Portworx > Case Studies > Transforming Defense Contractor WCG Solutions with Rancher and Containers

Transforming Defense Contractor WCG Solutions with Rancher and Containers

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Technology Category
  • Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) - Cloud Middleware & Microservices
  • Platform as a Service (PaaS) - Application Development Platforms
Applicable Industries
  • Cement
  • Construction & Infrastructure
Applicable Functions
  • Maintenance
  • Product Research & Development
Use Cases
  • Construction Management
  • Infrastructure Inspection
Services
  • System Integration
About The Customer
WCG Solutions is a defense contractor based in San Diego. The company provides a variety of services for government customers, including the Navy and the Department of Defense. The company is comprised of a diverse group of individuals, primarily engineering (civil, electrical, mechanical), environmental, and system lifecycle management personnel. They have worked on various maritime, communications, and general engineering projects spanning over 30 years. WCG provides a variety of engineering and systems management expertise and delivers practical engineering, which at its core brings concepts from the drawing board to reality. The current project they are working on for a major military branch involves building and maintaining a suite of web-based collaboration tools.
The Challenge
WCG Solutions, a defense contractor based in San Diego, was facing significant challenges with their infrastructure. The company provides services for government customers, including the Navy and the Department of Defense, and is involved in building and maintaining a suite of web-based collaboration tools. These tools are designed to facilitate communication across research and development organizations within the government. However, the company was struggling with the overwhelming technical debt of poor configuration management. This led to issues such as not knowing which deployments were configured in which way, making updates very difficult. Additionally, the company was dealing with the problem of having to rely on configuration management at the system level, which was not efficient or effective. The company was also facing challenges when it came to deploying stateful services in containers. Most of their services required persistence, and the push towards immutable infrastructure made it difficult to ensure that no one host was critical to their infrastructure.
The Solution
To address these challenges, WCG Solutions turned to containers and microservices. Containers provided an explicit documentation of every part of every service that the company was using. This allowed the company to take their old system with all its technical debt and put it into a concrete, defined, well-documented service that could be easily deployed and managed. The company used containers to achieve a much better situational awareness for everything from web apps to their databases. They also used a container scheduling system to gather metrics and perform load balancing across all of their systems. This meant that no one had to be aware of how a specific host was configured. The company also embarked on a year-long exploration to find a way of having an external data store for their container cluster that would meet the military-grade needs of the project. They eventually found a solution in Portworx, which provided replicated and highly available Docker volumes to their infrastructure.
Operational Impact
  • The use of containers and microservices has transformed the way WCG Solutions operates. The company now has a much better situational awareness for everything from web apps to their databases. They no longer have to rely on configuration management at the system level, which has made their operations much more efficient and effective. The use of a container scheduling system has also allowed them to gather metrics and perform load balancing across all of their systems, which has improved their operational efficiency. The company has also been able to address the challenges of deploying stateful services in containers, thanks to their exploration of external data stores and their eventual solution in Portworx. This has allowed them to ensure that no one host is critical to their infrastructure, which has improved their operational resilience.

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