StayFriends Success Story - netways

NETWAYS ®Success Story: StayFriends grows withfull Managed Service supportWithin just a few years,StayFriends rocketed to becomea leading provider of onlinecommunities for formerclassmates and friends acrossEurope. All along the way,NETWAYS was there to supportwith hosting and managedservices.StayFriends’ rapid and tremendousgrowth was met byNETWAYS’ full service spectrum,from Hosting to Monitoring,High Availability and Clustering.STAYFRIENDSFounded in 2002, the companyoperates social networkingplatforms based from Erlangen.Its success led to its purchase bythe American Classmates OnlineInc in 2004 and StayFriends nowboasts over 14 million membersin Austria (StayFriends.at),Germany (StayFriends.de), France(Trombi.com) and Sweden(StayFriends.se).The German website alonehandles more than 7 millionmembers and is one of thelargest social networks inGermany.Of note, StayFriends caters to anunusual target group of adultusers. Two thirds of StayFriendsusers are over 30 years old, andthe users over 50 outnumberthose in the 14-19 year agegroup.Each month, an average of 3.48 million users areactive on StayFriend, having enormous repercussionson the underlying IT infrastructure.More than 200 servers handle the millions ofpage impressions from over 20,000 new usersand tens of thousands of images per day, thatresult in around 25,000 SQL requests per second.All of which are ensured on an online platformwith almost 100% availability.Behind the enormous success of the onlinecommunity is a team of over 70 specialists in IT,Internet and Marketing from Germany and theUSA. From technical development and intensiveplatform management, to the help desk and themaintenance of comprehensive school listings,StayFriends in operation is larger than life.CONSISTENT EXPANSION - CONTINUOUSSYSTEM CHALLENGESFrom the beginnings of a single server to today’scomplex server farm, StayFriends has beensupported by NETWAYS as a Managed Servicepartner since day one. Over 7 years of cooperation,StayFriends steadily multiplied servers,expanded to 3 other countries and increasedtraffic exponentially.As the IT service provider, NETWAYS took on eachresulting system challenge, adapting theprocesses, services and infrastructure to ensureStayFriends could keep the pace.THE OPEN SOURCE DECISIONStayFriends had a clear open source preferencefrom the very beginning. The main reason was“….that we and our hosting partner NETWAYSwere Debian specialists, so it made sense that weextended our use of open source beyondoperating systems. Furthermore, our financialresources at the start were naturally scarce…”explained Bejamin Ohloff (Director IT Europe).Other important factors that came to playincluded their desire for non dependency onsoftware vendors and the choice for the greaterfeatures of open source software over the easyhandling of licensed products.HIGH DEMANDS - NO COMPROMISEThe ever expanding online community placedhigh demands on the performance and flexibilityof the IT services. For StayFriends the overridinggoal was to ensure its users 24/7 online availability.Fortunately, NETWAYS was there early and activein the planning and design of the IT infrastructure.This would then be built to offer room andflexibility for growth while maintaining constantavailablity.HOSTINGFrom planning the server set up in multiple datacenters, premium wiring and internet connectivitythrough to the implementation and configurationof the monitoring system and environmentalsurveillance, NETWAYS took the central role inhosting StayFriends’ IT.StayFriends’ demands for near 100% systemavailability were met with multiplied safeguardsto cover every possible component, reducing theprobability of downtime to a minimum. Thanks tothe flexible yet customised solutions, NETWAYShas maintained near 100% availability for theStayFriends internet platform ever since.MONITORINGAs failures are also inevitable in redundantenvironments, Stayfriends chose to employNagios, the open source monitoring system toprevent small incidents from developing intonoticeable failures.NETWAYS implemented and configured thesystem which now monitors all network resources,from servers and routers to switches and servicesaround the clock. If a server fails, a service stopsreceiving requests, or if performance data hitcritical values, StayFriends administrators arenotified via email or SMS to ensure they can solvethe problem before it can be noticed by users.Through a web interface, StayFriends can viewthe current status and network utilisation historyat any time.http://www.netways.de

NETWAYS ®Success Story: StayFriends grows withfull Managed Service supportAddionally, StayFriends chose to employ aNETWAYS Nagios addon – NagiosGrapher toenhance their benefits from their monitoringsystem. NagiosGrapher generates graphs andperformance charts from the returnedmonitoring values, facilitating an accurateanalysis of their systems.“The server and service availability reportswe receive from NagiosGrapher allow us toidentify long term trends in our IT and thusmake better predictions on our future ITneeds. Because we can forecast problemsbefore they emerge, we can respond to themproactively, avoiding IT stress”, explainedBenjamin Ohloff.HIGH AVAILABILITYTo ensure high availability in StayFriendssystems, the complete spectrum of solutionswere utilised. In their Linux cluster, allarchitecture components were designed tobe multiple redundant- from internetconnections and firewalls, to wiring andswitches as well as applications and webservers.Additionally, server efficiency was optimisedthrough the implementation of a loadbalancer which distributes the incoming userrequests to multiple web servers. This alsoensured that the system could be expandedquickly and uninterrupted when new serversneeded to be integrated.For staging, virtualisation was implementedwith VMware. A test environment consistingexclusively of virtual machines mirrored thelive system where the less busy test systemscould be exploited. The flexible virtualmachines also enabled the rapid testing ofnew applications or the development ofnecessary test scenarios which could later berolled out on the production environment.Regular cluster tests were also carried outevery 6 months and for each major configurationchange. This ensured that a successfulcluster switch would take place if hardwarewere to be suddenly damaged.For reliable server protection, NETWAYScustomised a dedicated managed firewall.Even StayFriends backups were designed forhigh redundancy, with two simultaneouslyoperating back up servers in geographicallydiscrete data centers.MEDIUM-TERM GOALS:NEW MARKETS, NEW CONCEPTS &FURTHER GROWTHStayFriends expects continued growth, withintentions to extend the features of its socialnetwork platform. Without betraying toomuch too early, Benjamin Ohloff shared, “Weare constantly working to expand ourplatform and provide our users with a securenetworking platform, a place where they canshare their experiences with their friends.”In forecasting further development,StayFriends also forecasts their need forcontinued technical support and enhancement,maintaining their long standingpartnership with NETWAYS.“As our joint success shows, we have areliable and competent managed servicespartner, whose expertise we can fully rely on,”remarked Benjamin Ohloff.WHAT IS NAGIOS?Nagios is an open source enterprisegrade monitoring system whichhelps ensure your applications andservices are always runningsmoothly.Consisting of monitoring, notificationand reporting components,Nagios’ plugin infrastructureenables it to be easily customisedfor any network or purpose.Available under GPL, Nagios isobtainable free of charge.Network status mapping featureMore success stories are available atwww.netways.deFor more than 14 years NETWAYS hasbeen supporting companies tomanage complex, multifaceted ITinfrastructures. Specialising inenterprise grade open source tools,NETWAYS ensures the smoothoperation of networks, servers andapplications.Each time, NETWAYS tailors robust,cost-effective solutions for customersof all sizes and industries. NETWAYSmake your IT do more with less.http://www.netways.de