Healthcare Technology Company Stabilizes Critical OpenShift Infrastructure
Client Overview
A leading healthcare technology company provides essential software solutions for personalized medicine, including cell and gene therapies and cancer vaccines. Their platform is crucial for healthcare providers to deliver and scale personalized treatments, making infrastructure stability and reliability paramount to patient care.
The Challenge
The company was experiencing significant issues with their OpenShift clusters, including persistent EFK stack failures and pod scheduling disruptions with their OpenShift environment, which was critical to their treatment delivery platform. Their infrastructure consisted of three OpenShift clusters:
- One cluster running OpenShift 4.2.7
- Two clusters running OpenShift 3.11
Specific challenges included:
- Frequent crashes in the OpenShift Kibana/Elasticsearch logging system
- Random pod restarts during code deployment and testing phases
- Need for deeper expertise in OpenShift nuances and best practices
- Requirements for improved monitoring and observability
While their engineering team was proficient in operational aspects, they needed expert guidance to optimize their OpenShift environment and establish robust best practices.
The Solution
Shadow-Soft implemented a two-phase approach:
Phase 1: Architecture Assessment and Immediate Stabilization
- Comprehensive evaluation of cluster architecture
- Analysis of logging and metrics infrastructure
- Performance and scalability assessment
- Security review
- Backup and recovery strategy evaluation
Phase 2: Ongoing Support and Optimization
- Embedded OpenShift DevOps expertise
- Knowledge transfer and team upskilling
- Continuous improvement initiatives
- Best practices implementation
Implementation Process
Architecture Assessment
- Conducted thorough review of existing OpenShift clusters
- Evaluated cluster sizing and resource allocation
- Analyzed logging and monitoring configurations
- Assessed security protocols and access controls
- Reviewed backup and disaster recovery procedures
Infrastructure Stabilization
- Optimized Elasticsearch, FluentD, and Kibana (EFK) stack
- Resolved pod stability issues
- Improved deployment processes
- Enhanced monitoring and alerting capabilities
- Implemented performance optimizations
Knowledge Transfer
- Provided mentorship in advanced OpenShift troubleshooting
- Conducted hands-on training sessions
- Created detailed documentation
- Established best practices guidelines
- Shared industry expertise and insights
Key Features
- Stabilized logging infrastructure
- Improved pod lifecycle management
- Enhanced monitoring and observability
- Optimized cluster configurations
- Strengthened security protocols
- Established robust operational procedures
Implementation Challenges
The team navigated several challenges during implementation:
- Complex requirements for healthcare compliance
- Need for zero-downtime improvements
- Integration with existing monitoring tools
- Balance between stability and innovation
Tools Used
- Red Hat OpenShift 4.2.7 and 3.11
- Elasticsearch, FluentD, and Kibana (EFK)
- Various monitoring and observability tools
- Security and compliance tools
Results
The engagement delivered significant improvements to the client's infrastructure:
Technical Achievements
- Resolved EFK stack failures and optimized resource allocation
- Remediated pod scheduling and lifecycle issues
- Implemented robust cluster monitoring and alerting
- Enhanced deployment stability
- Optimized cluster performance
- Strengthened monitoring capabilities
Business Impact
- Achieved consistent cluster performance and reliability
- Established proactive monitoring to prevent service disruptions
- Improved platform scalability and resource utilization
- Enhanced team capabilities
- Reduced system disruptions
- Better support for critical healthcare operations
Future Roadmap
The success of the initial engagement led to a 12-month extension, focusing on:
- Continued platform optimization
- Advanced feature implementation
- Further team upskilling
- Ongoing best practices evolution
- Proactive infrastructure improvements
The partnership demonstrates Shadow-Soft's ability to not only resolve immediate technical challenges but also provide long-term value through sustained collaboration and knowledge transfer.