Simpatik Group

How to make a business not only successful, but also ready to any external challenges? Find out here how Simpatik Group transformed its IT infrastructure with the GigaCloud solutions and why it turned down hyperscalers.

A Simpatik Group holding is a trade company with its own production. They produce goods for the beauty segment, health and household items. The holding has many brands, present in large retail chains. For over 10 years, the holding is among the top three leaders in the remote catalog-based trade in Ukraine. Thanks to its innovations and dynamic growth, Simpatik Group is active on the international markets.

Thirst for transformation

Since 2004, Simpatik Group has been a key player in the industry. It includes such divisions: the Healthy Pharm Ukraine cosmetics manufacturing plant, the logistics company S-Logistic, a remote customer support contact center, and a remote commerce service provider. The holding also boasts its proprietary quality control system, Wellness.Lab.

For a seamless workflow and coordination across these businesses, Simpatik Group relies on various internal services, such as ERP, WMS, CRM systems, regulatory accounting software, VoIP solutions, external and internal document management systems, and an elaborate Microsoft 365-based ecosystem. As well as public web services.

These services used to be hosted on private servers and the cloud of one other provider. But the company’s strategic digital transformation required a shift in IT architecture. Namely, there was a need to rebuild IT infrastructure in order to achieve stability, flexibility, and security.

“To form a new vision of building the holding’s IT infrastructure, we first turned to the cloud provider we were already working with at the time. However, for various reasons, cooperation in this direction did not work out, so we decided to look for alternatives and inspect other providers,” says Eugene Zakalyuzhny, Director of IT & Digital Transformation at Simpatik Group.

Substitution on the field

Eugene Zakalyuzhny had a positive experience of working with GigaCloud, so this option of cooperation was also on the menu.

“During our briefings and discussions with GigaCloud’s technical team, they not only supported our vision for the IT infrastructure, but also deeply immersed themselves in the task. Their specialists actively contributed to brainstorming sessions and significantly boosted the project’s success,” says Zakalyuzhny.

Following the holding’s requirements, GigaCloud built a VMware-based private cloud infrastructure, migrating all internal and public services to this new environment. The company’s own hardware was repurposed for disaster recovery and testing.

Migration to Microsoft Azure and return to GigaCloud

Recently, there’s been an increase in DDoS attacks on Simpatik Group’s websites and public services. To downplay the impact on internal programs, the Simpatik Group experts decided to move their public web services to another cloud.

As the holding has long used a Microsoft 365 apps suite, they opted for Microsoft Azure. This decision was also influenced by Microsoft’s option of free temporary access to their cloud services. This marked the start of a multi-cloud approach for Simpatik Group, with internal services hosted in GigaCloud’s private cloud and public services moved to Microsoft Azure.

When Microsoft discontinued its free credits on cloud use, the holding faced a new challenge. Azure ensured the adequate fault tolerance, but the costs were quite significant. So, it was decided to move the web services back to GigaCloud. Not to internal services in a private cloud, so as not to create a single point of failure again, but rather to a public one, and in a different availability zone — in Warsaw.

“Technologically, GigaCloud’s infrastructure matches that of hyperscalers, but comes at a more affordable price,” Eugene Zakalyuzhny notes.

To be continued

Today, the holding’s IT infrastructure is hybrid in that it combines private and public clouds in different availability zones alongside its hardware.

Zakalyuzhny specifies that Simpatik Group’s digital transformation, powered by GigaCloud, has helped the company adapt to modern challenges, boost efficiency, and broaden its business opportunities. The company plans to actively develop AI-based projects, where GPU Cloud solutions will be indispensable.

“For me, GigaCloud is one of the best cloud providers,” says Zakalyuzhny. “It is due to their customer-oriented approach and commitment to solve any client’s challenge. For our company, GigaCloud is truly a partner that actively participates in our holding’s operations and is committed to ensuring its efficiency.”