GSATi

When GSATi started as a web development agency, they were determined to offer web hosting as part of their client services. For Erik Bodor, GSATi’s Co-Founder and Sr. Director, it seemed the sensible way to keep control of every aspect of each project. The agency ran the gamut of the hosting industry—from shared hosting, virtual private servers, dedicated servers, cabinet co-location, private cloud, to their own cage and approximately $250,000 in equipment.

As the costs began to mount, Bodor realized the only benefit of private hosting was the control. And the disadvantages—downtime, unreliable equipment, staffing costs, etc.—were adding up.

Bodor turned to Pantheon to save time and resources, allowing the team at GSATi to focus on what they do best: building top-quality Drupal and WordPress websites. And they can take full advantage of Pantheon’s multidev environment and workflow for quicker, cleaner development and faster launches.

Pantheon lets us focus on what we do best, while also giving us the peace of mind that our clients’ websites are in good hands.

—Erik Bodor, Cofounder & Sr. Director

Before Pantheon: Total Control Was a Total Liability

GSATi started with the goal of keeping everything in-house, including web hosting. They invested heavily in equipment and services, both onsite and at co-location facilities. This approach may have been good for fine-tuning every setting of every site, but it quickly became an unwieldy mess to manage.

Maintaining their own servers meant GSATi had to continually upgrade and replace equipment, hire system and network engineers, and provide staff for 24/7 support. All while trying to find time to do what they really wanted to be doing: Making great websites.

Then GSATi tried giving up a little control and moving to the public cloud, which was a partial success. It meant freedom from having to upgrade and manage equipment, but the costs of configuration, monitoring and support were still substantial. Not only that, they risked having a provider that didn’t understand the complexities of their site architecture.

GSATi needed a website management platform specialized in Drupal and WordPress hosting for client websites, of any size, under any load. Their search led them to Pantheon.

Choosing Pantheon: From Hosting to a Platform

Based on their initial research, GSATi found Pantheon had the level of service they were looking for. But Bodor had lingering doubts. What if a client’s site went down and GSATi didn’t have the access to fix it? How could they manage security and scaling without the ability to tweak server settings?

The Pantheon team pointed Bodor at their Hosting is Dead white paper. As he read, Bodor saw the light: Pantheon’s platform could avoid downtime, and handle security and scaling. GSATi wouldn’t need to babysit temperamental hardware, as they did with their own servers. Intrigued by the possibilities, Bodor decided to give Pantheon a test run.

One of GSATi’s clients needed a temporary e-commerce website. Bodor—while not a developer himself—was able to spin up the site in minutes with Pantheon. He had the site ready to launch in a day, rather than the weeks it would have taken on their old solution. He was ready to make the switch.

Standardizing on Pantheon: A Fast Track to a Better Future

GSATi was ready to standardize on Pantheon, which meant they were eligible for the Agency Fast Track Program. With Fast Track, Pantheon usually sends a migration team onsite to speed up the process. Bodor appreciated the level of commitment—but as GSATi has staff throughout North America, onsite migration wasn’t optimal.

With some quick thinking by both companies, GSATi became Pantheon’s first remote Fast Track participant. Using Slack and Google Hangouts for collaboration, Pantheon was able to provide its trademark level of personalized training without making an office visit. The training included the development team, naturally, but extended to GSATi’s sales, management, and support staff as well. Not only did the migration go quickly and smoothly, but GSATi is now fully equipped to maximize the platform’s potential through their entire organization.

We’ve never had a vendor go to such lengths to help us onboard—they truly treated us as a business partner.

Life with Pantheon: Hands-Off Peace of Mind

GSATi now hosts all of its Drupal and Wordpress websites on Pantheon, and is standardized on the platform for all future development. Instead of keeping a close eye on finicky hardware, GSATi’s team is free to innovate. And they have found Pantheon’s tools make it easier to test new ideas, collaborate internally, and launch sites quickly and with confidence.

GSATi’s Favorite Features:

• Multidev + Dev/Test/Live: With Multidev, GSATi can collaborate on development without gathering around one developer’s computer. It’s easy to spin up environments to test new features, and the workflow keeps versions under control.

• Terminus: With Terminus, GSATi can use Pantheon’s dashboards without giving up command line interface (CLI) control.

• Quicksilver: GSATi plans to use Quicksilver to automate their workflow, moving towards continuous integration and automated testing.

• Launch Check: The Pantheon site dashboard runs site audits against over 50 Drupal/WordPress best practices. GSATi uses Launch Check to find and eliminate duplicate modules, as well as make sure each push to live is ready for prime-time.

• PHP Errors: Pantheon has a built-in display for PHP errors which filters out irrelevant entries, making it easier to find and fix the problem.

• Custom Upstreams: GSATi plans to develop a single repository of distribution and module sets, using custom upstreams to manage and push them to individual sites. This will allow them to take a more modular, productized approach to website building.