AWS Case Study: One Hour Translation

One Hour Translation moved to Amazon Web Services (AWS) from a traditional infrastructure, which consisted of one dedicated server provided by a third-party hosting company and a locally hosted backup repository. As the company grew, it began looking for other options that would allow it to handle expansion without an expensive investment in additional non-scalable hardware.

Lior Libman, Chief Operating Officer for One Hour Translation, explains, “We have decided to use AWS as it allows great flexibility and instantaneous scalability, while allowing us to minimize costs during early stages. When I looked at AWS, I was impressed with the possibility for rapid growth at low costs for both IT personnel and investments in infrastructure.” Oren Yagev, VP of R&D at One Hour Translation adds, “I chose AWS as it looked like the service that would allow real cloud services with new services added frequently, which eventually would allow me to centralize my IT to one provider—all with a very flexible and affordable price.”

Today, One Hour Translation is using many AWS services, including Amazon's Domain Name System (DNS) Web Service, Amazon Route 53. The company reports that prior to switching to Amazon Route 53, it was paying approximately 100 times more every month for a similar DNS service.

In addition to Amazon Route 53, One Hour Translation is using Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) for all of its Web application and MySQL server needs. The company appreciates Amazon EC2’s ability to scale up to meet increased demand, but also scale down during slower periods, which reduces overall expenses.

Within Amazon EC2, One Hour Translation is using Amazon Elastic Load Balancing to distribute traffic between its multiple MySQL instances. For storage and backups, the company employs Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS) and Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3).

One Hour Translation also uses Amazon CloudFront to deliver images and videos to its customers, as well as Amazon Simple Queue Service (Amazon SQS) to manage and execute asynchronous tasks within its application layer. The company is currently considering future uses for other services within AWS, such as Amazon Simple Email Service (Amazon SES), Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (Amazon VPC), and Amazon CloudFormation, which can help manage AWS resource provisioning.

The diagram below demonstrates how One Hour Translation is using multiple AWS features to create a seamless infrastructure.

Since migrating to AWS, One Hour Translation has saved approximately twenty-five percent on its entire IT operating budget. In addition to general operating costs, the company has also avoided the hundreds of working hours that would have been spent on initial server setups and monthly maintenance for a physical infrastructure.

Libman concludes, “With AWS, we are able to maintain steady growth with maximum flexibility, while keeping IT and infrastructure affordable. It allows us to focus on our application development rather than IT considerations.”

To learn more, visit http://www.onehourtranslation.com/ .

Added April 26, 2011