Quality Bicycle Products Migrates to VMware Cloud on AWS in under 18 Months

For an industry leader in biking parts distribution like Quality Bicycle Products (QBP), moving to the cloud was a multi-factor decision that stemmed from their application team wanting to utilize cutting-edge technology, their developers wanting to be closer to their core data, and QBP’s colocation facility shuttering their doors. Engaging with Amazon Web Services (AWS) and AWS Partner VMware, QBP migrated core workloads without needing to re-platform applications, allowing for an accelerated overall migration. The result has granted QBP the agility to accept new business and easily expand their platform, especially when it comes to computing needs and seasonal purchasing.

In the colocation facility, QBP was experiencing problems typical for WAN connections like latency, bandwidth, and egress and ingress charges. Beyond these issues, QBP’s application teams were having difficulty with quickly accessing information stored in their colocation facility as it was physically too far away. This prevented QBP from capitalizing on powerful emerging technology solutions necessary to build innovative apps. To eliminate these problems and modernize their technology stack, QBP initiated a migration to AWS.

QBP had a tight timeframe of 14–18 months for migration, making VMware Cloud on AWS a perfect path that allowed QBP to quickly move existing applications to AWS. QBP was already familiar with AWS Partner VMware from having it in their colocation facility and on-premises, so VMware Cloud on AWS was the natural choice for them. VMware Cloud on AWS simplified and accelerated their migration by eliminating the need to re-architect or re-platform applications. QBP was previously running VMware on-premises, as well as some VMware stacks, allowing for easy application connection in the cloud and support for multiple connection types.

Throughout the migration operation, QBP wanted to right-size their environment at the start. For this, they needed to determine how many virtual machines (VMs) would be moved, initially deciding to move approximately 60 of their most critical VMs to the cloud, before expanding to the current count now at 200+.

The initial migration phase of QBP’s production stack and workload transition took place over three months. During this time, the QBP team scaled their application usage and benefitted from flexible pricing on demand, something not previously possible with an on-premises environment. To aid in leveraging on-demand pricing, QBP put safeguards in place including rules for subscriptions, setting up alerts and monitoring, and more.

Most important to QBP was to ensure that security was at the forefront of their migration and integrated into every phase. VMware Cloud on AWS was the perfect vehicle to make sure QBP’s environment was secure from the get-go. They created ‘guardrails’ to ensure high standards of security for QBP’s team without monopolizing their day-to-day tasks, enabling teams to focus on business-critical projects.

Joe Van Ert, Systems Architect at QBP, states, “The biggest business impact for us moving to VMware Cloud on AWS is the cost involved. We are now able to produce reports and graphs that show the rationale behind our choices. This has a big impact on our ability to optimize.”

The capability for developers to say “yes” to new projects was a huge win for QBP. Hardware on-premises has a restriction of bandwidth, with a finite capacity until additional hardware is purchased. When asked, Van Ert commented, “VMware Cloud on AWS was the best choice because of their stability and familiarity of the VMware platform. It enabled us to use more advanced developer tools with intuitive access and use.”

Now, instead of focusing on the technical constraints, they can price out the project on AWS and pay for applicatio development whenever they need to expand. As new projects are released, the ability to quickly roll out new applications on small VMs or platforms, was incredibly impactful.

Additionally, the scalability that VMware Cloud on AWS offered enabled QBP to add more RAM or CPUs as needed which eventually helped in cost savings. This enabled QBP to gain the dynamic performance they need for their applications and help them quickly fix any problems that occurred, such as outages as well as adjust to seasonality. For example, QBP can gain additional capacity during summer to accommodate the biker demand. And during winters, when they’re not as active, QBP can scale down resources according to business needs.