All case studies / Spindlemedia
Spindlemedia deploys 10x faster with the Octopus Kubernetes agent
About Spindlemedia
Spindlemedia provides cloud-based tax collection software. Its platform provides real-time information and the functionality to process, scan, input, and print. Spindlemedia’s TaxOffice 4.0 product eliminates the need for spreadsheets and manual data tracking and entry, automating supplemental loads and mortgage tapes.
Challenges
Spindlemedia’s manual processes resulted in annual deployments
Before Octopus, Spindlemedia’s deployments were manual. Most of its clients were on their own servers, and the Spindlemedia team needed to manually deploy to each customer on-premises. This included writing custom scripts to meet customers’ needs. As a result, the team only deployed once a year. Each deployment took many months to prepare for, and it was difficult to ship a fix. This limited the value they could provide to their customers.
As Spindlemedia’s customers all had different requirements, manual deployments also made it difficult to keep track of which version each customer was on. With customers on different versions, managing updates was also difficult.
As the company grew, it was critical that Spindlemedia found a tool to help it manage its complex deployments across customers. The team needed to speed up their deployments and increase frequency to provide more value to customers faster.
Solution
Octopus helped Spindlemedia shift from on-premises to Kubernetes
Spindlemedia started using Octopus in 2015. Octopus supported the team as they grew and modernized their deployments, helping them with automation, speed, and frequency. The team also automated routine maintenance with Octopus’s Runbooks feature.
Spindlemedia uses tenanted deployments to simplify its complex software delivery to customers. The team uses tenant tags to easily keep track of their customers' infrastructure and outage requirements.
Octopus has also supported Spindlemedia’s modernization. Many deployments were on-premises when the team started using Octopus, but now they’ve migrated most to Kubernetes. Using Octopus has helped them easily transition customers to cloud-based solutions over time. Meanwhile, the team can deploy to a mix of on-premises and Kubernetes environments simultaneously.
The team at Spindlemedia also moved to Octopus Cloud so they don’t need to upgrade Octopus manually. They don’t have to worry about keeping the software up-to-date themselves, and they get new features as soon as they’re available.
Octopus has also helped the team grow. They’ve onboarded new team members who found learning Octopus easy. This is especially so because of the intuitive UI that makes learning important and difficult tasks far simpler.
Octopus has been a one-stop shop for us for any deployment. We went from desktop applications to being able to migrate to Kubernetes easily thanks to Octopus.
Spindlemedia's CI/CD pipeline
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Value
From annual deployments to multiple times a day
Before using Octopus, Spindlemedia only deployed once a year due to the complexity of deployments. Now, deployments happen weekly, but could happen many times a day. The team provides more frequent updates to their customers no matter where they’re deploying, helping the business to grow.
It’s hard to describe the value we’ve gotten from Octopus. Our company has grown significantly and there’s no way we could have kept up without it.
Deployments are 10 times faster with the Kubernetes agent
Using the Kubernetes agent, the team has increased deployment frequency. Deployments to Kubernetes are up to 10 times faster, saving huge amounts of time. The team spends less time on deployments and can focus on shipping more features to customers. This also helps support their customers modernizing to Kubernetes. Now, the process is even more secure and simple to set up, making it easy to migrate customers to Kubernetes.
Deployments are now 10 times faster if not more thanks to the Kubernetes agent. It’s simplified the process, making it easier to migrate our customers across.
Managing different customer needs with ease
Spindlemedia has complex deployment requirements, with each customer having distinct needs. This was difficult to manage before Octopus, but using tenanted deployments, it’s simple for the team to manage this complexity. They know which version each customer is on while managing different deployment requirements. They easily deploy to customers with different infrastructure, and stage rollouts for those who are more risk-averse.
Tracking across our deployments was almost impossible before Octopus. Now we have a much higher confidence level. We know that deployments are being done consistently and that nothing is being missed.
Secure deployments and routine maintenance
Octopus also supports Spindlemedia with secure deployments. Using runbooks, the team manages routine maintenance tasks easily, from running production tests to setting up tenants. It’s also quicker to onboard new customers as everything is set up, saving time with further process automation. Octopus also helps secure deployments by providing role-based access controls (RBAC). The team has a UAT environment where support staff perform operations without needing access to deployments. This empowers others to run specific tasks while maintaining security.
Runbooks have saved us a lot of time by automating our processes. Having a weekly cadence of runbooks means we can invest time on other things as it is all set up already.