Achievements:

About the Customer

Tibica is a serverless application marketplace that offers a wide range of applications, from headless content management systems to code versioning and access control solutions. Tibica’s applications are AWS cloud-native, leveraging serverless technologies to ensure scalability, cost-efficiency, and high availability.

Challenge:

In August 2023, Tibica reached out to Perfsys with a challenge. Despite leveraging AWS Lambda functions for their scalable and cost-efficient benefits, Tibica’s applications were hindered by slow response times due to Lambda cold starts. This issue delayed several application workflow steps by nearly two seconds, leading to user dissatisfaction.

Tibica’s initial setup involved an API Gateway to AWS Lambda integration for handling requests, complemented by a custom Lambda authorizer for access control. While this structure was functional, it wasn’t optimized for speed, resulting in noticeable delays in API request processing.

Solution:

Perfsys engineering team conducted a thorough analysis of Tibica’s application workflows using AWS X-Ray, identifying the main bottlenecks. We discovered that the bulk of the requests were simple GET operations that did not require complex processing. This insight led us to pivot from the Lambda-based model to direct database interactions.

We implemented direct queries to the DynamoDB table through AWS API Gateway’s Velocity Template Language (VTL), bypassing the need for Lambda functions for simple GET, PUT and POST operations. This change aimed to reduce the latency associated with Lambda cold starts and streamline the application’s response times.

Results:

Following the implemented changes, Tibica experienced a dramatic improvement in performance.

Response times for GET requests dropped from 1.74 seconds to a mere 0.61 seconds. Furthermore, the latency for write operations was reduced from 2.69 seconds to 1.99 seconds.

This optimization also halved the average duration of user workflows from 42.8 seconds to 20.4 seconds, significantly enhancing system responsiveness and greatly improving the user experience.

Conclusion

This collaboration not only showcased the flexibility of serverless architectures in enhancing performance but also underscored Perfsys’s commitment to helping Tibica achieve a major leap in application responsiveness.

The transition highlighted the importance of tailoring your approach to the specific needs of your application. While AWS Lambda offers great flexibility, it may not always be the most efficient choice for straightforward tasks. By reevaluating Tibica’s use of serverless technologies, Perfsys helped the company dramatically improve response times, enrich the user experience, and cut costs related to Lambda usage.

Perfsys is dedicated to guiding businesses like Tibica in refining their workflows and securing a competitive edge through strategic technology optimization.

Contact Perfsys today to explore how our engineering business can help you improve your application performance.