GreenCityZen: 100% growth per year on a robust cloud architecture at AWS

GreenCityZen makes its environmental IoT solution available to local authorities and operators of water and sanitation networks with the goal of driving sustainable management of water resources.

This young startup, certified by the French Ministry for the Environment, offers, in particular, intelligent irrigation solutions for green spaces. Watering is governed by the plants’ needs, measured by sensors at their roots. Water savings are considerable, often of the order of 50 to 60% in regions as varied as Tuscany (Florence), Paris, Marseille, Lyon and Bordeaux.

Working with the UNHCR (UN), the solutions deployed by GreenCityZen in 15 countries also facilitate access to drinking water in refugee camps.

Finally, GreenCityZen also provides solutions to allow storm system operators to detect waste in bottlenecks (drains) and thus collect it more efficiently so they can take action in the right place, at the right time (productivity and pollution reduction).

The quest for better cost control with AWS

At the start of the GreenCityZen adventure, the company did not have internal resources dedicated to operating IT systems. However, when launching an ambitious startup, controlling costs in this area is key to testing the viability of the business model.

In 2018, GreenCityZen chose AWS to host its software platform. The team was convinced, in particular, by the provision of easy-to-use tools and high-quality technical support. Alexandre Boudonne highlights the ability of the cloud computing provider to support startups (in particular thanks to AWS Activate) to enable them to develop and accelerate their innovative solution under the best conditions.

Using Saving Plans, a flexible pricing model that offers lower prices in return for a given user commitment, the startup now has total control over its costs, despite strong growth in the use of their services.

Efficient and responsive customer support

The co-founder of GreenCityZen remembers it taking ten months with his previous supplier to resolve a problem involving a database that had begun to overconsume resources, generating a bill of around 10,000 euros. A similar situation has not occurred since the startup joined AWS. He explains to us that, although the workforce has now been strengthened, the technical team sometimes asks for customer support for a technical problem or advice.

“The AWS team is very responsive. Between opening the ticket and resolution by support, our problem is often resolved in less than an hour. In addition, if my services are unavailable, AWS takes care of it. Their support is high quality.”
Alexandre Boudonne, Director and co-founder of GreenCityZen

During the migration to AWS, the startup was supported by technical experts to validate their architecture choices. A database migration is always a delicate process. This is why the GreenCityZen team appreciated this human support.

A set of solutions to support the startup’s scalability

Subsequently, GreenCityZen deployed the solutions it needed for the proper functioning of its platform. The data collected by the sensors arrives on the network. They are stored using our Amazon S3 object storage service with the least amount of processing possible to recover almost all of the flow. They are then processed in Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS) and finally queried using Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS). This enables GreenCityZen to offer its customers a dashboard with understandable data, allowing them to make quick decisions based on a snapshot of reality at a given moment.

To facilitate the scalability of their application, the startup uses Elastic Load Balancing and AWS Auto Scaling on some components.

AWS: a strategic contribution

With the support of the AWS teams and the tools provided, GreenCityZen is succeeding in its challenge: to capture reality, help its customers make better decisions, save time and money, and also protect the planet.

The young startup has already achieved the milestone of very large-scale deployments (several thousand sensors), it is now strengthening its international presence: Italy, Spain, Saudi Arabia, but also several countries in Africa and Asia.

Faced with the startup's huge ambitions, Alexandre Boudonne confirms that he is moving forward calmly with a partner like AWS.