Printbox and data migration from AWS to Google Cloud
Deployment date: 2024
Sector: new technologies
Google Cloud
Printbox decided to build new cloud infrastructure and migrate its data from AWS to Google Cloud in view of cost efficiencies and technological advancement. The OChK team, which was chosen to implement the project, used the Infrastructure as Code (IaC) approach to provide the organization with a unified way to invoke environments and resources for the client, and implemented technologies enabling optimal management of the Google Cloud environment. With support from OChK experts, Printbox also gained appropriate competencies, expanding its existing cloud expertise, and can now knowledgeably leverage the broad product portfolio on the platform.
About Printbox
Printbox is an enterprise-level solution designed for photo products businesses. It supports every aspect of store performance: from multiple custom journey paths, through user-friendly editors for a variety of photo products, to built-in e-commerce and file generator. What’s unique about Printbox is that it’s not only delivering ready-to-use and beautiful products but because of robust technology and customization possibilities, it provides the flexibility of bespoke software. Printbox was created to help companies worldwide succeed in the personalized photo products market.
Challenges
Printbox’s main challenge was to build new cloud infrastructure in order to bring the benefits of cost efficiencies, embrace new technological challenges, and meet customer expectations. At the same time, the company wanted to make sure that all data from the AWS platform was migrated without disruptions to its team’s work or to company operations.
A key objective for Printbox was to develop architecture that meets the existing requirements, assumptions, and habits of its technology team. Having analyzed both the technological and business opportunities, Printbox decided to have a customized environment created on the Google Cloud Platform.
Solution and implementation
Given OChK’s broad range of competencies and support offered at every stage of the process, Printbox decided that a team of OChK experts would oversee the project. The activities undertaken included:
Holding joint workshop sessions during which the OChK team learned about the company’s specific goals and its existing infrastructure in order to determine the scope of work and its timeline.
Implementing a landing zone, i.e., an environment on the Google Cloud Platform ready for the migration of resources without disrupting the organization’s operations, which would also facilitate assigning new resources in the future.
Modeling the entire infrastructure in Terraform code, which automates both the procuring of network infrastructure and the creation of projects and resources.
Using Google Kubernetes, which enables the Printbox team to easily and reproducibly create and scale new and existing container applications.
Using the XML API in Google Cloud Storage, which allowed the Printbox team to avoid implementing the GCS API in all applications from the start and perform most operations without changes.
Implementing a dual storage mechanism to permit applications to support S3 and GCS at the same time, allowing the application to be migrated without interrupting the company’s operations.
Analyzing VPN and Interconnect connectivity configurations for migrating data from AWS to Google Cloud in three regions: AMER, EMEA, and APAC.
Organizing training sessions for the Printbox team to expand their cloud expertise and gain competence in Google Cloud solutions.
Technologies used
Google Kubernetes Engine
Hub & Spoke network configuration
Shared VPC in 3 regions, incl. firewall
Google Cloud Storage
Cloud CDN
Cloud Armor
Google VPN
BigQuery
Gitlab CICD
AD - Cloud Identity integration
Terraform / Terragrunt
Cloud DNS
Results
Developing a custom environment for Printbox on the Google Cloud Platform included migrating 700 TB of data from AWS to GCP.
Using the Infrastructure as Code (IaC) approach and automating the environment with Terraform provided the Printbox team with the ability to uniformly invoke environments and resources.
Streamlined management of infrastructure and applications on Google Cloud, thanks to implementing the monitoring features and technologies, including GKE.
By becoming fully operational on Google Cloud, the Printbox team can now efficiently integrate new cloud services and consciously use them to continue the company's growth.
Our collaboration with OChK was a very positive experience. At the beginning of this journey, we knew that migration between cloud providers would be a huge challenge for us but also must be related to tangible benefits, which did not seem that obvious then. Thanks to the experts of OChK and Google Cloud, who did a great job preparing a proposal that took account of all our issues and concerns, we were able to identify these benefits and make this – frankly, not easy – decision which, thanks to the ever-present support of the OChK team, resulted in an effective implementation and migration. This was difficult because our previous infrastructure was already well optimized for our specific needs. However, OChK’s open and practical approach, combined with their professional attitude and extensive knowledge, allowed us to make a seamless transition to Google Cloud.
Grzegorz Szczepańczyk
CTO, Printbox