Customer Stories / Software & Internet

RMS Cloud Overcomes “Noisy Neighbor”, Improving Database Performance by 30% on AWS
RMS Cloud transformed its multi-tenant architecture with Amazon RDS, taking advantage of prompt support from AWS and AWS Partner Slalom to achieve higher availability and significantly reduce downtime for customers.
20–30%
better CPU utilization for database instances
Robust data protection
Prevents security drift
24/7 support
from local AWS teams
Zero downtime
Improved resilience in multi-tenant model
Overview
RMS Cloud is an all-in-one property management platform, serving more than 7,000 hospitality properties in over 70 countries. The company recently migrated its database architecture to AWS to obtain better technical support and eliminate downtime for customers.
RMS Cloud is using Amazon RDS for SQL Server, Amazon EKS for Kubernetes workloads, and Amazon EFS for storage. Since migration, the company has achieved 20−30 percent better performance and eliminated issues with downtime that often impacted its multi-tenant architecture.

Opportunity | Lacking Support During an 8-Hour Outage
For more than 40 years, RMS Cloud has provided an all-in-one property management platform to hospitality businesses in Australia and internationally. In fact, more than 7,000 properties in 70 countries currently use RMS software. RMS Cloud has been in a process of digital transformation, constantly looking for new ways technology can deliver cost-efficient, resilient solutions at scale. Since 2011, the company has used a multi-tenant software model on the cloud.
As data volumes grew, the software provider faced challenges with its cloud-based database management service, often experiencing downtime during traffic surges. Complications with one customer would often impact other tenants sharing the same database instance, leading to widespread service downtime. To address potential client complaints, RMS Cloud resorted to assigning customers to individual single-tenant instances—a costly solution that undermined the benefits of a multi-tenant model.
In January 2023—one of the busiest months for the Australian hospitality industry—the company’s cloud provider suffered a significant outage that resulted in nearly 8 hours of downtime overnight. RMS Cloud is rapidly growing in Asia and Europe, and the outage did not bode well for this expansion. More importantly, engineers had little to no support from the provider during the event. RMS Cloud soon decided to switch to a provider that could offer higher resilience and also address the “noisy neighbor” issue with its multi-tenant database model.

We’re not babysitting the SQL servers anymore, which helps us really focus on our application development rather than database management.”
Andrew Buttigieg
Technical Services Manager at RMS Cloud
Solution | Achieving Seamless Migration with Higher Availability and Security
RMS Cloud found the support it was seeking in Amazon Web Services (AWS). The company’s AWS account team connected it with AWS Partner Slalom to build a modern cloud strategy. What began as a straightforward migration grew to encompass higher availability, better performance, and lower database cost on AWS.
Slalom initiated a comprehensive cost and technology analysis using the AWS Well-Architected framework, spending nearly three months designing and stress-testing new, customized architecture before migrating any production workloads. The assessment was fully funded by AWS as part of the AWS Migration Acceleration Program (MAP), which ensured technical acceleration and commercial benefits throughout the migration.
Andrew Buttigieg, technical services manager at RMS Cloud, says, “The transition was very smooth. Slalom and AWS have both been very responsive throughout the process, with response times from a few minutes to an hour at most.”
As part of the AWS Enterprise Support plan, RMS Cloud benefits from AWS Infrastructure Event Management (IEM) during migration waves. By February 2024, approximately six months after the first wave, RMS Cloud will have migrated all 4,300 databases, totaling over 2TB of data, to Amazon RDS for SQL Server. RMS Cloud also seamlessly moved its Kubernetes workloads to Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (Amazon EKS) and is using Amazon Elastic File System (Amazon EFS) for serverless storage.
Along with the migration, RMS Cloud has implemented additional security features such as Amazon Inspector to detect software vulnerabilities and centralize security alerts. Data is encrypted both in transit and at rest, and backups occur automatically within AWS Regions in Australia. “We can avoid security drift thanks to the thorough architecture review we’ve done prior to migration,” adds Buttigieg. “With the modernization of our database, we’ve built in additional encryption for PII [personally identifiable information].”
Outcome | Resolving Downtime and Addressing the "Noisy Neighbor"
By migrating to AWS, RMS Cloud achieved a performance gain of 20–30 percent for its databases. Amazon RDS offers a lower CPU utilization rate compared to RMS Cloud’s previous provider, which means the company can run smaller machine sizes for a similar customer pool and save on cost per customer.
The “noisy neighbor” issue that was causing downtime has also been resolved. Despite facing similar spikes in demand, these are now swiftly managed on Amazon RDS, preventing disruptions from spreading to other customers on the same server. Today, RMS Cloud observes a maximum delay of 15–20 seconds, in contrast to the 5- to 6-minute delays experienced with the previous cloud database. “We’re not babysitting the SQL servers anymore, which helps us really focus on our application development rather than database management,” Buttigieg adds.
Additionally, RMS Cloud uses service-level granular reporting via AWS Cost Explorer, empowering the business to visualize, comprehend, and manage AWS costs and usage effectively. This meticulous monitoring of costs and consumption has facilitated a budget-controlled migration and established a solid foundation for future modernization initiatives.
Most importantly, RMS Cloud feels confident in the support they receive from AWS. Peter Buttigieg, managing director at RMS Cloud, says, “Our business requires 24/7 uptime. While challenges are inevitable, the ability to quickly connect with experts who understand our needs and respond rapidly has been a game changer for us.” Next on its cloud roadmap, RMS Cloud plans to implement Amazon Aurora for PostgreSQL as a fully managed database service.
About RMS Cloud
RMS Cloud delivers a scalable, all-in-one property management platform used by hospitality businesses in more than 70 countries. Launched in Australia 40 years ago, the company currently serves over 7,000 unique properties.
AWS Services Used
Amazon RDS for SQL Server
Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS) for SQL Server makes it easy to set up, operate, and scale a relational database in the cloud.
Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service
Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (Amazon EKS) gives you the flexibility to start, run, and scale Kubernetes applications in the AWS cloud or on-premises.
Learn more »
Amazon Elastic File System
Amazon Elastic File System (Amazon EFS) provides a simple, scalable, fully managed elastic NFS file system for use with AWS Cloud services and on-premises resources.
Learn more »
Amazon Inspector
Amazon Inspector is an automated vulnerability management service that continually scans AWS workloads for software vulnerabilities and unintended network exposure.
Learn more »
Get Started
Organizations of all sizes across all industries are transforming their businesses and delivering on their missions every day using AWS. Contact our experts and start your own AWS journey today.