In this article, we`d like to share an interview with Simon Lee, active contributor at Stileex.xyz and a managing partner at Atout Persona, one of the leading IT service providers and a pioneer in software innovation in Madagascar.
Simon shares the reasons that made Atout Persona move to Jelastic PaaS powered by Layershift and unveils how applying automatic vertical scaling helped to reduce their cloud hosting costs.
Quick note about Atout Persona: The company works mainly on the development, integration, and maintenance of informational systems, found favored with more than 600 customers in Madagascar who benefit from their software expertise, including major accounts and institutions: Air Madagascar, Madagasikara Airways, Madagascar G4S, Total, Jovenna, Ministries, etc. Currently, they are developing their activities in the rest of Africa, including Ethiopia, Congo, and Mali.
What made you look into PaaS solutions such as Jelastic?
In Madagascar, companies use to host their applications on servers (or simple PCs) on-premise, they are not yet accustomed to the cloud. But the machines of our customers were not placed in appropriate environments and were not sufficiently secured as well (no air conditioning, no electrical safety, no physical access control, etc.). To help customers avoid these unsuitable infrastructure issues, we decided to offer them Jelastic PaaS.
Have you tried other hosting solutions? Why stopped using them?
We used a lot of other solutions before Jelastic! The main ones we selected were AWS, Linode, Digital Ocean, OVH, etc. The service we preferred in terms of functionality was AWS. But this solution is of such complexity to deploy and maintain! In addition, it turned out that it was much more expensive to use than was announced by the supplier. Linode, Digital Ocean, and OVH are interesting solutions, but none offer Jelastic features and none offer the Layershift customer service level.
What were the key reasons to host your projects on Jelastic?
The reasons that led us to work with Jelastic are simple. We needed an easy, reliable and cost-effective solution for hosting our customers' informational systems. A dedicated server per client is an inconceivable option both from the matter of cost and maintenance operations. A simple VPS did not allow us to set up an n-tier infrastructure, and a set of VPS for a single customer was also very difficult to maintain. So we chose Jelastic for:
- its simplicity of use
- the possibility of automatic and controlled scaling
- the advantageous economic model
- containers ready for use
We must also admit that we chose Jelastic because we already worked with Layershift for several years and they allowed to test this new (for us) technology. The excellent customer support of Layershift has been a strong argument in the adoption of Jelastic.
What stacks do you use to run your projects and how they are interconnected?
All the instances that we have are each linked to a client. Generally, we use the classic combination:
- reverse proxy
- an application server
- database
We also create ephemeral instances on Jelastic for our tests and development.
What programming languages do you use?
We mainly program in Python, PHP, Java, and JavaScript. It depends greatly on the needs of the customer and therefore the technology that we will use.
Python and PHP are strongly used on the server side. As for Java, we use it for mobile applications, and for some software that we install on the client side (especially to allow offline use of their information system).
What is the cost difference? Do you find any benefits from using automatic vertical scaling?
We have reduced our hosting costs by almost 30%. Vertical scaling has been one of our main motivations for working with Jelastic. It is undeniable that this system, which has remained simple, allows us today to save money and at the same time cope with peaks in one of the resources (such as during data integration and migration phases).
Your general impression and highlights of using the platform.
Jelastic has become the most crucial choice of solution for us. When a customer wants to host his informational system, we systematically offer him this platform. The management interface is also to quote: simple, intuitive and functional. It may not have been Jelastic first target market, but this platform definitely has a big role to play in Africa. 
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Imagine that you don't need to worry about server or cloud configuration anymore, focusing only on the development of your software and getting more users. Sounds like a dream? Try Jelastic and it will cover routine configuration tasks, and save your hosting costs with pay as you use approach.
