At its core, Paciolan is a software company that provides ticketing services for college athletics, performing arts, arenas and professional sports. But on the field, it’s the conduit for fans to connect with beloved teams, performers, causes and each other. In addition to its ticketing services, Paciolan offers fundraising and marketing solutions that help venues increase revenue and engage with their audiences through in-venue interactive experiences. Today, Paciolan is the second largest primary ticketing company in North America, enabling more than 500 organizations to sell over 120 million tickets per year.
At-a-Glance
With the rise of mobile ticketing and an increasingly sophisticated user base, Paciolan recognized the need to transform its infrastructure and streamline its processes to stay ahead of the competition. In its quest for a solution, it turned to SUSE and AWS’s EKS to build a modern Kubernetes infrastructure, managed by Rancher Prime across on-premises and cloud environments. Armed with unparalleled levels of flexibility, scalability and reliability, Paciolan was ready for the post-pandemic spike in demand for mobile ticketing solutions, which translated into a 3,650% increase of clients using the company’s mobile ticketing services.
Kickoff to infrastructure transformation
Paciolan’s journey began in 1980, and its sustained success can be attributed to its proactive approach in adopting technological innovations. Today, it depends on its site reliability engineering (SRE) team to ensure smooth operations and ongoing innovation for the digital age. The SRE team collaborates closely with the development team to ensure that new product features, updates and patches are pushed out to customers smoothly and efficiently. Continuously striving to modernize its operations, the SRE team most recently led Paciolan’s adoption of Kubernetes in a hybrid cloud environment with AWS, Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS) and Rancher Prime.
The SRE team chose an AWS hybrid cloud environment to implement continuous deployment (a process that allows for faster delivery of software improvements to users without interrupting service) of its microservices. Because these microservices communicate with the business logic in the data center, the team needed a hybrid cloud environment for systems to function properly.
The team originally launched its microservices using Elastic Beanstalk (EBS), a system that developers appreciated for its ease of use and effectiveness. However, as the footprint on EBS grew, application deployment time began to lag.
Meanwhile, the SRE team recognized that the hybrid environment will bring in complexity. Therefore, the team needed a standardized system to simplify troubleshooting and quick onboarding of new microservices.
“With Rancher Prime and Kubernetes, we can easily scale our services up and down with just a few clicks of a button. No more waiting 15 minutes for services to restart or endlessly spinning deployments.”
Rancher Prime takes position
The SRE team chose to standardize its systems on Kubernetes and selected Rancher Prime to simplify managing the estate. The team learned about Rancher Prime from new personnel who had used it before their company was acquired by Paciolan. After evaluating Rancher Prime’s capabilities, the SRE team was satisfied.
“We looked at other options, but we never tried anything else. We liked Rancher Prime so much after starting our POC, we just kept using it,” says Chris Michael, SRE principal engineer at Paciolan.
Four main factors convinced the SRE team that Rancher Prime was the right choice.
First, it could do everything the team needed, both now and in the future, supplying the same flexibility and user interface, regardless of whether it was managing systems on-premises or in the cloud.
Second, Rancher Prime could help containerize the company’s applications, accelerating migration to Kubernetes.
Third, it simplified deploying and managing Kubernetes clusters, making upgrade processes much easier.
Finally, the team wanted the backing of enterprise support as opposed to relying on the open source community to address challenges.
In 2019, the SRE team first began implementing Rancher Prime on-premises to migrate the company’s applications and manage its infrastructure. Beginning with Kubernetes on-premises, they set up their first Rancher Prime cluster and nodes to bootstrap five servers.
Impressed with the ease and speed of deployments in the new infrastructure, the SRE team began spinning up EKS clusters in AWS with Rancher Prime to take full advantage of the cloud provider’s capabilities, kicking off its first hybrid cloud infrastructure. In the following six months, the SRE team moved its production services from EBS onto EKS, managed by Rancher Prime.
The impact
Paciolan manages both its on-premises and EKS clusters using a single Rancher Prime Management Server. Although most of the company’s legacy footprint remains on-premises, any new services have gone into EKS. This modern infrastructure proved to be a game changer for Paciolan, paving the way for streamlined services and optimal performance in the face of increased demand for mobile ticketing.
Delivered readiness for demand spike
When the pandemic hit, the ticketing industry underwent a massive digital transformation, with mobile ticketing as the new standard. Already transforming for a digital future, Paciolan was ready for the spike, thanks to its continuous deployment infrastructure managed by Rancher Prime. Within two years, the number of schools using their mobile ticketing platform skyrocketed from four to 150, an increase of 3,650%.
