Sampa Connect Transformed: Global Scalability and Cost Reduction through AWS Migration

Executive Summary

Sampa, a prominent Turkish manufacturing company, embarked on developing a B2B e-commerce platform named SampaConnect to market and sell their manufactured products globally. Initially, the platform was built on a widely-used ERP e-commerce solution to serve their clientele. However, they encountered escalating costs and subpar performance during both development and production phases. Concurrently, declining sales performance of the platform emerged as a critical business concern. In response, the Chief Information Officer (CIO) sought to migrate the platform to the cloud to enhance global performance and optimize operational costs. This migration leveraged a comprehensive range of AWS services to deploy and integrate both B2B and CRM applications, ensuring a robust, scalable, and optimized infrastructure.

About Sampa

SAMPA is a distinguished Turkish manufacturing company renowned for supplying spare parts compatible with European and American heavy-duty vehicles, trailers, and buses. With robust brand recognition, SAMPA exports its high-quality products to over 160 countries, proudly representing both the company and Turkey on the global stage. Established in 1994, SAMPA boasts a state-of-the-art Research and Development (R&D) center that fosters innovation through patented designs and reverse engineering research, enabling the development of superior products at minimal costs. The company’s manufacturing facilities, R&D center, and administrative offices are strategically located in the industrial zone of Samsun, Turkey, reinforcing SAMPA’s commitment to excellence and continuous innovation.

Problem Statement

During the development of SampaConnect, Sampa encountered several significant challenges that impeded both progress and performance. The reliance on proprietary software licenses resulted in substantial cost increases, placing considerable strain on the company’s budgetary resources. Additionally, the existing local on-premises data centers were inadequate in meeting the scalability and performance requirements essential for a global e-commerce platform. Managing this local infrastructure proved cumbersome, and the highly transactional nature of the application further exacerbated performance and efficiency issues. These infrastructure and operational inefficiencies not only elevated operational costs but also led to declining sales performance, thereby threatening the platform’s viability and Sampa’s overall market presence.

Solution for Sampa Automotive

To address the operational and performance challenges faced by Sampa, the company collaborated with LimonCloud to implement a comprehensive solution leveraging Amazon Web Services (AWS). This approach focused on enhancing scalability, reducing costs, and improving overall performance, transforming SampaConnect into a cost-efficient and high-performing e-commerce platform.

The B2B e-commerce applications were containerized and deployed on Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS), enabling dynamic scalability with Kubernetes clusters that automatically adjusted based on resource demands. This implementation ensured high availability and minimized downtime during peak periods. Meanwhile, Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS) was utilized to manage and scale CRM applications, streamlining operations and enhancing performance. Furthermore, AWS CodePipeline automated CI/CD processes, accelerating software deployments, improving collaboration among development teams, and enabling rapid feature releases.

As part of the database modernization efforts, Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL was adopted to deliver superior performance and cost-effectiveness. At the same time, Amazon RDS for Microsoft SQL Server ensured compatibility with existing workloads. To improve search capabilities and data analysis, Amazon OpenSearch was integrated, enabling real-time data retrieval and analytics. Additionally, AWS ElastiCache for Redis was utilized to create a caching layer, distributing data across multiple shards to enhance performance and scalability.

All AWS services were configured across multiple Availability Zones (AZ) to ensure high availability and data durability. Automated backup and disaster recovery strategies were also implemented to safeguard data integrity and guarantee business continuity. Leveraging AWS’s global infrastructure further optimized content delivery, reducing latency and providing superior performance for users across multiple regions.

Results and Benefits

The collaboration with LimonCloud and the strategic migration to AWS yielded substantial benefits for SampaConnect:

Cost Reduction:

 By adopting open-source solutions and optimizing AWS infrastructure, SampaConnect achieved a 60% reduction in IT operational costs, significantly alleviating budget constraints.

Performance Enhancement:

The migration to AWS, coupled with the deployment of EKS for B2B applications and ECS for CRM applications, along with services like Amazon RDS, Amazon OpenSearch, and ElastiCache for Redis, resulted in a marked improvement in platform performance and reliability.

Global Scalability and Accessibility:

 Leveraging AWS’s global infrastructure enabled SampaConnect to swiftly access and operate in multiple regions worldwide, ensuring high availability and enhancing customer reach. This scalability contributed to a fourfold increase in user acquisition rates.

Accelerated CI/CD Processes:

 The implementation of AWS CodePipeline and the expertise provided by LimonCloud streamlined CI/CD workflows, reducing deployment intervals to an almost daily cadence, thereby fostering agility and responsiveness to market demands.