on SASSIE and our other products. In addition, cloud computing will benefit you, our partners, in the following ways:

* Global Reach: A move to the cloud allows us to be more accessible internationally. While Sassie has always been accessible across the globe, leveraging the amazon cloud will improve accessibility and connection speed. The cloud even makes it possible to host SASSIE servers from any of Amazon’s data centers around the world.

* Disaster Protection: In the event of a massive power outage or Internet outage, the Amazon Cloud gives us the future possibility to put multiple copies of SASSIE’s infrastructure around the world.

* Capacity on Demand: Currently if SASSIE’s traffic suddenly increases, it can take weeks to order, configure and install a new server to speed things back up. On the Cloud, these kinds of upgrades can happen in days and sometimes HOURS. On the cloud, we’ll have unparalled scalability and will be more prepared than ever for rapid growth.

* World Class Performance, Security & Stability: Your data will benefit from Amazon’s security, performance, redundancy as well as Amazon’s 24/7 operations team. We’ll leverage Amazon.com’s 15+ years of experience delivering large-scale, global infrastructure – and those rewards will grow as Amazon continues to hone and innovate its infrastructure management capabilities and skills.

When are we moving?

We will be migrating SASSIE to the cloud over the course of the next month, and we expect to be fully moved by early May.

Is there a catch?

First off, this upgrade is completely free to all of our SASSIE partners – so that’s NOT the catch.

However, upgrades of this scale are never easy. It’s taken years of planning to reach this point and we’re currently in the final stages of intensive testing…but it never hurts to have a few more eyes on this stuff. Therefore, we’ll be letting you know when you can test your data on the cloud for the first time.

Our people are working overtime to make this transition as smooth as possible for you and we appreciate your patience and understanding during this period.

Bottom Line: Once this migration is complete, you’ll be able to tell your clients that their data is stored on the finest data center in the entire mystery shopping industry.

We’ll keep you informed every step of the way – stay tuned for future updates via SASSIE News!

Best wishes,

Marisa Whalen

Public Relations Manager

SurfMerchants LLC

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