AWS Case Study: Scube NewMedia and UniCredit

GeoCMS is one of Scube’s primary geospatial solutions. This software-as-a-service is able to match proprietary business data with Google Maps geographic information. GeoCMS helps businesses create applications such as store locators, geomarketing, and outdoor tracking.

In 2009, Scube built GeoCMS with Amazon Web Services (AWS), after considering a variety of other cloud service providers.  Scube chose AWS because it offers affordability combined with performance, scalability, and easy management. Most importantly, the company was looking for a cloud service provider it can rely upon during future growth. Piergiorgio De Campo, CTO of Scube NewMedia,  notes, “We needed a solid cloud provider to invest in for many years.”

GeoCMS’s production environment uses one large and four extra large Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) reserved instances. Amazon EC2 reserved instances allow Scube to schedule a set amount of capacity for a one-time payment, and thereafter operate the instances at a discounted hourly rate during the reserved period.  Within Amazon EC2, Scube also uses the Elastic IP address feature and Elastic Load Balancing.

Additionally, GeoCMS’s production environment employs Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3), as well as Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS) volumes. GeoCMS’s staging environment utilizes one extra large Amazon EC2 reserved instance, in addition to Elastic IP addresses, Elastic Load Balancing, and Amazon S3. To monitor GeoCMS’s entire AWS infrastructure, Scube uses Amazon CloudWatch.

The diagram below details GeoCMS’s AWS-based infrastructure: 

Recently, UniCredit, an international financial institute, asked Scube to develop a geospatial web and mobile application using GeoCMS. The UniCredit Locator application helps customers find the financial institute’s offices, branches, and ATMs.  The application also supports other UniCredit enterprise technologies.

The fact that GeoCMS incorporates AWS was an important consideration for UniCredit. The financial institute is currently using its Locator application within Italy; however, by the end of 2011, UniCredit plans to offer the application to customers in an additional twenty-one European countries. UniCredit indicates that it is the largest international banking network in the Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) region, with over 9,500 branches and more than 162,000 employees. Therefore, stability and scalability are of paramount importance as the institution expands its Locator application to its entire customer-base.

When users deploy the Locator, the application downloads an HTML page containing both the GeoCMS and Google Maps JavaScript APIs. Users’ queries are sent to GeoCMS within AWS, which then returns the search results and corresponding style information. Simultaneously, the GeoCMS API displays the search information on Google Maps using the Google Maps API. The diagram below shows the UniCredit Locator’s information flow:

Scube recognizes the flexibility of AWS as a factor in helping the company create the UniCredit Locator in less than three weeks. Despite the short development time, this durable application now supports 4,500 users performing more than 10,000 searches every day. The Locator will no doubt see this usage increase dramatically as it is introduced to more countries throughout Europe.

Scube looks forward to creating additional geospatial solutions with GeoCMS and AWS. Scube is also seeking to expand its AWS usage into a variety of other avenues, including web hosting and email migration. With AWS, the company can concentrate on developing services for its clients, rather than managing its infrastructure. In fact, Scube currently only needs one employee to manage all of its Amazon Web Services. According to Mr. De Campo , AWS is Scube’s cloud service provider of choice because of its “flexibility, simplicity and the richness of the tools. It is very easy to configure a complete web architecture using the AWS administrative console.”

To learn more, visit http://www.unicreditgroup.eu/en/home.htm .

Added October 3, 2011