Case Study - Moving a Website from a Local server to AWS serverless

Overview

Company XYZ is a small-to-medium-sized business that operates a website to showcase their products and services. Initially, their website was hosted on a local server, which served their needs. However, as their user base and traffic grew, they faced challenges related to scalability, reliability, and maintenance. To overcome these limitations and take advantage of the benefits of serverless architecture, they decided to migrate their website to Amazon Web Services (AWS) Serverless.

Challenges

• Scalability: The local server infrastructure was not easily scalable, leading to performance issues during traffic spikes and promotional events.
• High Costs: Maintaining and scaling the local server required a substantial upfront investment and ongoing operational expenses.
• Reliability and Downtime: The local server experienced occasional downtimes due to hardware failures, causing disruptions in the user experience.
• Maintenance Effort: Continuous server maintenance, updates, and security patches were time-consuming for the company's IT team, diverting resources from core business activities.

Solution

The company decided to move their website to AWS Serverless, taking advantage of its robust infrastructure and pay-as-you-go pricing model. The AWS services used in the migration process included:

• Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service): The static assets of the website, such as HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and images, were stored in S3 buckets. This provided scalable and reliable storage for the website's content.
• Amazon CloudFront: To ensure low-latency content delivery and improved user experience, CloudFront was used as a content delivery network (CDN) to cache and distribute static assets globally.
• AWS Lambda: The website's backend functionality was transformed into AWS Lambda functions, enabling serverless execution and auto-scaling based on demand. Lambda functions were used for various tasks, such as processing form submissions, handling user authentication, and interacting with databases.
• Amazon API Gateway: To manage the API endpoints and provide secure access to Lambda functions, API Gateway was used. It allowed easy integration of Lambda functions with the frontend components of the website.
• AWS Certificate Manager: SSL certificates were managed using ACM to ensure secure communication between the users and the website.

Migration process

• Assessment and Planning: The IT team analyzed the existing website infrastructure and outlined the requirements and goals for the migration. They planned the architecture and selected AWS services based on the specific needs of the website.
• Data Migration: The website's content and database were migrated to the AWS environment, ensuring data integrity and minimal downtime during the process.
• Serverless Backend Development: The team refactored the website's backend code into Lambda functions and created API endpoints using API Gateway. This enabled the website to handle dynamic content without the need for dedicated servers.
• Frontend Integration: The static assets were uploaded to Amazon S3, and CloudFront was configured to distribute the content globally. The frontend was adjusted to interact with the new serverless backend through API Gateway.
• Testing and Optimization: Extensive testing and optimization were performed to ensure that the website's performance, security, and functionality met the expected standards.

Results

• Scalability and Cost Savings: With AWS Serverless, the website automatically scaled based on demand, eliminating the need for overprovisioning resources. This resulted in significant cost savings compared to the local server infrastructure.
• Reliability and Availability: The website's uptime significantly improved, and the global distribution of content through CloudFront reduced latency, providing a seamless user experience.
• Reduced Maintenance Effort: Serverless architecture offloaded server maintenance tasks to AWS, allowing the IT team to focus on more strategic initiatives.
• Faster Deployment: The CI/CD (Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment) pipeline was set up using AWS services like AWS CodePipeline and AWS CodeBuild, enabling rapid and automated deployments.

Conclusion

The migration of the website from a local server to AWS Serverless proved to be a successful and transformative step for Company XYZ. The adoption of serverless architecture brought numerous benefits, including enhanced scalability, reliability, reduced maintenance efforts, and cost savings. By leveraging AWS services, the company's website now delivers an improved user experience while allowing the team to focus on delivering value to their customers and growing their business.