ASAP Log processes 100,000 orders per minute with MongoDB Atlas

INTRODUCTION

The courier of choice for Brazil’s best-known retailers

In 2014, a logistics start-up burst onto the scene in Brazil and has been transforming the delivery experience for online shoppers ever since. ASAP Log provides agile, cost-effective services for consumers and retailers, combining convenience with speed and transparency. Its team of 52,000 employees manages 28 distribution centers, 1,000 in-store collection points, and a fleet of 3,000 vehicles. Drivers can self-register and after passing internal checks can work autonomously to earn extra income at a time that suits them.

ASAP Log couriers deliver around 50,000 packages every day, including last-mile deliveries from stores to shoppers’ homes. The company counts household retail brands among its customers and relies on market-leading technology to streamline the entire logistics cycle from beginning to end.

“Our vision is to make deliveries easier and more accessible for everyone. We’re focused on expanding our network while maintaining high levels of efficiency and innovation,” says Felipe Bocolowski, staff software engineer at ASAP Log.

THE CHALLENGE

Putting the infrastructure in place to meet strict SLAs

ASAP Log aims to create the best possible delivery experience for both staff and customers, but logistics is an expensive industry and profit margins are tight. As business grew, the high volume of concurrent users on its website was causing outages, causing customer frustration and risking impacting the ecommerce experience for shoppers.

“We tested relational databases during our proof of concept, and they couldn’t handle the volume of web traffic. When we were acquired by one of the largest retailers in Brazil, it added even greater pressure to find a more scalable technology to support logistics,” says Bocolowski.

The IT team needed a modern database solution that integrated with developer tools such as Spring Boot and Ruby on the Rails to support its existing environment. They also wanted to start developing apps in-house and needed to find the right platform to build on. This included an order management app to act as a hub connecting vendors to a pool of 200,000 delivery drivers.

“We have strict SLAs to keep deliveries running smoothly and on time. We can’t afford any downtime or app outages,” explains Bocolowski. “We started looking for a reliable, high-performing solution to support our multi-cloud environment. We use Atlas services on AWS, and have integrations with Azure through our parent company.”

The company decided a NoSQL database would best fit its needs by removing the need to manually create tables and schemas. Bocolowski also commented that tech developers can get up to speed on how to work with a NoSQL database in just a few days, compared to the more extensive training required to manage a relational database.

THE SOLUTION

A scalable, flexible multi-cloud database platform

In ASAP Log’s research process, MongoDB’s name kept coming up as one of the hottest and most convenient technologies on the market, so the company decided to try the Community edition of MongoDB. As Bocolowski recalls, “We chose MongoDB because it’s easy to maintain and the document model was perfect for our case. It offered an elegant and flexible alternative to SQL and a solution to help us accelerate development.”

Today, everything at ASAP Log runs on MongoDB, including 23 applications and third-party integrations. It underpins the order system, which handles 100,000 orders a minute and thousands of couriers rely on every day. In 2022, the team migrated to MongoDB Atlas with support from MongoDB Customer Success. This enabled ASAP Log to begin its transition to a multi-cloud environment and to retire more than 40 virtual machines.

The team worked together to carry out a health check before the implementation to make sure the database platform could withstand the volume of data ASAP Log needs to process every day. They then defined a roadmap to make sure the project went smoothly and ensure the environment was set up according to best practices and in line with AWS security requirements.

MongoDB shared documentation and ran workshops to upskill the tech team and help them manage the platform in the future. ASAP Log also used MongoDB University.

“The migration took just two months, and we’ve seen a four times improvement in performance compared to our original implementation. We also did some upgrades to the platform,” says Bocolowski. “One was implementing live tracking, which we offer to customers needing real-time updates on deliveries. The other is reporting, which we used to run via our data warehouse and can now pull using Atlas Analytics Nodes. It enables us to run queries without impacting system performance.”

And the partnership between MongoDB and ASAP Log didn’t end when the solution went live. Bocolowski was pleased to learn that a follow-up plan and weekly meetings had been put in place to make sure his team got the best from the implementation. This also helps them learn about new features, such as Atlas Search, which the company may use in the future to improve search results when the query contains typing errors.

THE RESULTS

24/7 service and 99.99% uptime

With MongoDB, ASAP Log grew ten times bigger in terms of orders and revenue over four years, and thanks to Atlas autoscaling, can handle one million monthly orders without a hitch. Its customer-facing app is available 24/7 with 99.99% uptime, which boosted the company’s reputation and competitive advantage.

ASAP Log also reduced total cost of ownership by 34% by moving from MongoDB Community to MongoDB Atlas and operations are 60% more cost effective than previously.

“Our objective was to create robust software with modern and easy to maintain technology. MongoDB Atlas is the perfect modern data platform and we’re blown away by the support we get from the team,” adds Bocolowski.

ASAP Log now has a zero-maintenance and a high-availability platform with point-in-time backup, which gives staff confidence that data is safe, apps are functioning well, and the technology underpinning logistics is reliable. The team has eliminated issues around inconsistent data and can recover data 10 times faster.

“MongoDB is our first choice for every new project. We’re expanding our operations this year and creating more tools to support developers, and we’re relying on MongoDB to help us optimize those processes,” says Bocolowski. “We also plan to expand our multi-cloud capabilities, and MongoDB Atlas supports that.”