Combell customers experience huge performance leap thanks to new hosting infrastructure
A fast, high-performance infrastructure is what can make a difference in user experience for both visitors and customers. And this applies even more to those who offer Internet services themselves. Fortunately, Combell continues to invest in outstanding performance, with powerful and recent hardware, upgrades of its central network nodes and a tailored infrastructure design. And yes, customers clearly notice the difference!
Also read: Combell delivers even more speed and stability thanks to flawless network and data centre upgrades
Three customers, which recently migrated their systems to Combell infrastructure, have been talking about performance. Their solutions go far beyond the mere gain in computing power. Thanks to a technical analysis, they were able to migrate to a new infrastructure completely tailored to their needs. And this is how bottlenecks disappear, creating noticeably faster platforms, which in turn lead to satisfied users.
SiteManager – Fast growing full-service web platform
In May 2019, this Ghent-based provider of ‘full service’ web platforms chose Combell when the time had come to migrate to a new infrastructure. This switch allows SiteManager customers to enjoy even better performance for their websites. The load time of dynamic web pages is now almost four times shorter.
“We are gaining more and more customers. For us, this is primarily a matter of credibility. Our business is 100% online, which is why a strong hosting partner is essential. Our credibility would be completely destroyed if our infrastructure failed”, says CEO Alexander Hoogewijs.
While popular platforms such as Drupal and WordPress require a lot of custom configuration, technical updates and maintenance, SiteManager is very flexible and yet positively ‘full service’. It is a workspace in which designers, UX specialists, front-end developers, content specialists and end customers can work together and immediately see the results.
“CMS users notice 30% to 40% shorter load times. For the visitors of their websites, the load time of complex pages is even four times shorter!” - Alexander Hoogewijs, CEO SiteManager
“In 2016, we gained an average of two new websites per month. At the beginning of 2019, this figure has already increased to two or three per day! Our customers must be able to rely on excellent performance. And the current capacity must also be able to ensure our future growth.”
In the spring of 2019, the time had come for SiteManager to work on a completely new infrastructure. “We are very excited that we can collaborate with Combell while adopting a DevOps mindset. We do not have an infrastructure team of our own. We simply asked for a solution adapted to our needs and growth. And the result is quite impressive!”
The transition involved migrating to more powerful hardware and more flexible management thanks to VMware, with high-performance SAN storage and faster network connections to and between the systems. “As a result, we now see 30% to 40% shorter load times at the back-end, for our users who manage their websites. For the visitors of these websites, the load time of complex pages is now even four times shorter!”
Click to enlarge the graph
“We have been asking for a solution adapted to our needs and growth. And the result is quite impressive!"
“Thanks to the new infrastructure, our customers' websites are much more comfortable to use. Load speed is also one of the key elements that Google takes into account to rank websites in search results. Although the content of your page and the technical coding obviously also have an impact on the load speed, web agencies closely monitor this factor. The excellent performance of the new infrastructure is a strong argument used to convince their customers.”
Find out more on the SiteManager blog
Comandi Dashboards – Uncompromising computing power for online data analysis
When you turn raw data into visual management dashboards, you need considerable processing power. At the beginning of 2019, Dutch specialist Comandi Dashboards opted for a new customised infrastructure. About 15,000 customers, including Big 4 accountants in Belgium and the Netherlands, benefit from Combell's performance leap and its continued focus on security.
“We had gradually become too big. Also, our hosting needs are quite specific. Due to the rapidly growing amount of data, our computing power and the fast access to secure database storage came under increasing pressure. Thanks to the switch, performance is no longer a hassle. This was more than worth the switch”, says Jacob Kiers, Lead application developer at Comandi Dashboards.
“Since the switch, our customers' dashboards seem to work significantly faster.” - Jacob Kiers, Lead application developer, Comandi Dashboards
Comandi's infrastructure includes large amounts of structured business information. Using all kinds of scripts, it is constantly updated and stored in a secure database cluster. The data are confidential and must be carefully protected for each Comandi customer. “Sensitive data are also stored in encrypted form. Because of our customers' compliance obligations, everything is secured and documented.”
“Our product has to continuously import and process information. That makes the processors workload substantial. Since we were approaching the limits of our infrastructure, we regularly saw imports lagging behind as well as issues with the communication to the database. But that is now a thing of the past. I no longer have to worry about performance, which means that I can now fully concentrate on the evolution of the product. For the growth of the product, my attention is focused on new features, technical upgrades, maintenance... That is no small task, but in any case, I no longer have to worry about the infrastructure.”
“We had become too big. Thanks to the switch, performance is no longer a hassle. This was more than worth the switch.”
“Since the switch, our customers' dashboards seem to work significantly faster. It is difficult to express this quantitatively, but they are visibly faster. Since then, there have also been no complaints whatsoever about performance, which was not the case in the past. The data volume of our customers continues to increase significantly. And yet, there is still plenty of capacity left. Things are suddenly moving very fast.”
Explore the possibilities offered by Comandi
Ruitershop Online – a seamless migration from Azure to Combell
Saddles and accessories for both horses and riders are specialised products that sell surprisingly well online. For over ten years, Sellerie Online - Ruitershop Online has been the leading player in the market in Belgium, France, Spain and other countries. In June 2019, the company decided to seriously revamp its e-commerce website, based on the open source management system PrestaShop. The platform upgrade, moving away from an outdated closed system based on .NET, was also the right opportunity to find a new hosting partner. And that is how Ruitershop Online went from cloud hosting powered by Microsoft Azure to Combell.
“Combell has offered us unique expertise in the field of platform-specific caching for PrestaShop” – Christian Janfils, external marketing consultant, Ruitershop Online
“The hosting must be robust enough. We want all visitors to enjoy excellent response times, especially during traffic peaks. We need to be able to handle at least 200 simultaneous sessions during traffic peaks”, says Christian Janfils, external marketing consultant for Ruitershop Online. “We did the launch right before the sales period. This is the time when the store generates quite a lot of sales, and of course there are more visitors. We wanted to be able to commercially exploit the new e-shop. This means that, from a technical point of view, it had to be perfect from the outset.”
“The collaboration is truly professional and tailored.”
“With Varnish, Combell has offered us unique expertise in the field of platform-specific caching for PrestaShop. During the stress tests, we were able to support 350 simultaneous users. We went live in June 2019. And we already had to deal with real peaks of up to 150 simultaneous users. Response times are already similar or even improved compared to the previous infrastructure, while costs are much lower. And there is still room for improvement. The collaboration is truly professional and tailored, as well as flexible and showing great expertise.”
These customers also notice the difference
Where performance is a priority, Combell is there for you. Sometimes, a major hardware upgrade has to be carried out. But most of the time, it is all about making smart choices and overcoming technical limitations. In any case, tailored advice is the key to making the right choice.
Thanks to a performance upgrade, other Combell customers can also serve their end users even better and continue to support the strong growth of their visitors. The graphs below show three other (anonymous) managed hosting customers, which have seen their website's transaction times halved, or where a significant profit has been made with very fast response times.
Click to enlarge the graph
Click to enlarge the graph
Click to enlarge the graph
In each case, the switch was performed without any downtime or major inconvenience. Combell's technical teams are very familiar with this type of technical migration. As a result, your migration to Combell, or your next performance upgrade, is in fact primarily a matter of good agreements. And you can start doing that today.
If you too want to enjoy better performance, we will recommend you the best solution, free of charge. And that does not only involve high-performance infrastructure tailored to your needs. Our Performance Team will go one step further and help you find possible ways to make your website or application faster. We will not rest until we have achieved optimum performance. We are only satisfied when you are too!
Related posts
