A move to the public cloud
OpenAthens has selected Google Cloud Platform as part of its goal to remove barriers to knowledge and connect people around the world to information.
After reviewing various cloud providers, OpenAthens, which develops identity and access management software, chose Google Cloud and its Kubernetes managed environment as the best way to streamline the process of deploying, updating and managing its applications and services. The move to the public cloud was engineered by Neil Scully, OpenAthens’ IT director, and David Orrell, application architect.
Scully says, “We felt strongly that moving to Google’s public cloud offered the best range of features to enable us to independently manage our applications in a secure environment. We now have a lighter-weight infrastructure model that allows us to be more agile with greater efficiency in the way we work. The result is increased availability with fewer instances of planned maintenance requiring applications to be taken out of service. This means increased reliability and less service disruption for our customers.”
Scully continues, “Being in partnership with Google adds real value and enhanced global credibility for our worldwide clients. Security and stability of our systems are of the utmost importance to OpenAthens, and this platform enables us to manage the architecture as high up the tech stack as possible. We no longer need to separately manage servers. We can focus on the deployment and efficiency of our applications, and this makes a better user experience for customers.”
A key benefit to using Google Cloud is that OpenAthens can manage its systems without having to rely on outside support for new projects or updates. Additionally, autoscaling capabilities enable the platform to proactively respond to demand peaks, providing a consistent experience for users. With the platform, test and development areas do not need to run at times when the team is not working.
The transfer to Google Cloud has been completed, and global customers—spanning the publishing, healthcare, education and research sectors—are benefiting from the move, according to OpenAthens.