{"id":60594,"date":"2024-01-01T09:38:25","date_gmt":"2024-01-01T08:38:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.skaylink.com\/?p=60594"},"modified":"2025-07-24T09:53:07","modified_gmt":"2025-07-24T07:53:07","slug":"office-partner-case-study-shopware-aws","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.skaylink.com\/en\/case-studies\/office-partner-case-study-shopware-aws\/","title":{"rendered":"OFFICE Partner boosts e-commerce speed by 64% with AWS"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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OFFICE Partner boosts e-commerce speed by 64% with AWS<\/h1>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t
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OFFICE Partner looks to future growth <\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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OFFICE Partner, a German office hardware company, migrated its e-commerce platform to AWS to improve its scalability and performance while also cutting costs and reinforcing security. Founded in 1997 in Gescher, Northwest Germany, the company today employs over 200 people and generates \u20ac180 million in annual turnover. Its online store uses the Shopware version 5 e-commerce platform.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

Previously, OFFICE Partner had hosted Shopware and its e-commerce store using a cloud provider. But this was starting to hold the company back \u2013 it needed better performance and scalability to grow and offer customers the best possible online experience. OFFICE Partner chose to work with Skaylink to help ensure a smooth migration from its former cloud supplier to AWS.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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E-commerce performance is essential for customer experience <\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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OFFICE Partner needed better performance from its cloud provider. \u201cWe needed the website to be faster to improve the experience for both customers and internal users,\u201d says Thomas Eiling, Head of E-Commerce at OFFICE Partner. \u201cLoading times were just too long, and sometimes the site was simply unresponsive.\u201d Access to the main Shopware database was also too slow, further contributing to suboptimal overall performance that directly impacted OFFICE Partner\u2019s online customers.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

In addition, the business needed greater scalability. Adding new capacity to the previous cloud provider\u2019s solution was difficult and time-consuming, and rolling out new features took too long. OFFICE Partner wanted to scale capacity up and down as needed and get new features to market faster. \u201cWe\u2019re expanding fast,\u201d says Eiling. \u201cWe needed to add new employees and new locations, as well as new features, to our website. The previous solution made this too difficult, and we lacked control. We needed a new platform that could help us scale.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

In January 2021, OFFICE Partner asked Skaylink to help it transform its e-commerce operations on AWS. Eiling had worked with Skaylink and AWS at previous roles, so after assessing the market and weighing its options, OFFICE Partner decided to migrate to AWS with Skaylink\u2019s support.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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\n\t\t\t\t\u201cWe have made significant improvements in performance and service at the same cost.\u201d\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tThomas Eiling, Head of E-Commerce Office Partner<\/cite>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/blockquote>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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OFFICE Partner sees 64% performance improvements and lower costs <\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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After 6 weeks of preparation the migration was completed in just one day. The key outcome for OFFICE Partner is that it has confidence in its new technical platform and in its ability to adapt to future market movements. Using AWS, it has a solid technical infrastructure that can support its future growth and expansion, whether it needs to add new branches or improve its e-commerce performance and user experience.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

Skaylink gives the company ongoing managed services and professional services, delivering 24\/7 support and monitoring to help OFFICE Partner maximize uptime for its online store. In the event of an issue, Skaylink\u2019s experts will respond within 1\u202fhour\u202f\u2013\u202f24 hours a day and 7 days a week. \u201cWe want to give OFFICE Partner the reassurance that its business-critical e-commerce website will be reliable and stable, so we\u2019re delivering round-the-clock support,\u201d says Steffen Drya, Head of Managed Cloud Services at Skaylink.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

