Cintra Supports Opt-Intelligence as it Continues its Strategic AWS Transformation

Opt-Intelligence needed ongoing managed services for its Oracle workloads in Amazon Web Services (AWS), to provide a range of capabilities that would enable it to focus more of its own resources on application development that adds value for its customers. Having already migrated Opt-Intelligence’s Oracle workloads to AWS, Cintra’s managed services teams have been delivering a range of enhancements, including database upgrades, performance-optimization, improved recovery times and assisting the client with its wider move to AWS. Cintra’s managed services have also ensured Opt-Intelligence has enjoyed zero database downtime since migrating to AWS.

Cintra, an AWS Partner has long been Opt-Intelligence’s strategic database managed services partner, taking care of the business’s mission-critical Oracle databases and the data warehouse that underpin its core bespoke application. As part of this, Cintra previously helped Opt-Intelligence significantly reduce its legacy data center footprint and avoid a costly renewal fee by architecting and delivering the migration to AWS using Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS).

Once the initial workloads were successfully migrated to AWS, Opt-Intelligence had a number of further requirements, which it asked Cintra to assist with. These included upgrading the Oracle databases from 11g to 19c and optimizing the databases to improve application performance. Opt-Intelligence also needed assistance as it moved its application tier from a hosted environment to AWS. In addition, the client needed enhanced database monitoring, in line with the managed service levels Cintra had been providing for the on-premises environments. Lastly, it required enhanced data recovery, to increase speed and flexibility when restoring data from backups.

Opt-Intelligence asked Cintra to upgrade its Oracle 11g databases direct to version 19c, to avoid the need for a more-costly two-phase migration involving version 12c.

As part of the upgrade process, Cintra made a number of optimizations to the database and its underlying architecture. This included addressing fragmentation, opting for fast AWS Provisioned IOPS SSD storage, and aligning the configurations with Cintra’s proven blueprints, to deliver optimal application performance.

This Oracle upgrade also required some of the application drivers to be updated, to support the newer database version. Cintra was on hand to assist the Opt-Intelligence application team as it delivered these and tested the application before go-live.

The following step on the Opt-Intelligence transformation roadmap was to move the microservices that make up its core application to AWS to sit alongside the databases. To support this process, Cintra put in place the groundwork for Opt-Intelligence’s application team to deliver this migration, including implementing the necessary integrations with the database in Amazon RDS.

The business-criticality of the databases underpinning Opt-Intelligence’s core application means they require enhanced monitoring. Cintra had previously been providing this in the hosted environment using proprietary Cintra scripts. 

With Amazon RDS being platform as a service (PaaS), installing the same scripts wasn’t possible. Instead, Cintra implemented its enhanced PaaS monitoring system, which uses AWS Lambda serverless functions. These trigger to alert the Cintra managed services team whenever certain events occur.

Amazon RDS takes snapshots of the Opt-Intelligence databases. While these physical backups form an important part of Opt-Intelligence’s backup strategy, there are situations where alternative approaches are preferable. For example, restoring even small amounts of data from a snapshot requires the full database to be restored to a new Amazon RDS database. In the case of the Opt-Intelligence production database, this process takes around five hours.

Opt-Intelligence therefore needed logical backups to complement the physical ones. As part of the managed service, Cintra set up this capability, using Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3). This enables Cintra to recover specific Opt-Intelligence data more quickly, using significantly fewer cloud resources. For example, restoring a single 10GB table can be done in less than an hour, an improvement of more than 5x.

As a result of the managed services, Opt-Intelligence has been able to confidently proceed with its strategic move away from its physical data centers and into AWS while enjoying 100% database uptime. The enhanced backup, recovery and monitoring capabilities provide further assurance.

Cintra’s optimizations have resulted in significantly faster performance. Database queries are quicker across the board, resulting in reduced batch processing times and better application performance. As a result, Opt-Intelligence is now able to offer even better experiences to its customers.

Marc Golub, co-founder and CTO at Opt-Intelligence, concludes: “As we move to become a truly cloud-first business, it’s essential we maintain high levels of assurance around our core application and the databases that underpin it. With Cintra working alongside us, we know we can focus fully on delivering the high-value application and service improvements that make a real difference to our customers.”