[AWS deployment and operation and maintenance] SaaS service SNS campaign tool | Pickles

This time, we spoke with Mr. Tanaka and Mr. Yamashita of Pickles Co., Ltd. about the background to their decision to adopt Beyond's cloud construction, operation and maintenance service, and their impressions after actually using the service

--Please tell us about your company's business

Mr. Yamashita: Our company provides two marketing SaaS products: "CampTsuku," an SNS campaign tool, and "YomiToru," a diagnostic content creation tool.

Mr. Tanaka: CanTsuku is an SNS campaign tool whose strength lies in its ease of use, even for a single marketer. It allows you to easily run gift campaigns such as "instant win" on SNS platforms like X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, LINE, and TikTok. Yomitoru is a tool that allows you to create various diagnostic content. It has been adopted by various companies for product promotion and to increase conversions on e-commerce sites. Its strength lies in the fact that anyone can easily create diagnostic content using AI.

Pickles Co., Ltd. Representative Director Minoru Tanaka and Product Development Department Manager Mio Yamashita

--Please tell us the background behind your decision to introduce our service

Mr. Tanaka: We switched to your company because we were having problems with the slow response time of the company we were previously using.

Mr. Yamashita: Actually, from my perspective, we've been working together for about seven years since the site was built, and because we've known each other for so long, I was honestly a little accustomed to the process and thought that it was understandable if things were a bit slow.

Mr. Tanaka: However, from my perspective, I felt that the response speed was quite slow. For example, even if there was a server-side problem, it sometimes took more than half a day to get a response. It was normal for it to take about one to two months from the initial consultation to actually starting work, including understanding the situation, calculating costs, proposing a schedule, and implementing specific measures.

Yamashita: I had always been used to that way of doing things, so I accepted it as unavoidable. However, Tanaka said, "Isn't this a big business risk?" and that made me realize again that "as a service provider, this level of slowness is unacceptable..."

Mr. Tanaka: Server-related problems, in particular, are a major issue from the customer's perspective. However, taking too long to resolve them is a high risk, so I asked Yamashita, "Is it really okay to leave things as they are?" and "Other companies' maintenance and operations might be faster, right?"

Mr. Yamashita: Because of that, I looked into the actual situation of other companies that build and maintain servers. When I started looking, I found that there are companies that have overwhelmingly fast response times in their support systems. For seven years I had always thought that "slow response times" were normal, but I realized that maybe that's not actually the case.

Mr. Tanaka: In the end, we decided to consider switching providers at this time. With OS and PHP version upgrades coinciding, the slow response was becoming an even bigger hindrance... From an internal perspective, if we prioritize the stable provision of our services, we concluded that it would be better to switch to an operations company that can act quickly and with communication at its core.

-How did you find out about Beyond?

Mr. Yamashita:I found out about it by searching on the web. Tanaka and I were talking about "what kind of asset management company to use," and when we looked into various options, Beyond's name came up first. It was one of several companies we picked out.

Mr. Tanaka:I understood it to be one of the companies that Yamashita had listed.

What ultimately made you choose our company?

Mr. Tanaka:What we prioritized most was whether they could respond quickly. That was a major problem with our previous company. Secondly, we also considered how broadly they could handle our inquiries. In that respect, other companies we considered gave manual-like responses such as, "We can handle inquiries up to this point." In contrast, Beyond gave usbeing flexible and able to answer even minor questions about their expertise, and that was a major deciding factor for us.

Mr. Yamashita:Since we don't have dedicated infrastructure engineers, we inevitably have many opportunities to consult with you regarding server configuration, operation, and maintenance. In such situations, the deciding factors were whether we could "easily consult with you" and "whether you would act quickly if there was a risk." In fact, we had several meetings with you beforehand, and you had solid technical knowledge and responded quickly.That geeky attitude gave us a sense of securityand I think it was a key factor in our final decision.

Mr. Tanaka:In fact, even for requests that other companies would likely have refused, they were flexible and said, "Let's think about it." That was impressive, and ultimately I felt that "this company seems like it would be willing to work with us on new initiatives."

