25% infrastructure cost reduction through serverless architecture
Zero downtime migration for mission-critical application serving millions of daily customer requests
Unified cloud strategy eliminated knowledge silos, improved cross-team collaboration and troubleshooting
Automatic scaling handles traffic spikes seamlessly, from quiet Sundays to Black Friday rushes
Hermes, one of Germany’s leading logistics companies, achieves a 25% reduction in infrastructure costs and a seamless migration from AWS to Google Cloud for their critical Track & Trace application.
Hermes, one of Germany’s leading logistics companies, achieves a 25% reduction in infrastructure costs and a seamless migration from AWS to Google Cloud for their critical Track & Trace application.
Completing a strategic cloud unification
When millions of customers across Germany track their daily package deliveries, they're interacting with one of the most critical customer-facing applications in European logistics. For Hermes Germany, a proud member of the Otto Group and one of the country's leading delivery services, their Track & Trace application isn't just a convenience feature: It's the digital backbone connecting customers to their packages in real-time.
Processing several million parcels daily and handling more than 2.5 million tracking requests, with each package generating up to 50 data points from pickup to final delivery, the Track & Trace system represents both the complexity and scale that modern logistics demands. When Hermes embarked on their multi-year cloud modernization journey, this mission-critical application became the final piece of its serverless-first transformation puzzle.
Hermes Germany's cloud journey was born from strategic vision, not crisis. Over the course of three years, the company had methodically migrated its entire customer- and business partner-facing application landscape to Google Cloud, including its MyHermes platform and B2B API portals. The Track & Trace application represented the last critical component needed to complete their unified cloud strategy.
We highly encourage all teams to be brave and not only lift and shift existing infrastructure but modernize applications from the ground up. The actual benefit of moving to the cloud comes from significantly reducing operational overhead and increasing velocity in product development lifecycles.
Stephan Stapel
Head of Department, Hermes Germany
The challenge wasn't just technical: Running applications across multiple cloud platforms created operational silos and complexity. The strategic goal was clear: unify all customer-facing applications on a single, serverless-first platform that would reduce operational overhead while increasing developer velocity.
Stephan Stapel, Head of Department at Hermes Germany, emphasizes the philosophy: "We highly encourage all teams to be brave and not only lift and shift existing infrastructure but modernize applications from the ground up. The actual benefit of moving to the cloud comes from significantly reducing operational overhead and increasing velocity in product development lifecycles."
Orchestrating a zero-downtime migration
The migration strategy for Track & Trace was built around one non-negotiable requirement: zero downtime. With millions of customers relying on real-time package information, any service interruption was unacceptable. The solution was an elegant parallel-run approach followed by a carefully orchestrated DNS switchover.
The good thing was that we could run multi-cloud the whole time. We deployed containerized services to both AWS and Google Cloud and had everything running in parallel. We could compare both and see that everything worked, which simplified things significantly because just before the DNS switch, we had two functioning clouds and could compare them directly.
Benjamin Baum
Lead Developer, Hermes Germany
Google Cloud Run became the foundation of the new architecture, providing a serverless runtime environment that handles all scaling and infrastructure management automatically. This allowed the development team to focus exclusively on business logic while Cloud Run's concurrency features enabled granular and highly efficient scaling.
Apigee was implemented as the enterprise API gateway, managing the complex distribution of tracking information throughout the organization. The platform supports various consumer services, ranging from private customer lookups on MyHermes.de to chatbot integrations and internal customer service portals, each requiring distinct API interfaces and data transformations.
The architecture also leveraged Atlas MongoDB for the primary database, containing approximately 1.8 terabytes of shipment data from recent years, over 500-600 million entries with up to 50 data points per shipment.
The microservices-based applications run in containers on Cloud Run, automatically scaling up or down based on demand.
"The good thing was that we could run multi-cloud the whole time," notes Benjamin Baum. "We deployed containerized services to both AWS and Google Cloud and had everything running in parallel. We could compare both and see that everything worked, which simplified things significantly because just before the DNS switch, we had two functioning clouds and could compare them directly."
The migration process began with thorough testing in non-production environments. The DNS switch involved simply changing IP addresses to point URLs to Google Cloud's Load Balancer – a change that could be reversed within seconds if needed. The final DNS switchover was completed successfully without incident.
