Case Studies How Netmeds switched from Elasticache to Redis Enterprise and achieved zero downtime

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	How Netmeds switched from Elasticache to Redis Enterprise and achieved zero downtime

How Netmeds switched from Elasticache to Redis Enterprise and achieved zero downtime

Technology Category	Platform as a Service (PaaS) - Data Management Platforms Application Infrastructure & Middleware - Data Exchange & Integration
Applicable Industries	E-Commerce Pharmaceuticals
Applicable Functions	Business Operation Sales & Marketing
Use Cases	Digital Twin Predictive Maintenance Remote Asset Management
Services	System Integration Software Design & Engineering Services
Challenge	With just three weeks to go before a big marketing event designed to deliver a significant increase in user activity, Netmeds was desperate to resolve the failure issues that were currently plaguing its Amazon ElastiCache. Huge spikes in user traffic were choking Redis with too many connections, causing it to fail. As a result, Netmeds would experience downtimes of up to an hour that easily lost them 750 orders every 30 minutes. Netmeds initially thought the issue could be resolved through clustering on ElastiCache, but the company’s PHP platform did not support clustering of Redis. Next, NetMeds evaluated connection management solutions as a way to reduce the number of open database connections. They looked at Twemproxy, Dynomite, and HAProxy in an attempt to set up connection pooling, but none of these solutions supported every command that Redis supported. Read More
About Customer	Netmeds is an online pharmacy that ships products to every corner of the Indian market. The pharmaceutical’s omni-channel sales approach supports product orders via its website, mobile app, and call center. As a three-year-old company, Netmeds has been ramping up its marketing efforts in the very new space of pharmaceutical e-commerce. This has resulted in traffic spikes that caused its AWS ElastiCache instance to fail. Netmeds needed a solution that could handle the high availability and performance required by its hundreds of thousands of daily users. Read More
Solution	A simple Google search brought Redis Labs to Netmeds’ attention. Pandit reached out immediately and received a response from Redis Labs the very next morning. With less than three weeks to go live with a resolution before their big marketing push, it was a huge relief to learn that Redis Enterprise’s connection pool manager supported every Redis command and that this would resolve their issue for the short term. In under three weeks, Redis Labs and Netmeds worked together to successfully migrate its caching and session store operations from ElastiCache to Redis Enterprise. Netmeds’ entire application system runs on AWS, with Redis Enterprise now sitting just behind the web app servers. With connection pooling in place, database downtime issues have been eliminated. Long term, Netmeds sees clustering and sharding as the permanent solution for high availability and performance. To that end, Pandit and his team have begun re-architecting their platform to get around its current clustering limitations. They are looking forward to unleashing the power of Redis Enterprise’s clustering and sharding features. Read More Log in to view content
Contents

Technology Category

Platform as a Service (PaaS) - Data Management Platforms

Application Infrastructure & Middleware - Data Exchange & Integration

Applicable Industries

E-Commerce

Pharmaceuticals

Applicable Functions

Business Operation

Sales & Marketing

Use Cases

Digital Twin

Predictive Maintenance

Remote Asset Management

Services

System Integration

Software Design & Engineering Services

Challenge

With just three weeks to go before a big marketing event designed to deliver a significant increase in user activity, Netmeds was desperate to resolve the failure issues that were currently plaguing its Amazon ElastiCache. Huge spikes in user traffic were choking Redis with too many connections, causing it to fail. As a result, Netmeds would experience downtimes of up to an hour that easily lost them 750 orders every 30 minutes. Netmeds initially thought the issue could be resolved through clustering on ElastiCache, but the company’s PHP platform did not support clustering of Redis. Next, NetMeds evaluated connection management solutions as a way to reduce the number of open database connections. They looked at Twemproxy, Dynomite, and HAProxy in an attempt to set up connection pooling, but none of these solutions supported every command that Redis supported.

About Customer

Netmeds is an online pharmacy that ships products to every corner of the Indian market. The pharmaceutical’s omni-channel sales approach supports product orders via its website, mobile app, and call center. As a three-year-old company, Netmeds has been ramping up its marketing efforts in the very new space of pharmaceutical e-commerce. This has resulted in traffic spikes that caused its AWS ElastiCache instance to fail. Netmeds needed a solution that could handle the high availability and performance required by its hundreds of thousands of daily users.

Solution

A simple Google search brought Redis Labs to Netmeds’ attention. Pandit reached out immediately and received a response from Redis Labs the very next morning. With less than three weeks to go live with a resolution before their big marketing push, it was a huge relief to learn that Redis Enterprise’s connection pool manager supported every Redis command and that this would resolve their issue for the short term. In under three weeks, Redis Labs and Netmeds worked together to successfully migrate its caching and session store operations from ElastiCache to Redis Enterprise. Netmeds’ entire application system runs on AWS, with Redis Enterprise now sitting just behind the web app servers. With connection pooling in place, database downtime issues have been eliminated. Long term, Netmeds sees clustering and sharding as the permanent solution for high availability and performance. To that end, Pandit and his team have begun re-architecting their platform to get around its current clustering limitations. They are looking forward to unleashing the power of Redis Enterprise’s clustering and sharding features.

Impact #1	Redis Enterprise’s automated management, scaling, and failover capabilities allow Netmeds to provide its e-commerce pharmaceutical platform without interruption.
Impact #2	Since deployment, Netmeds has experienced zero downtime and zero issues.
Impact #3	Redis Labs’ knowledgeable support engineers were able to migrate database operations from ElastiCache to Redis Enterprise and eliminate all downtime issues.

Impact #1

Redis Enterprise’s automated management, scaling, and failover capabilities allow Netmeds to provide its e-commerce pharmaceutical platform without interruption.

Impact #2

Since deployment, Netmeds has experienced zero downtime and zero issues.

Impact #3

Redis Labs’ knowledgeable support engineers were able to migrate database operations from ElastiCache to Redis Enterprise and eliminate all downtime issues.

Benefit #1	Netmeds experienced downtimes of up to an hour that easily lost them 750 orders every 30 minutes before switching to Redis Enterprise.

Benefit #1

Netmeds experienced downtimes of up to an hour that easily lost them 750 orders every 30 minutes before switching to Redis Enterprise.

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Overview

How Netmeds switched from Elasticache to Redis Enterprise and achieved zero downtime

Operational Impact

Quantitative Benefit