Case Study
Background
SwashLaundry, a leading International SaaS provider of laundry management software, was
struggling with several critical pain points in its legacy system infrastructure. One prominent
issue was the dependency on production teams for network troubleshooting, which slowed
development cycles and added operational overhead. The team faced frequent challenges with
access to systems for secure and reliable connections across their services, which not only
impacted deployment delay but also delays in incident resolution due to getting hold of the right
resources who have access to the production environment. In this context, the lack of a
dedicated tool for dns resolution and network verification led to further delays, as developers
had to rely on production engineers for diagnosing network issues in staging and production
environments.
Challenge
The primary challenges centered around enabling SwashLaundry’s developers to independently
verify network configurations, manage dns and SSL errors, and ensure smooth tcp/http/https
connections without constant production team intervention. Additionally, the absence of a
structured response format complicated troubleshooting, while unchecked connection attempts
could potentially lead to overload or unintentional denial-of-service conditions. SwashLaundry
required a solution that could empower its developers to conduct these checks autonomously,
with standardized, reliable, and secure connectivity across environments.
Solution
To address these needs, our team deployed jayeshmahajan/cloud-devops-api as part of
SwashLaundry’s cloud-native architecture. This solution utilized a Flask-based API to provide
comprehensive network connection checks, including dns resolution, tcp and https connection
tests, SSL error reporting, and rate limiting to prevent accidental overload.
The cloud-devops-api offers an api that verifies the ability to establish a tcp connection to a specified domain and port, empowering developers to detect network issues early in the development pipeline. With the cloud-devops-api, the tool enabled validation of https protocols to specified domains, ensuring that connectivity is stable and secure. A dns Resolution feature added further visibility, providing detailed information, including cname records and all resolved ip addresses, which enhanced SwashLaundry’s capability to trace and diagnose dns issues independently.
For clarity, the API returned responses in a pretty-printed json format, simplifying error detection and reporting for developers. To mitigate any potential risks of accidental overload or attack on the application server, rate limiting was incorporated, adding an essential layer of control. This rate limiting was designed to handle sudden spikes in requests gracefully, without affecting other services. Additionally, ssl Error Handling captured and returned detailed SSL errors, helping teams quickly identify and resolve tls certificate issues.
The cloud-devops-api offers an api that verifies the ability to establish a tcp connection to a specified domain and port, empowering developers to detect network issues early in the development pipeline. With the cloud-devops-api, the tool enabled validation of https protocols to specified domains, ensuring that connectivity is stable and secure. A dns Resolution feature added further visibility, providing detailed information, including cname records and all resolved ip addresses, which enhanced SwashLaundry’s capability to trace and diagnose dns issues independently.
For clarity, the API returned responses in a pretty-printed json format, simplifying error detection and reporting for developers. To mitigate any potential risks of accidental overload or attack on the application server, rate limiting was incorporated, adding an essential layer of control. This rate limiting was designed to handle sudden spikes in requests gracefully, without affecting other services. Additionally, ssl Error Handling captured and returned detailed SSL errors, helping teams quickly identify and resolve tls certificate issues.
Impact
The implementation of the connection tool had a transformative impact on SwashLaundry’s
operations. With the new tool in place, developers were able to verify network connections
independently, eliminating previous bottlenecks and reducing dependency on the production
team. This autonomy contributed to a 40% improvement in engineering efficiency, 50% increase
in resolution time of incidents during outages and allowed teams to address network-related
issues early in the development pipeline, preventing delays during production releases. The dns
resolution feature provided deep insights, enabling the team to troubleshoot network
configurations with ease, while the json response format made it easier to document and report
issues in a standardized way. ssl error handling helped streamline security protocols, reducing
incidents of ssl misconfigurations, and enhancing overall system security. Additionally, rate
limiting allowed SwashLaundry to maintain application stability and resilience even during heavy
usage periods.
Conclusion
The cloud-devops-api provided SwashLaundry with a comprehensive, developer-friendly tool
that addressed several core pain points related to network connectivity, troubleshooting, and
compliance. This solution not only accelerated SwashLaundry’s development and deployment
cycles but also contributed to a more secure and resilient system by empowering developers
with tools for independent verification and control. Through this enhancement, SwashLaundry
strengthened its cloud-native architecture, optimized operational efficiency, and laid the
groundwork for continued growth in a secure, scalable environment