Mr. Yamashita:Also, cost was a very important factor. It was crucial that the construction and maintenance costs could be kept within the budget we had set, and we were pleased that Beyond was able to keep them within our expectations in their proposal.

SNS campaign tool "CanTsuku"

-What kind of services do you use Beyond's services for?

Mr. Yamashita:We have requested your services for the server construction, operation, and maintenance of "CampTsuku". CampTsuku is a system that collects posts with hashtags and reposted posts, and its distinguishing feature is its compatibility with numerous social media platforms.

Mr. Tanaka:Specifically, we use four platforms: X, Instagram, LINE, and TikTok. Since we obtain data from all of them via API, when running instant-win campaigns, we have to process and output the "winner/loser" status on the server immediately. As a result, the server load becomes very high when there is a surge in access. Until now, we didn't have a load balancer, so the response would sometimes become slow when there was a large amount of access. Therefore, in this server setup, we decided to install a load balancer and set up a multi-server configuration to update the system to one that can also handle auto-scaling.

Mr. Yamashita:Regarding some of the configurations, Beyond suggested that they would come up with an alternative because they didn't have experience with it, but ultimately they implemented it in the way we wanted. Normally, I think many companies would refuse if they didn't have experience with it, but they challenged themselves with a new method and provided solid support, which further increased our trust in them.

Mr. Tanaka:This time, you optimized the configuration to meet our needs, and now the servers can handle even when the response to our SNS campaign exceeds our expectations. We are truly grateful that you have created a robust foundation that can adequately handle load-bearing mechanisms like instant win campaigns.

Pickles' "CanTsuku" environment configuration diagram

--Specifically, what are some areas where Beyond has been useful?

Mr. Yamashita:When migrating from the old server to the new one, it was actually my first time working with a PHP FPM environment, and I found that more detailed changes were needed than I had anticipated. Specifically, things like where to output error logs and adjusting PHP middleware. I had many questions like, "What should I do in this case?", but when I consulted with Beyond, they explained things very carefully, saying, "Well, let's do it this way."

Mr. Tanaka:We often receive reports within a few hours that the work we requested has been completed. In the past, the process would often stall with exchanges like, "We'll look into it and get back to you," but now we get the results back immediately, which has prevented our work from being interrupted.

Yamashita-san:In fact, I'm really grateful that the migration went smoothly with almost no interruptions to the work.

Mr. Tanaka:Another thing that's helpful is the regular monitoring system. There are quite a few situations where the database load on CampTsuku gets high, but we get a quick notification on Slack saying, "The load is high, we're investigating." We also get specific information like, "It looks like this SQL query is the cause," so we can respond immediately.

Yamashita-san:In our previous environment, we would only realize something was wrong after a problem occurred. With Beyond, however, they properly set thresholds and identify bottlenecks before they become a problem. They also provide frequent reports via Slack, which makes it easier for us to consider countermeasures at that time.

Mr. Tanaka:Also, it was very helpful when we made a mistake in configuring a cron job on our end and the load suddenly increased. At that time, we received multiple alerts saying "The load is dangerously high!" (the actual wording was polite), so we were able to notice the problem immediately. If we hadn't received those alerts, I think we would have left it unnoticed for a long time.

Mr. Yamashita: Thanks to that, it gave us an opportunity to review the application design itself, so it was a great advantage that we were able to make fundamental improvements, rather than just finding and stopping the error.

Mr. Tanaka:Thank you for keeping in close contact with us regularly. You not only monitor the situation but also analyze it, suggesting possible causes. This has also helped reduce the server load, whichin turn has contributed to the overall stability of our service. We truly appreciate your help in many ways.

Case studies of CanTsuku

--Please tell us your impressions of using the service

Yamashita-san:First of all, what I appreciate is being able to communicate via Slack instead of email. We use Slack for almost all of our internal communication, so being able to consult with people and get in touch immediately as an extension of that is very helpful.