Throughout the process, Google's Professional Services Organization (PSO) and Technical Account Management (TAM) provided crucial support. "We used PSO and our TAM extensively during the migration phase, and the team supported us tremendously," recalls Benjamin Baum. "Now we use professional support when we get stuck somewhere. We open a ticket, and within two minutes, someone is in the chat helping us."
Measurable success across multiple dimensions
The migration delivered impressive results that exceeded initial expectations. The most significant achievement was a 25% reduction in infrastructure costs compared to their previous setup, demonstrating efficiency through the adoption of serverless technology. The Track & Trace architecture handles traffic spikes seamlessly, from quiet Sunday afternoons to Black Friday rushes.
"Using Cloud Run is incredibly simple: You build a Docker container and tell Cloud Run to run it," explains Benjamin Baum. "Give it metadata like secrets, tell it how many requests the container can handle – say 100 concurrent requests. If 300 requests come in, it scales up to three containers automatically."
Performance improved notably with enhanced stability under load. Most importantly, the migration achieved zero downtime.
Using Cloud Run is incredibly simple: You build a Docker container and tell Cloud Run to run it. Give it metadata like secrets, tell it how many requests the container can handle – say 100 concurrent requests. If 300 requests come in, it scales up to three containers automatically.
Benjamin Baum
Lead Developer, Hermes Germany
"The migration ran quietly and without risk - mission accomplished" reflects Stephan Stapel. "We thought ahead, planned well, and approached each problem systematically."
The operational benefits have been transformative for the development teams. The unified cloud strategy eliminated the knowledge silos that previously existed when teams worked across different platforms. Cross-team collaboration improved dramatically, particularly during disaster recovery exercises and troubleshooting sessions.
With the Track & Trace migration completed, Hermes continues to optimize their Google Cloud platform and explore new capabilities. Immediate priorities include fine-tuning Cloud Run concurrency settings for peak traffic periods and evaluating Google Cloud Managed Service for Prometheus, the fully managed, multi-cloud, cross-project solution for Prometheus and OpenTelemetry metrics, to further reduce monitoring costs. The serverless foundation opens possibilities for future innovations in predictive delivery notifications, intelligent routing suggestions, and proactive customer communication.
A blueprint for strategic cloud transformation
Hermes Germany's Track & Trace migration represents more than a successful technology project; it demonstrates how strategic cloud transformation can deliver both immediate operational benefits and long-term competitive advantages. By embracing a serverless-first architecture, Hermes has laid the foundation for continued innovation in the rapidly evolving logistics industry.
"Teams that chose the seemingly easy path with lift and shift take forever to reach a point where they benefit from the cloud," states Stephan Stapel. "For applications where teams immediately embraced serverless and higher-value services, the initial investment was higher, but the benefits came much faster and much more significantly."
The success of this migration extends beyond cost savings and performance improvements. It has unified teams, simplified operations, and positioned Hermes to adopt new technologies and capabilities as they emerge quickly. For an industry where customer expectations continue to rise and competition intensifies, this technological foundation provides exactly the agility and efficiency needed to stay ahead.
As other organizations consider their cloud modernization journeys, the Hermes story offers a compelling blueprint: invest in the right architecture from the outset, leverage the full potential of cloud-native technologies, and have the courage to transform rather than simply migrate. The results speak for themselves; not just in cost savings and performance metrics, but in the enhanced capability to innovate and respond to future challenges.
Teams that chose the seemingly easy path with lift and shift take forever to reach a point where they benefit from the cloud. For applications where teams immediately embraced serverless and higher-value services, the initial investment was higher, but the benefits came much faster and much more significantly.
Stephan Stapel
Head of Department, Hermes Germany
As part of the globally recognized Otto Group, Hermes Germany is a leading logistics and delivery company serving millions of customers across Germany. With a commitment to innovation, sustainability, and customer excellence, Hermes continues to leverage cutting-edge technology to enhance the delivery experience while building the logistics infrastructure of tomorrow.
Industry: Logistics
Location: Germany
Products: Cloud Run, ApiGee, Cloud Monitoring, Cloud CDN, Cloud Armor
