RunKeeper: Shaping up with lean administration and superior user experience
Customer Company Size
SME
Region
- America
Country
- United States
Product
- IBM Cloudant Dedicated Cluster
Tech Stack
- PostgreSQL
- Apache Lucene Full Text Search
Implementation Scale
- Enterprise-wide Deployment
Impact Metrics
- Productivity Improvements
- Customer Satisfaction
Technology Category
- Platform as a Service (PaaS) - Data Management Platforms
Applicable Industries
- Healthcare & Hospitals
Applicable Functions
- Product Research & Development
Use Cases
- Remote Asset Management
Services
- Cloud Planning, Design & Implementation Services
About The Customer
RunKeeper is a fitness startup founded in 2008. It offers fitness applications for iOS and Android devices, enabling users to log wellness and performance data related to outdoor activities. The RunKeeper mobile phone application lets users turn an iPhone or Android smartphone into a personal trainer that records their details for walking, running, cycling and other outdoor activities – enabling users to monitor their progress towards fitness targets. The company's apps are used by 30 million people, and integrate with more than 100 third-party devices and services. The company is privately owned and is based in Boston, MA.
The Challenge
RunKeeper, a fitness startup, was facing scalability issues with its existing PostgreSQL database as the company expanded. The database was unable to keep up with the pace of growth, threatening to halt the company's progress. RunKeeper wanted to eliminate performance bottlenecks and reduce the time and effort spent on database administration. This would allow the company to focus its resources on developing new data-driven features and applications, and help users to access and analyze their data faster and more reliably.
The Solution
RunKeeper chose to replace its existing database with IBM Cloudant Dedicated Cluster, an always-on database-as-a-service that stores data as self-describing JSON documents. The solution is optimized to handle extremely high numbers of concurrent reads and writes, which is exactly what RunKeeper needs to track every detail of its users’ fitness activities. Data is automatically stored, indexed and distributed across an elastic database cluster that can span multiple racks, data centers or cloud providers to offer superior scalability, providing headroom for growth. RunKeeper is taking advantage of the Apache Lucene Full Text Search capability offered through the IBM Cloudant API, using it to accelerate user queries.
Operational Impact
Quantitative Benefit
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