Busify Reduces Infrastructure Costs and Complexity by Migrating From ECS

Busify is an all-in-one charter bus management software created by a passionate team. This team consists of transportation and travel industry veterans and technology experts, uniting to bring cutting-edge software to a long-overlooked industry.

About Casey:

Casey Dement is a seasoned business technology leader and self-proclaimed "Kubernetes lover". Casey has worked at cutting-edge tech companies like Sharecare, Calendly, and Weather.com, where he was responsible for creating stable, maintainable, and high-performance offerings. Now the Head of Engineering at Busify, he manages and supports the software engineering team driving their primary revenue-generating applications.

The Challenge

Startups like Busify often find themselves grappling with the daunting task of managing applications and the underlying infrastructure, without the luxury of a dedicated team of DevOps experts - a story we know all too well! Busify, a budding company in the tech space, faced similar challenges in maintaining a healthy and performant infrastructure while operating at a scale that didn't warrant a large team of experts.

When Casey joined the organization, it was apparent they needed a solution that was more understandable and accessible to their engineering team, allowing them to leverage their existing expertise more efficiently. ECS, a container service provided by AWS, and the chosen service for Busify’s critical applications was falling short, leaving them with more questions than answers.

Before Casey’s arrival, Busify implemented solutions like Terraform, ECS, and CI tools, following what seemed to be best practices in the industry. As time went on, the team tasked with managing Terraform & ECS found themselves struggling to grasp its intricacies, leading to suboptimal results. As an industry expert, Casey knew he could no longer afford to allocate his team’s time to managing these tools.

"The complexity of ECS and the many tech decisions involved plus manpower needed far exceeded the needs of Busify." - Casey Dement, Head of Engineering, Busify

In the face of mounting errors and challenges, Casey "dove on the grenade," taking on the responsibility of resolving issues and improving the infrastructure. Despite efforts to patch up the system and provide training to the team, progress was slow and results remained mixed over the course of a year.

The turning point came when Busify realized that they couldn't continue to be their own operations group. They needed a solution that would streamline their infrastructure management and alleviate the burden on their team. This is where Cycle.io entered the picture.

The Solution

Cycle.io proved to be the missing piece of the puzzle. Our LowOps infrastructure management and container orchestration platform offered a level of abstraction that perfectly simplified their deployment process.

Previously, understanding how all the various components of ECS and "traditional" DevOps processes would fit together to form a cohesive infrastructure seemed like an insurmountable task. Cycle.io changed this narrative by presenting everything in a language that Busify's engineers could easily comprehend.

"Cycle gives us the ability to empower our engineers to control the operation infrastructure without struggling or being experts with Amazon (ECS)." - Casey Dement, Head of Engineering, Busify

Unlike AWS, where users are inundated with thousands of choices, Cycle.io provided a more intuitive approach. Instead of keeping up with all the individual components, "our engineers could now see the bigger picture," understanding how each element fit into the overall architecture without needing to be experts in every aspect.

Cycle.io's platform offered a level of simplicity and developer-friendliness that was previously unavailable commercially. While larger companies might have the resources to develop such tools internally, startups or smaller companies like Busify often lack the means to do so. This is where Cycle.io truly shined, offering a solution that leveled the playing field for businesses of all sizes.

By leveraging Cycle.io, Busify no longer needed to navigate the complexities of ECS and Amazon’s ecosystem. With our vertically integrated platform, they could focus on what truly mattered – their core business objectives. In essence, Cycle.io became the catalyst for Busify's engineering success, empowering them to operate more efficiently and effectively.

The Results

Casey and his team are using Cycle.io and are on the road to leaving ECS behind. This marks a significant shift towards efficiency and cost savings. Early assessments of Cycle’s impact on Busify have been equated to somewhere in the realm of $40k/yr saved on infrastructure and proper utilization of resources, and ~$180k/yr on DevOps time alone.

They have gone all-in on Cycle adoption and along the way made key suggestions that led to the development of new features that benefit all of Cycle's users.

With Cycle.io, the Busify team can concentrate on essential tasks, eliminate the sprawl of the Amazon ecosystem, and dramatically simplify their DevOps processes. Everyone here at Cycle is excited to see the progress of Cycle and Busify for many years to come!

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