The new Skaylink and AWS solution has already delivered a 64 percent speed improvement over the previous solution. The platform\u2019s database performance \u2013expressed as \u201ctime-to-first-byte\u201d \u2013 is down from 2.8 seconds to less than 1 second. This means all aspects of the e-commerce experience are faster, from customers buying products to OFFICE Partner employees making changes in the backend. Changing prices across the site used to take 14\u201315 hours, now it only takes 2 hours.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Greater scalability using Amazon EC2 and AWS Serverless <\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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OFFICE Partner now has the flexibility to change features and services at speed, using microservices enabled by the database functionality of Amazon Aurora, which offers unparalleled high performance and availability at global scale with full MySQL and PostgreSQL compatibility. Using Amazon Aurora has allowed the company to add new features with ease and improve the customer experience. The additional scalability is in part due to the use of Amazon Aurora, with its powerful features, such as master read\/write splitting and spot instances. \u201cOur previous hosting provider simply didn\u2019t offer these performance-enhancing options,\u201d says Eiling.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

Improving performance previously could take months, now it\u2019s a matter of weeks. OFFICE Partner also uses Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2), secure and resizable compute capacity for virtually any workload, and AWS Fargate, serverless compute for containers, to provide greater scalability and speed. <\/span>\u201cThe scalability of Amazon EC2 lets us set up containers with ease and deploy and manage services so quickly that it means we can add new features whenever we want,\u201d says Roman Herbstmann, Head of Connected Services at OFFICE Partner.<\/span> \u201cWe use AWS Fargate serverless technology to scale our services as we need. For example, we can now update stock levels every 15 minutes, giving users a smoother experience online. If a customer is searching the site for a laptop only to discover it is out of stock, that\u2019s a frustrating user experience \u2013 but now it is much less likely to happen.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

In addition, Amazon Aurora has helped with troubleshooting across OFFICE Partner\u2019s e-commerce platform. Amazon Aurora\u2019s exportable query logs mean the company\u2019s technical team can find and identify faults much more quickly. Shopping cart performance has also improved. <\/span>\u201cWe\u2019ve had direct feedback from our customers telling us that the ecommerce experience is faster and smoother,\u201d says Eiling. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t get any better than your own customers telling you they love the service.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Stronger security using AWS WAF and data encryption <\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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OFFICE Partner has strengthened its security by adding AWS WAF to protect its web applications from common exploits. \u201cAWS WAF is easy to deploy, protects our network, and offers good value for money too,\u201d says Eiling. \u201cThe service protects us against suspicious web requests and traffic.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

Data security is also improved, with Skaylink adding encryption to OFFICE Partner\u2019s data. \u201cIf our data was ever to be stolen, it would be useless to the hacker as it\u2019s fully encrypted,\u201d says Eiling.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Lower costs as well as better performance <\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Amazon EC2\u2019s autoscaling feature has helped OFFICE Partner save at least $1,000 a month on hosting. Autoscaling means OFFICE Partner only pays for the resources they use. As a direct result, costs for cloud hosting are down 15 percent, largely thanks to Skaylink and AWS technology.<\/p>

The migration process was smooth and simple, giving OFFICE Partner the foundation it needs to expand its digital estate.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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\n\t\t\t\t\"We\u2019re proud of the project and the platform it\u2019s given us for the future. I\u2019ve been involved in many migration projects, but this was the smoothest I\u2019ve ever seen. We did it in just one night \u2013 a month earlier than planned. Skaylink have been exceptional in their service delivery. I would rate them very highly. They have been a great technical partner for OFFICE Partner.\u201d\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tThomas Eiling, Head of E-Commerce Office Partner<\/cite>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/blockquote>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t
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Solutions & Benefits<\/h3>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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AWS services used<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

  • Amazon EC2<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/li>
  • Amazon Aurora<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/li>
  • AWS Fargate<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/li>
  • AWS WAF<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/li><\/ul>

    Benefits<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

    • 64% improvement in <\/span>performance<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/li>
    • 15% reduction in costs<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/li>
    • Faster, smoother user experience<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/li>
    • Stronger security with in-built encryption<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/li>
    • Scalable platform for future growth<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/li><\/ul>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t
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      Case Stories<\/h3>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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