Simplified Kubernetes adoption
Rancher Prime played a pivotal role in accelerating Paciolan’s Kubernetes adoption. With a push of a button, the SRE team could set up Kubernetes automatically without worrying about the complexities involved in configuring various components and settings. This not only saved time and resources but also allowed developers to focus more on their work rather than worrying about infrastructure. Rancher Prime’s streamlined approach helped Paciolan rapidly integrate Kubernetes into its workflow, leading to faster time to market and greater efficiency.
Michael states: “Rancher Prime was a huge relief, allowing us to take full advantage of Kubernetes capabilities quickly and efficiently.”
Improved troubleshooting and agility
The modern infrastructure has made troubleshooting at Paciolan faster and easier. Before implementation, developers and operators had to dig through in-house bash scripts and homegrown infrastructure setups to identify and resolve issues. By using a standardized approach, however, developers can quickly resolve issues without needing to involve the SRE team for support, freeing up time across the board. Due to Rancher Prime’s automation capabilities, Paciolan’s deployment process is now streamlined, making it easier to fix bugs, roll back changes and respond to incidents promptly.
Similarly, Rancher Prime is also mitigating the risk of depending on a homegrown and home supported system. By adopting a common industry standard, the development and operations teams are aligned around a simplified process, replacing ad hoc deployment procedures that only one person can decipher. With readily available solutions to problems and consistent troubleshooting, developers and operations are saving dozens of hours each week. By eliminating the inherent risks of knowledge silos, knowledge no longer walks out the door, facilitating confidence and agility while moving forward in an industry of rapid change.
Accelerated pace of innovation
Now empowered with the tools for continuous deployment, Paciolan is deploying features and updates up to 80% faster than it did while using EBS, increasing the pace of development. On average, developers now issue updates as often as every 45 minutes, as opposed to waiting for a planned update cycle every two weeks. Rancher Prime also offers the added benefit of being able to roll back deployments with ease whenever necessary. As a result, Paciolan is delivering its quality services to customers at an accelerated pace.
This flexibility also allows the SRE team to add nodes and increase capacity on demand, ensuring the company can meet customer demands with ease, especially during busy times like football season. Rancher Prime’s streamlined process helps the team project capacity and add more licenses and parts as needed, enabling always-on availability.
“With Rancher Prime and EKS, we can easily scale our services up and down with just a few clicks of a button. No more waiting 15 minutes for services to restart or endlessly spinning deployments,” says Dave Singh, director of SRE at Paciolan.
Rancher Prime’s streamlined processes have also helped the SRE team keep systems up to date without the anxiety and hassle inherent to legacy system upgrades. Even with a large infrastructure and numerous services running on the clusters, the SRE team has been able to easily apply patches and upgrades without the pitfalls of falling behind and having to undergo a lengthy and stressful process requiring downtime. Customers, in turn, receive top-notch experiences without interruption.
Supported for success
The SRE team has had an outstanding experience with SUSE Support. Impressed by the support it received throughout implementation, the SRE team decided to continue investing in SUSE Support for help with optimizing the company’s unique use cases in the new infrastructure.
According to Rama Sankaralingam, vice president of SRE at Paciolan, “Our SUSE Support team provides the best customer service we receive from any IT vendor. Rather than just telling us how we should do things, they approach our challenges like a true partner, validating our goals with the attitude, ‘let’s figure it out together.’ They have spent hours reviewing our solution, researching answers and providing guidance. From the initial implementation to ongoing support, the support team has guided us every step of the way.”
Singh adds, “We were impressed by how they approached every call, responded quickly and provided valuable solutions.”
Adopted skills for career growth
Paciolan’s digital transformation has been revolutionary not only in terms of the company’s technology but also in terms of career growth and skills development.
According to Singh, “This transformation has required our development and operations teams to adopt a new way of thinking and working. Even Rancher Prime’s automation and alerting capabilities have helped team members become more proactive and responsive.”
Sankaralingam affirms: “The most significant impact of this digital transformation has been on the career growth and the learning opportunities for team members motivated to adopt newer technologies and grow their expertise in AWS and Kubernetes. With this team advancement, we are well positioned to take on future challenges.”
What’s next?
Overall, Paciolan’s digital transformation has been a tremendous success, with the team embracing modern technologies and methodologies, resulting in increased productivity and career growth opportunities. Looking ahead, Paciolan’s SRE team will continue its hybrid cloud strategy as it balances the ongoing task of migrating legacy systems and taking on new business initiatives. Equipped with future-proof tools, skills and support, the company is well positioned for growth and success in the years to come.