Why the Migration Was Necessary
The decision to migrate to Google Cloud Platform (GCP) stemmed from our commitment to delivering enhanced performance, scalability, and reliability for our customers. As Juleb’s user base and operational demands grew, it became evident that our previous infrastructure limited the responsiveness and efficiency of critical modules like Juleb POS, Inventory Planning, Transfers, and Juleb Connect—modules that require high processing power to handle large volumes of transactions seamlessly. This transition to GCP ensures that our platform can meet these demands with the speed and reliability customers expect, supporting both day-to-day operations and long-term scalability.
In addition to improved performance, the migration also addresses uptime and service reliability. The previous provider faced more than average downtimes, which affected the user experience. By moving to GCP, we’ve been able to deliver consistent, uninterrupted access to our services, enhancing customer satisfaction and trust. GCP’s scalable environment also empowers us to support ongoing growth more efficiently, allowing us to adapt to new challenges and evolving customer needs with minimal disruptions.
Lastly, while the migration required initial investments, GCP’s streamlined operations and reduced maintenance demands mean that we anticipate significant long-term savings. This strategic move aligns with our commitment to investing in solutions that provide both immediate and sustained value for our customers, reinforcing Juleb’s dedication to their success and satisfaction.
How the Migration Was Performed
Migrating such complex operations required a well-planned, phased approach:
- Evaluating cloud providers and choosing GCP: After a thorough investigation, we determined which GCP services would best support our workloads. For example, GCP’s Compute Engine and Kubernetes Engine emerged as ideal solutions for running our microservices and databases.
- Infrastructure Inventory: We began by cataloging our existing infrastructure, ensuring that every module and workload was accounted for, minimizing the risk of data loss or overlooked assets.
- Migration Strategy: Each workload type required specific migration strategies:
- Updating Juleb/NPM: We ensured that the microservices and npm dependencies were updated to the latest stable versions. This was critical for optimizing performance, ensuring security, and taking advantage of the latest features available in the microservices ecosystem.
- Stateless Workloads (Microservices): Migrated early in the process with minimal impact since they don’t persist data.
- Stateful Workloads (PostgreSQL and MongoDB databases): We created a custom solution using GCP’s Compute Engine and Linux utilities for safe and efficient data replication.
- Data Transfer Process: A phased data migration allowed us to move databases incrementally, keeping both old and new clusters in parallel during the cutover. For PostgreSQL databases, we used rsync for data synchronization. In total, we successfully migrated over 200 PostgreSQL databases and a 150+ GiB MongoDB cluster to GCP.
- Security Enhancements: As part of our security improvements, we followed industry standards for internal operations, such as restricting access to Kubernetes and disabling port-forwarding to safeguard our infrastructure. These measures ensure that our platform operates securely and in compliance with the latest security protocols.
- Other considerations: To ensure minimal disruption, we chose off-peak hours for the final cutover and stopped write operations temporarily, resulting in a seamless transition with almost no downtime.
In simpler terms, we ensured a seamless transition by:
- Conducting in-depth preplanning to ensure all systems were ready and the migration process was smooth.
- Adopting a phased approach, which allowed us to transition critical workloads step by step while keeping system operational
- Scheduling the migration during off-peak hours to minimize any potential disruption
Thanks to these measures, all our customers, especially those using Juleb POS, experienced zero downtime during the migration process. It was so seamless that it felt like nothing was even happening!
Challenges Faced and Lessons Learned
The migration wasn’t without its challenges:
- Unexpected MongoDB Issues: An issue with indexing in MongoDB forced us to revert to a self-hosted solution on GCP Kubernetes.
- Accidental Deletion of Kubernetes Secrets: A minor mishap led to the deletion of critical Kubernetes secrets. However, we restored the data quickly and implemented new backup measures to prevent this in the future.
Every challenge during the migration strengthened our commitment to excellence. Moving forward, these experiences will guide improvements in our operational workflows and disaster recovery plans, ensuring even smoother migrations for future projects.
Top 3 Benefits of the Migration
Enhanced Performance
One of the most noticeable improvements has been the Enhanced Performance of the Juleb ERP system. The system now delivers speed and responsiveness that far surpasses the previous setup, providing an ultra-smooth user experience. This improvement is particularly noticeable for customers managing large operations, where quick execution is crucial for day-to-day activities. The result is a smoother, more efficient user experience, allowing tasks to be completed faster and more accurately.
Key areas of performance that have greatly improved include:
- Navigation: The speed of navigating through the system is now lightning-fast, with page load times reduced to mere milliseconds. What once felt slow and clunky is now seamless, allowing users to move quickly between modules without delay.
- Replenishment in Inventory Planning: Operations saw substantial improvements. After the migration, for operations handling 200+ lines at once, these improvements cut transfer times down from 30-40 seconds to 18 seconds, with a 40% decrease in time! Providing our customers with the speed and reliability they need for scaling and operating big data.
- Product Receiving and Validation: Adding new products and validating them in the system has become significantly faster. Tasks that once took minutes now take just a few seconds, greatly improving the efficiency of inventory management.
“I’ve personally witnessed remarkable improvements with JULEB ERP, particularly for one of our customers who has 60+ branches. The system now allows seamless navigation between branches in milliseconds, with no page loading delays. It was so efficient that I couldn’t help but smile throughout my work on one of their tasks. Another standout experience involved a customer who heavily relies on the system. Previously, we’d receive daily complaints about slowness. After the migration, we didn’t hear a single complaint. In fact, we reached out to check on them, and they expressed how thrilled they were with the system’s performance—no more slowness issues!
As for the migration process itself, it was incredibly smooth. As a Customer Success team, we were prepared for any potential challenges, but there wasn’t a single major complaint from customers during the transition. It was a testament to how well the migration and system upgrade were executed.”
– A Senior CS Associate at Juleb
Reliable Uptime
Our previous infrastructure experienced occasional downtimes, which impacted the availability of our services and often disrupted customer operations. With the migration to Google Cloud, we’ve achieved a significant improvement in Reliable Uptime, minimizing interruptions and ensuring continuous, dependable access for our customers.
By moving to GCP, we were able to eliminate the downtimes that previously affected certain clusters in our old infrastructure. The transition provided us with a more stable, scalable environment, and we now have enhanced load balancing and failover mechanisms in place, reducing the likelihood of any service interruptions. This results in higher availability, ensuring that our customers can rely on Juleb ERP around the clock.
More Innovation and less maintenance
The migration to GCP allows Juleb to focus more on innovation and less on managing infrastructure and cloud maintenance. With GCP’s flexibility, we can dedicate more resources to enhancing our products, developing new features, and improving overall service quality. This shift means that our customers will experience faster updates, more innovative solutions, and a platform that continuously evolves to meet their growing needs. By reducing time spent on infrastructure management, we can prioritize what matters most; delivering exceptional value and cutting-edge solutions that drive customer success.
The Takeaway
At Juleb, we believe in constantly evolving to exceed customer expectations and providing our customers with the best possible experience. The move required careful planning, execution, and troubleshooting, but the resulting performance gains and scalability have proven invaluable. The migration to GCP isn’t just a one-time upgrade, it’s the foundation for a future of continuous improvement and innovation. As we continue this journey, we look forward to delivering even more value and staying at the forefront of ERP solutions.
For Juleb customers, the outcome is clear: faster performance, enhanced reliability, and a platform that grows with their needs!
