Highlights
- Docker enabled a 75% faster deployment time and a 40% reduction in servers
- Boosted scalability, slicing application scaling time by 66%
- Sped up and streamlined development cycles and operations
- Cut resource usage substantially (33% less CPU per application)
- Significantly improved application performance and reliability
- Increased user satisfaction for both internal teams and clients
Introduction
International data management leader modernizes its infrastructure
In looking ahead at its scaling business, Ataccama wanted to take advantage of cloud platforms like AWS and Azure for agility, scalability, and cost efficiencies. The move from physical to cloud servers included standardizing deployment processes by adopting containerization technologies like Docker. Ataccama also transitioned development and IT teams to DevOps methodologies to facilitate this shift. Finally, improving security posture and delivering higher application performance took priority, given Ataccama’s customers’ expectations.
Docker’s suite of developer tools delivered an ideal solution, helping Ataccama achieve rapid deployment, seamless portability between environments, and simplified application management. By migrating to Dockerized microservices, Ataccama was able to accelerate feature development, boost efficiency and performance, and ensure security and high availability.
Company profile
Data management innovator
For more than 16 years, Ataccama has been a pioneer in data quality, governance, and master data management (MDM). Powered by generative AI (GenAI), Ataccama ONE provides comprehensive data management capabilities to help organizations accelerate their business initiatives with trusted, high-quality, governed data. With over 200 global active customers, Ataccama continues to drive innovation in how businesses maximize the value of data.
Challenges
Migrating to the cloud and adopting new practices
The Ataccama team recognized the need to keep up with the latest technology to ensure enhanced agility, scale, and cost efficiency. This shift from monolithic legacy apps to cloud-native architecture required standardizing deployment through containers and orchestrators, including Docker and Kubernetes.
Additionally, transitioning from manual coding and operations to automated DevOps methodologies presented new opportunities for upskilling the Ataccama technical teams. Equipping developers with container skills and promoting collaboration between teams was an important part of the project.
With companies across all industries experiencing unprecedented growth in data and its resulting complexities, Ataccama was focused on consistently meeting customer expectations around application performance, security, and high availability to tackle the data management challenge. Supporting innovation initiatives like GenAI also required upgrading Ataccama’s technology stack.
Cloud and containers offered immense strategic benefits, and effectively harnessing these would require a critical organizational and technology shift.
Solution
Docker Improves Developer Satisfaction and Productivity
To migrate successfully to the cloud, Ataccama built a container-based architecture using Docker to allow seamless portability across on-prem and cloud environments. Docker’s container platform enabled developers to mirror production infrastructure locally and easily containerize applications for lightning-fast deployment.
Ataccama even considered other container solutions, like Podman, but Senior DevOps Engineer, Vladimir Mikhalev was adamant that Docker was the best solution. After 20 years of IT management, Mikhalev was sure Docker was the right choice. “What makes Docker a class apart is its support for open standards like OCI and its amazing flexibility,” he says. “It goes far beyond just running containers. With Docker, we can build, share, and manage containerized apps seamlessly across infra in a way most tools can’t match.”
Mikhalev had previously worked in IT at IBM, Thales, and Amazon. Today, he runs a community for DevOps to share all things Docker, containers, and IT tech in general. His goal is to empower the DevOps community to squeeze every last drop of potential out of Docker and container tech.
Docker Compose
Mikhalev highlights the enormous developer appeal of Docker and uses Docker Compose as an example. Despite being targeted for local development environments, Compose has become ubiquitous even in staging because of its simplicity.
The easy YAML-based service definitions have established Compose as a favorite for experimentation. Compose reduces setup time to just minutes for most common applications like databases or message queues by automatically handling networking, storage, and volumes.
Mikhalev says team members opt for Compose regularly for its convenience, even in pre-production environments. “Eliminating the need to learn complex orchestration concepts allows us to concentrate on delivering application functionality instead,” Mikhalev says. The integrated view spanning multiple containers that Compose offers also comes in handy during testing.
Docker Compose has increased in popularity at Ataccama for being a convenient, composable tool. Its simplicity and user-friendly design contribute to its widespread use within the company’s technology stack.
Results across teams
Docker is now a part of daily development for many different teams and tasks. Ataccama’s adoption of DevOps methodologies was made faster by Docker’s suite of tools, which continues to streamline governance and ensure security compliance. Ataccama’s scalability also benefits from Docker, which handles traffic spikes through shared resources and facilitates easy cross-cloud testing without code adjustments.
Overall, Docker provides Ataccama with the deployment agility, portability, and resilience needed to deliver high-performing and secure applications at speed and scale across cloud platforms.
Key benefits
Speed, scalability, and standardization
The tangible technology and business improvements Ataccama realized by implementing Docker were transformational.
Faster deployment and innovation cycles
Docker empowered Ataccama to slash application deployment lead times by a remarkable 75% while achieving a 50% faster time from development to production. By reducing setup time and simplifying environment configuration, Docker allows the team to spin up new containers instantly and shift focus to delivering value.
Better resource utilization and scalability
Increased density from containerization shrank Attacama's server footprint by 40%, allowing the retirement of legacy hardware. Meanwhile, containers reduced CPU usage by 33% per application as workloads shared underlying kernels. This improved utilization enhanced hosting capacity, supporting business growth. Scalability got a boost, too - Docker helped Ataccama easily manage double the number of application instances and scale seamlessly to meet demand spikes, thus improving uptime and availability.
Improved security and reliability
Docker ensures consistency across environments — from dev and test to production — reducing issues arising from gaps. Docker also isolates containers at runtime, minimizing vulnerabilities. These enhancements translate into a more robust and resilient application portfolio, resulting in higher platform reliability and customer trust.
Fostering innovation
By accelerating deployments, improving environmental consistency, and enabling scalable experimentation on local workstations, Ataccama is rapidly progressing in strategic innovation initiatives around big data and machine learning.
Results
Transforming for the future
Embracing cloud-native architecture and containers, with Docker playing a pivotal role, proved vital for Ataccama’s migration and digital transformation success. Docker broke down technological and cultural barriers to change, enabling migration from legacy infrastructure to modern application architectures. By turning containers into a competitive advantage, Ataccama continues to meet customer needs at the pace they demand while building for scale.
Ataccama’s focus on leveraging Docker to drive its technology vision forward has resulted in operational efficiencies and contributed to a culture of innovation and experimentation. The ability to rapidly prototype and deploy GenAI features has positioned Ataccama well in the data management space, ready to explore and test the huge potential of AI.
“Switching to Docker has transformed things for us”, Mikhalev says. “We can now create modular microservices instead of monolithic apps, with independent development and efficient deployment. It’s a quantum leap regarding the velocity we can deliver.”