CAP enhances Software as a Service – Runtime Emergency

This white paper is one of a series, outlining how CAP is being used to enhance a Software as a Service application.

Keywords:

Cloud, SaaS, Emergency, CDN, Runtime, Contingency, Data

The context:

A large retailer is outsourcing their e-commerce application to a third-party provider. This relationship has existed for a long time, however the retailer grew increasingly frustrated with the cost and time involved in enacting any changes to the user experience and the lack of certain features. Adding to the sense of frustration was the fact that any requests were completely at the mercy of the third party provider.

The solution:

CAP was installed in the Amazon cloud between the end users and the third-party provider to help overcome some of these problems. By taking advantage of the CAP Agent’s built-in adaptive static content caching and ability to act inline in real time with minimum performance impact, the retailer resumed control of their brand and reputation.

Deployment diagram:

Why CAP:

No other product on the market offers a CDN-like capability that also involves enhancing and enriching content on the fly on a massive scale as well as addressing urgent security shortcomings. The retailer needs this capability to have some measure of control over third party software they are otherwise unable to change.

The story:

The retailer experienced a situation where a corrupt pricing catalogue was deployed to the live production website during a routine update. This resulted in a large proportion of the products on the site being reduced to a dollar or having no price. This was rectified very quickly, however due to the normal volume of sales there were many customers’ orders that had to be cancelled and redone due to the incorrect pricing. This was also reported in the press and social media affecting the brand’s reputation.

The retailer decided that they required a stand in contingency in case something similar ever happened again, in order to protect their website and reputation.

Using CAP, a plan was quickly hatched to resolve the issue:

The solution was a simple button, which when clicked (or pressed, as it was also available on mobile devices) transferred traffic from the live production site to a stand in catalogue site.

The catalogue site ran alongside and mirrored the main ecommerce site with the exception of order processing. Session information was automatically transferred so that users would not know the difference, except that Checkout was disabled, and displayed an error message explaining that the website was being updated, and asking users to try again in a couple of minutes. Users were also given the option to request an alert once the site was fully functional again allowing them to carry on with their day.

When the button was clicked (or pressed) again, all traffic and session information was transferred back to the live production site and alerts sent to those that had requested it.

Example modification:

The limitations:

This solution is meant as an emergency contingency and not for every day use i.e. for routine database updates. Other solutions should be put in place to cover those.

Business benefits:

The retailer felt reassured that, even if never used, there was a contingency in place which would allow them sufficient time to rectify the issue whilst managing the users. Thereby safeguarding their brand reputation.

Rules blocks used:

Get Global Variable

Http Redirect