C U S TO M E R C A S E S T U DY

S WAT. I O | 1

CUSTOMERSWAT.IO

WEB SITESWAT.IO

INDUSTRYSOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT

LOCATIONVIENNA, AUSTRIA

KEY CHALLENGES

• Reliable services need a stable platform

• Social media applications create fast-growing data volumes and have to run 24/7

• Lack of capacity to run the company’s own servers

SOLUTION

Redundant VMware cluster guarantees stability, vSphere is the fl exible and scalable management platform

IMPACT

• Use of infrastructure-as-a-service

• Stable and reliable architecture with defi ned SLAs

• High fl exibility and quick provision of new resources

• Virtualization provides software deployment and resources for developers at all times

• Scalability ensures growth

Social media is an integral part of business today, an important tool for companies to communicate with the customer. The challenge is to react as fast as possible on every channel. The social media management software solution Swat.io, developed by the Vienna-based start-up "Die Socialisten", quickly succeded in winning prestigious companies as customers.

There are four partners in this case study: VMware delivers reliable technology with virtualization. The outsourcing service provider APA-IT uses VMware infrastructure for its customers. One of those is Swat.io with its software-as-a-service solution. Finally, there are the end-customers who use Swat.io. They all need reliable 24/7 operation and a fl exible deployment of resources, especially at peak times, such as on New Year's Eve. And they emphasize one aspect: high-standard services need a solid foundation.

Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google+, YouTube – managing customer contact through various channels all day long has become an important task for every company concerning marketing, communication and support. Because customers post on di� erent social media channels or web sites, it is important to know what is written about one’s company and be able to react fast to questions, complaints or spam. Swat.io is a tool which facilitates the management of social media activity immediately and e� ciently. It became one of the top three solutions in the German-speaking area within fi ve years. Developed by the Vienna-based start-up "Die Socialisten", this young and successful venture is fi nanced from its own resources.

The challenge: Growth requires a solid foundationThe development and concept of Swat.io brought a new orientation, from a software agency with individual development to a provider of SaaS (software-as-a-service). That means a cloud-based solution with invoicing on demand and reliable hosting. The solution covers the four pillars of content planning, publishing, community management, analytics and monitoring.

Initially, their own servers were managed by the Swat.io developers, but it soon became clear that the fi ve-person team was too small to maintain 24/7 operation of the system. Moreover, every new customer and function generated even more data and tra� c. Another challenge was scalability, especially on “hot days“ like on New Year’s Eve or the 2015 Eurovision Song Contest in Vienna. The volume of interactions with all customers increased strongly, pushing systems and the team to the limits.

After a short interlude with a small service provider, the idea occurred to team up with a big reliable partner as infrastructure hosting partner. The quest took

THE SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGEMENT TOOL SWAT.IO RELIES ON VIRTUALIZATION FOR A FLEXIBLE AND FAIL-SAFE SYSTEM

C U S TO M E R C A S E S T U DY | 2

THE SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGEMENT TOOL SWAT.IO RELIES ON VIRTUALIZATION FOR A FLEXIBLE AND FAIL-SAFE SYSTEM

half a year. Founder and Managing Director Michael Kamleitner from Swat.io explains his reasoning: “We have B2B premium customers who demand availability and quality and pay for it, of course this is assured through appropriate SLAs. We as developers had high demands when looking for a partner: the software stack changes continuously, databases need to be exchanged, there needs to be fl exibility and we ourselves know as well that this is costly.”

Action: Stability and fl exibility from one sourceAfter evaluating various candidates, it was decided to choose APA-IT Informations Technologie GmbH, because of their size and prominent references. APA-IT is a subsidiary of APA – Austria Presse Agentur. 140 employees take care of the IT-infrastructure and APA’s software solutions, furthermore acting as an outsourcing partner for multiple companies looking for a stable 24/7 availability of the IT environment.

Johannes Kirchmayr, Head of Managed Services at APA-IT, immediately had the optimal solution for these special demands associated with Swat.io s high speed: “When Swat.io told us that they always need the latest technology immediately, we knew from the beginning on that we are going to run the installation virtualized on VMware.” APA-IT runs a VMware cluster in two data centers: one in their headquarter in Vienna’s 6th district, the other one on the other side of the Danube ensuring business continuity. “We defi ned reliability and stability as the most important factors. The architecture was of importance as well when looking at the expansion and the fl exibility needed. In this case the virtual concept with VMware convinced us,” Kamleitner said.

