Case study: Oak Software

improving the subscription management of over 1000 publications annually

Our client

How the right cloud management solution can improve the subscription management of over 1000 publications annually

Based in Leicestershire, Oak Software have been providing efficient and cost-effective subscription management software and services to publishers and membership organisations for over 20 years.

Their subscription management software, Oak.SUBSCRIBE, is used by publishers throughout the UK and currently manages subscriptions for over 1,000 titles with around 7 million issues mailed each year. With built-in features including ecommerce integration, subscription renewals, payment processing and reporting Oak.SUBSCRIBE customers can select the options and modules they require to customise the solution to their exact needs.

Find out more

Oak Software AWS Managed cloud service

The Challenge

Oak Software had moved to Amazon Web Services (AWS) because it offered the business greater flexibility without affecting the performance as the number of users increased.

Having worked with their existing IT provider to move their infrastructure the team at Oak Software decided to look at alternative support partners for the future. They identified the key skills they would require in their AWS support partner as the business grew including:

  • Specialist AWS knowledge – Because AWS was always evolving and changing Oak Software wanted a support partner who understood the capabilities of AWS and had the specialist knowledge and expertise that would complement the in-house team.
  • Cost and Performance Management – Oak Software wanted to ensure that their AWS infrastructure was delivering the best possible performance and costs were being managed effectively. Their support partner would need to work closely with the in-house team to provide the experience and processes which would help ensure the highest possible return on investment in cloud infrastructure.
  • Proactive Support – New features and functions are regularly added to AWS. Oak Software wanted a support partner who was able to recognise the benefits of new features and proactively work with them to deploy them across the infrastructure.
CloudOpsBeta-dark

The Approach

Steve Stringer, software architect at Oak Software, commented: “IG CloudOps had the knowledge and expertise we needed and they were able to demonstrate how they would support our development team quickly and efficiently through their cloud management solution, CloudOps.”

IG CloudOps had a great deal of experience working with SaaS providers who used AWS to deliver applications and services to customers using the cloud. When they were approached by Oak Software they already understood how the business operated and the requirements they would have for their infrastructure.

IG CloudOps carried out an audit of the AWS infrastructure as part of the initial discovery project with Oak Software and recommended implementing their CloudOps. As an always-on cloud support and management solution it would provide them cloud performance and cost monitoring tools, support processes and infrastructure administration tools in a single portal.

Following the initial audit igroup took over the management of the infrastructure within just one week. They set up and installed CloudOps on the AWS cloud which gave Oak Software a complete range of management tools as well as a dedicated igroup account manager to work with them.

As part of the initial on boarding the team at IG CloudOps:

Reviewed existing resources and infrastructure – Using the CloudOps software igroup were able to show that the current deployment was meeting the needs of Oak Software’s customers in an efficient way. Now Oak Software are able to concentrate on their future plans and are working with IG CloudOps to achieve them.

Implemented patches and updatesIG CloudOps support technicians ensured that the infrastructure was up to date and included all the latest security patches.

Introduced 24/7 support – ensuring that customer issues were resolved quickly as well as training Oak Software how to use the CloudOps support dashboards.

The Results

With CloudOps integrated with Oak Software’s AWS infrastructure they have seen a number of benefits including:

  • Access to a dedicated account manager who understands Oak Software, AWS, the infrastructure, and their software.
  • CloudOps 24/7 monitoring and support for the AWS infrastructure as well as access to a UK based team of support engineers
  • AWS experts who proactively work with Oak Software to improve their application delivery over the cloud
  • Regular infrastructure performance reviews to help future planning

Steve Stringer, software architect at Oak Software, said: “Working with IG CloudOps has helped us to ensure that as we grow our infrastructure is supported fully and can deliver the results our customers expect.“

Find Out More Speak To Us Today

The Challenge

The Solution

  • Initial audit and patching of the AWS infrastructure 
  • Implementing our proactive CloudOps 
  • Implementing a new 24/7 support structure 
  • Dedicated account manager 

The Results

  • Implementation of CloudOps performance monitoring and maintenance within 2 weeks
  • Fully trained and qualified AWS experts on hand to support growth 
  • Regular monitoring and management of the infrastructure

Request a call back

Over 70 customers across 8 countries manage AWS & Azure with CloudOps