Mr. Tanaka:It's reassuring to receive real-time replies without having to check my email. It really reinforces how important speed is. I also get the impression that Beyondcompany-wide culture of "instant responses."has

Yamashita-san:Previously, it was like, "Unless we ask questions, we won't get any new suggestions or information." We also have limited expertise in some areas, so we often don't know what kind of questions to ask. But now, even if we just roughly explain what we're having trouble with, they offer various suggestions like, "Well, here's another way to do it." The people in charge each have their own knowledge and share it, sothey're being incredibly flexibleI feel like

Mr. Tanaka:I appreciate it when you offer suggestions, such as, "This would be more efficient if you did it this way," or "This setting might be the cause of the heavy load." I can learn from your suggestions and make improvements as well.

Yamashita-san:I also appreciate the support you provide during late-night hours. We often need to update CampTuku late at night, but at my previous company, there was an extra charge each time, like "late-night support is an option." That cost was quite high, so it was difficult to coordinate internally, like asking "Should we stop the system at night on a different day?"

Mr. Tanaka:Now, with Beyond's monitoring and maintenance service, we can request support even late at night on weekdays relatively smoothly, so we can confidently complete tasks in the middle of the night. As a result, we can perform updates and maintenance during times when there are fewer users, which has greatly reduced the risk of service downtime.

Yamashita-san:That's very helpful. While it's true that we don't always know exactly when a surge in traffic will occur, we can communicate and quickly say, "Okay, let's review it in the middle of the night." This level of responsiveness was unthinkable before, and it gives us great peace of mind as service operators.

診Diagnostic content creation tool "Yomitoru Diagnostic Cloud"

--What do you expect from us in the future?

Yamashita-san:First and foremost, we want to grow "CampTsuku" and "YomiToru" together. We ourselves are steadily making progress in development, but we believe there is still much to learn about AWS services and infrastructure solutions. It would be very reassuring to have someone to consult with us about that and, in a sense, "accompany" us.

Mr. Tanaka:I understand that Beyond has a strong track record of supporting the gaming industry. Game companies often experience sudden spikes in traffic. If you have the expertise to handle such situations, I believe you will know how to cope when services like CanTsuku and Yomitoru experience rapid growth. For example, even if the number of users of your service increases tenfold, I expect you to be able to offer suggestions like, "You can overcome this by scaling things up in this way."

Mr. Yamashita:In fact, we are already mindful of load balancing at this stage, but as the system actually grows, problems may arise in unexpected areas. At that time, it would be reassuring to have someone to encourage us with suggestions like, "This architecture would be good," or "You can overcome this with this AWS feature."

Mr. Tanaka:We also feel the pressure to "grow to that stage," but conversely, that also motivates us. If Beyond supports us by saying "you can grow as much as you want," it motivates us to "work even harder and increase our user base tenfold."

Mr. Yamashita:As we continue to expand our services, I think there will be more occasions where we need to discuss various things and brainstorm implementation ideas together. It would be helpful if you could maintain a "please feel free to talk to me about anything" attitude.

Mr. Tanaka:From our perspective, we get the impression that you have a broad ability to handle anything related to AWS, so that's exactly the kind of support we're hoping for.

-Please tell us about your future business development plans

Yamashita-san:Our main goal is to have more people use CanTsuku and Yomitoru. Our company's policy is to "create high-quality communication between companies and between companies and consumers." In that regard, we want to continuously improve the functions so that the companies that adopt our services can feel that "it was good that we entrusted this to them" and achieve results.

Mr. Tanaka:Recently, we updated Yomitoru to allow for user management. For enterprise customers, user management functionality is a crucial element in SaaS implementation from a security perspective, so this update addresses that need. We will continue to work on various initiatives to "lower the barrier to adoption" and make it a service that any company would be willing to "give it a try."

Yamashita:I think it's important to create an environment where all our customers can use our services with peace of mind. We want to continuously improve our service level, including load balancing, security, and ease of data management, as mentioned earlier.

Mr. Tanaka:Considering that, Beyond's support is very reassuring. I would be happy to consult with you on various aspects in the future as we expand our services.

--Thank you for your valuable insights today!