Key Takeaways

  • Effectual migrated TNTP's public-facing and internal web applications to AWS after a flooding event disrupted on-premises operations.
  • Infrastructure as Code via AWS CloudFormation templates lets TNTP version-control infrastructure state and perform rolling updates with minimal downtime.
  • AWS Auto Scaling and custom CloudWatch settings let TNTP's infrastructure flexibly scale to accommodate workloads of varying size.
  • AWS Elastic Load Balancing and failover strategies maximize uptime and minimize data loss in the event of a disaster.
  • TNTP reduced costs compared to on-premises hardware and maintenance while gaining better scalability and disaster recovery.

TNTP’s mission is to end the injustice of educational inequality by providing excellent teachers to the students who need them most and by advancing policies and practices that ensure effective teaching in every classroom.

Challenge

In the wake of a flooding, TNTP looked to Effectual to quickly and effectively migrate their public-facing web applications and internal applications to the AWS cloud for better cost, scalability, disaster recovery capabilities, and better application performance.

Solution

Effectual worked with TNTP to define an application migration strategy, set up the infrastructure in accordance with best practices and to take advantage of the full feature set of cloud, and provided scripts to automate future updates and deployments. Effectual introduced TNTP to the Infrastructure as Code model so that they could version control the state of their infrastructure through the use of AWS CloudFormation templates and take advantage of AWS’ built-in resource dependency definitions to perform rolling updates with minimal downtime or system impact.

The Benefits

Cost Efficiency

TNTP experienced lower costs for running their workloads in the cloud compared to on-premise IT hardware and maintenance costs. Effectual assisted TNTP to utilize cloud purchasing options and offerings to meet TNTP’s technical requirements while remaining cost-efficient.

Scalability

The use of the AWS cloud provided capabilities for flexible infrastructure to allow accommodation of various sizes of workloads. The infrastructure used AWS Auto Scaling capabilities along with custom settings in AWS CloudWatch to automatically scale to accommodate larger workloads while retaining transparency of the scaling activities to the end user.

Disaster Recovery

Failover capabilities and strategies such as the use of AWS Elastic Load Balancing within AWS were implemented to protect the system, maximize uptime, and minimizes data loss in the event of a disaster. Notifications, alarms, and safeguards were put in place to ensure immediate notification of any abnormal behavior.

Frequently Asked Questions

What organization does this case study cover, and what do they do?

TNTP, a nonprofit whose mission is to end educational inequality by providing excellent teachers and advancing effective teaching policy and practice.

Why did TNTP migrate to AWS?

A flooding event prompted TNTP to quickly and effectively migrate its public-facing and internal applications to AWS for better cost, scalability, disaster recovery, and application performance.

How did Effectual approach the migration?

By defining an application migration strategy, setting up infrastructure per AWS best practices, and introducing Infrastructure as Code via AWS CloudFormation templates for version control and rolling updates.

How does the infrastructure scale to handle demand?

AWS Auto Scaling combined with custom AWS CloudWatch settings automatically scales the infrastructure to accommodate larger workloads while keeping scaling activity transparent to end users.

What disaster recovery capabilities were implemented?

AWS Elastic Load Balancing and failover strategies protect the system and minimize data loss, with notifications and alarms in place to flag abnormal behavior immediately.