APA-IT has used VMware vSphere for virtualization for the past ten years, emphasizing the professional support and the stable and seamless systems. “We represent stability and fl exibility. 24/7 support is our daily responsibility because the editorial o� ces of our parent company APA are working day and night,” explains Kirchmayr. This permanent access is also an advantage for Swat.io and its media-customers, because they have similar needs having their editorial o� ces sta� ed late at night, on weekends and on public holidays.

APA-IT’s virtual data center is based on VMware vSphere 6.5. Through this platform the customer requests are monitored and provided immediately. “vSphere 6.5 is intuitive and easy to manage, which the IT team was pleased with from the beginning.” explains Kirchmayr. "Not only does it make data center management more e� cient, it also lowers operational costs, which benefi ts customers like Swat.io."

Impact: Cooperation based on partnership benefi ts the end customerOne of the fi rst customers of Swat.io was a well-known Austrian broadcasting company, which operates a tra� c-heavy Facebook page. On one hand, content goes out to the user: Swat.io o� ers functions for collaboration, for editorial planning and for approval processes. On the other hand, information comes in, for instance posts from the community such as song requests. In addition, Swat.io supports a fi lter function for spam monitoring.

The community of the broadcasting company is particularly active, but Swat.io’s more than 100 other customers also produce a lot of tra� c. Proactive monitoring is therefore becoming increasingly important. With VMware vRealize Operations, performance bottlenecks and inadequate peak-time capacity are

“We defined reliability and stability as the most important factors. The architecture was of importance as well, when looking at our growth and the flexibility needed. In this case the virtual concept with VMware convinced us.”

MICHAEL KAMLEITNERCEO AND FOUNDERSWAT.IO

VMWARE FOOTPRINT

• VMware vSphere 6.5

• VMware vRealize Operations

PARTNER

VMware, Inc. 3401 Hillview Avenue Palo Alto CA 94304 USA Tel 877-486-9273 Fax 650-427-5001 www.vmware.comCopyright © 2018 VMware, Inc. All rights reserved. This product is protected by U.S. and international copyright and intellectual property laws. VMware products are covered by one or more patents listed at http://www.vmware.com/go/patents. VMware is a registered trademark or trademark of VMware, Inc. in the United States and/or other jurisdictions. All other marks and names mentioned herein may be trademarks of their respective companies. Item No: 18Q2 Swat.io EN

THE SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGEMENT TOOL SWAT.IO RELIES ON VIRTUALIZATION FOR A FLEXIBLE AND FAIL-SAFE SYSTEM

“When Swat.io told us that they are a high-speed company and they always need the latest technology immediately, we knew from the beginning on that we are going to run the installation virtualized on VMware vSphere 6.5.”

JOHANNES KIRCHMAYRDIVISION MANAGER, MANAGED SERVICESAPA-IT

detected and load-balanced, which enables workloads to be delivered quickly. The architecture provides su� cient bu� er, Kirchmayr explains the strategy: "We avoid possible downtime or failure by updating and expanding our products and services on time. We do not let our customers down."

Scalability is important to be able to switch to larger systems and avoid downtime. "In the old days disk space was always in short supply, now it's a topic of the past. Even if I need a new development server at short notice, I only need to request it and can access it immediately”, says Kamleitner. The developers of Swat.io are users with special requirements for fl exibility and speed. After successful tests and reviews, they initiate software deployment several times a day. Here as well, VMware ensures an appropriate development environment and a high-performance software distribution. "The stable and scalable environment works very well from a technical point of view thanks to VMware, and from an economic point of view thanks to the fl exibility of APA-IT," says Kamleitner with satisfaction.

More and more of Swat.io's customers are also asking where the servers are located. The newly implemented GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) has increased this attention in the German-speaking region even further. Here, the infrastructure partner APA-IT is positioning itself as a local supplier compared to global competitors. Swat.io appreciates the locally available contact and the strengthening of the European software market.

Looking Ahead: More data and speed for the futureRight now, Swat.io is in a challenging development phase, as it is necessary to prove itself to the competition and consolidate its acquired position. For the future, they would like to expand further from the German-speaking markets, as well as develop additional functionality. In both cases the result is an explosion of data. "This increases the demand for scalable infrastructure and therefore a reliable partner is so important to us. We have had good experiences with APA-IT”, says Kamleitner, looking optimistic into the future. With international growth, connectivity and latency could become more important.

VMware provides the most stable foundation for our services, Kirchmayr summarizes: “If the services are stable but the foundations are not, it will not work out. It is similar with a house: On concrete, it will stand, whereas on sand it will collapse. VMware is the most stable concrete for us.”