ReasonLabs Migrates to AWS, Reducing Costs by over 50%

Cybersecurity software company ReasonLabs has one of the biggest malware signature databases in the world. When the company began to outgrow its infrastructure, it needed to take action to improve the performance and stability of its cloud databases. ReasonLabs opted to replace its database engines and migrate fully to an Amazon Web Services (AWS) solution. Using AWS, ReasonLabs reduced CPU usage, improved query processing times, and achieved lower latency. It is now realizing a cost savings of over 50 percent.

ReasonLabs offers a variety of security-related tools, such as antivirus and antimalware solutions. Previously, the company managed its workload across multiple cloud vendors, but it wanted to improve the performance, stability, and cost of its database infrastructure. The company opted to move the database closer to the backend to reduce latency and improve connectivity. To reduce costs, ReasonLabs decided to change its database engine from SQL to PostgreSQL. After considering the requirements for stability and cost optimization, ReasonLabs selected Amazon Aurora, a relational database built for the cloud, specifically choosing the PostgreSQL-compatible edition.

Throughout the migration, ReasonLabs worked closely with AWS Enterprise Support, which provides businesses with 24/7 technical support from high-quality engineers and tools and the technology to automatically manage the health of their environments.

ReasonLabs needed to securely migrate over 40 TB of data while replicating ongoing changes during the migration process. The company chose to use a combination of three solutions: AWS Database Migration Service (AWS DMS), which helps developers migrate databases to AWS quickly and securely while the source database remains fully operational; a third-party solution, CloudBasic, from AWS Partner CloudBasix; and its own proprietary solution developed for the larger tables, which ReasonLabs also donated to the larger community.

ReasonLabs worked alongside AWS Enterprise Support and CloudBasix, with CloudBasix providing custom configurations. By using these tools, ReasonLabs was able to move the database clusters and complete the migration to Aurora successfully. “The goal was to never lose data and at the same time not compromise on security,” said Elad Amsalem, backend team lead at ReasonLabs. “Our tools were designed so that within seconds, the data was updated to the target destination.” The migration began in early 2020 and took about 3 months to complete.

Using Aurora, ReasonLabs is seeing multiple benefits. The company was able to scale down instances on its databases, reducing CPU usage by close to 40 percent, which has resulted in a cost savings of over 50 percent. “As well as the cost reduction, we have also improved performance and stability, and we now experience lower latency,” says Anton Yurchenko, DevOps team leader at ReasonLabs. “Through our use of Aurora, query processing is approximately 200 percent faster than it was previously. Additionally, the traffic doesn’t leave ReasonLabs’ local network, so we also gained increased security.”

The company appreciates the support it received in its migration journey. “The AWS team has been helping us with research and with figuring out the correct engine architecture,” says Yurchenko. “AWS has a different level of employees—a different level of experts. We look at them as part of our team.”