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All-Canadian Partnership Enables Development Team to Focus on Core Competencies

Summary
Used.ca sought to:
  • migrate its applications from hosting to cloud infrastructure in Canada,
  • develop new applications for mobile,
  • increase infrastructure usage within its existing budget.

cloud.ca worked closely with Used.ca to overcome early adoption challenges, allowing it to implement new technologies for its mobile apps, and ultimately expand its infrastructure usage three-fold within the same budget.

About Used.ca

Used.ca provides a family-friendly classified site across over 90 cities in Canada, the U.K., and the U.S. It differentiates itself with a narrow focus on buy and sell ads, moderated content, and a strong marketing focus on cities where it can capture the most market share.

“We’re a digital company with a community focus. Our local users are key to our growth and we strive to provide a safe, reliable service,” says Scott Johnston, Head of Development at Used.ca.

Challenge

  • Used.ca did a technology review in early 2015, determined it would need a true cloud-based infrastructure[1] located in Canada to enable a more dynamically scalable application architecture.
  • It sought to optimize and expand its use of infrastructure resources while staying within the same technology budget.
  • At the same time, the company’s development team sought to update its application to support new client-side mobile apps on iOS and Android.

Outcome

Finding the right provider was the first step. In a thorough analysis of all available options for cloud infrastructure owned and operated in Canada, Used.ca chose cloud.ca to implement its transition to cloud-based infrastructure.

Used.ca performed a number of load and latency tests to ensure there would be an optimal experience for its users. Once complete, it migrated its data from its traditional hosting infrastructure to cloud.ca.

By jointly addressing initial adoption challenges, a strong partnership developed between the two companies.

“cloud.ca really showed both on their technical and on their business side that they were invested in our company’s success. We were in constant communication, probably every day during that time, about what was going on, and that was huge for us. It was the fact that we truly were getting the service that we required at the time, and it truly was a partnership,” Johnston explained.

Ultimately, the migration was a success. Used.ca expanded and optimized its cloud resource usage, implemented new technologies necessary to deliver its mobile applications, and most importantly, developed a strong confidence in its infrastructure provider.

The development team can now focus exclusively on application development instead of infrastructure-level maintenance.

“Having confidence that we have the right cloud provider and very strong uptime allows our developers to spend their time on new product and building new software — that is a huge benefit,” Johnston explained.

With its move to cloud, Used.ca has now tripled its infrastructure utilization[2] while staying under its original budget every single month since adopting cloud.ca.

It now benefits from a vastly reduced time to commission new resources for testing and increased traffic, a clear and granular knowledge of costs per hour for resources, and the ability to work in just one currency — the Canadian dollar.

Going forward, cloud.ca will continue to support Used.ca at the infrastructure level, enabling its developers to focus on their greatest competencies: creating an innovative platform and increased value for its users. Like cloud.ca, Used.ca is proud to be working with a Canadian partner[3], further increasing the value of our national technology ecosystem.

Click here to download the case study.


  1. https://blog.cloud.ca/cloud-vs.-hosting 
  2. This increase is measured as “triple the number of databases, triple the number of web servers available, and triple the throughput,” explains Johnston.
  3. cloud.ca, like Used.ca, is 100% Canadian owned and operated, with all-Canadian employees.