Lewolang: Starting up with optimal infrastructure
About Lewolang
Launched in 2018, Lewolang is an online learning resource, specializing in spoken-language learning, for Spanish speakers looking to learn English.
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About Nubalia
Based in Spain, Google Cloud partner Nubalia helps companies create cloud solutions and pursue digital transformations.
With autoscaling instances on Google Compute Engine and a per-minute pricing plan, Spanish startup Lewolang delivers the optimal combination of availability and economy for its new language app.
Google Cloud results
- Autoscales infrastructure for organic growth
- Allocates pricing on a per-minute basis to optimize cost-efficiency at startup
- Encrypts information at rest for excellent security at a low price point
Ideal, autoscaling infrastructure for a new product launch
By testing spoken English through its dedicated app, Lewolang helps Spanish and Latin American students practice and learn language through innovative methods and the latest technology. A startup based in Spain, Lewolang operates a subscription-based online course that tests pronunciation alongside vocabulary and grammar.
“With our app, students can hear native speakers, speak and check their pronunciation,” says Denisa Ivanoiu from Lewolang’s marketing and communication department. “Some people have the opportunity to travel abroad to practice their spoken English, but most students don’t and it’s not enough to learn a language from books, you have to speak it. With the Lewolang app, you can repeat the same sentence a hundred times and nobody will get tired with you trying. And while many apps offer the same series of exercises in a multitude of languages, ours are specifically adapted to the needs of Spanish-speaking students.”
“As a new company, starting from scratch, we could not maintain an on-premise platform to support performance at peak hours. Google Cloud scales automatically according to use with competitive, pay-per-minute pricing that makes it easy to plan resources in the short- and long-term.”
—Denisa Ivanoiu, Marketing and Communications, LewolangWhile building their app, the Lewolang team set out the essential infrastructure specifications most important for their project. As a new product, Lewolang would need to scale to meet unknown levels of demand in the most cost-effective way possible, while gaining visibility and building brand awareness.
“As a new company starting from scratch, we could not maintain an on-premise platform to support performance at peak hours,” says Denisa. “Google Cloud scales automatically according to use with competitive, pay-per-minute pricing that makes it easy to plan resources in the short- and long-term.”
An ideal balance of resources for immediate growth
Allocating infrastructure resources is difficult for new online applications. Over-resourcing threatens to create upfront costs that may crush a nascent venture, while under-resourcing can curtail expansion just as the product becomes popular. The Lewolang team developed their product with local, on-premise servers, but knew that a more scalable infrastructure solution would be needed when the product went live.
That’s why Lewolang chose to deploy their product on Google Cloud with its granular, per-minute pricing plan. “With Google Cloud we get peace of mind both from the performance and safety of Google Cloud and its competitive pricing,” says Marc Canals Pi, CTO, Lewolang.
“For a small startup there are so many advantages to using Google Cloud. We can precisely follow real demand, by configuring your systems to scale. Our automatic scaling system will create new instances in under 60 seconds and close redundant VMs less than 30 seconds after they become inactive.”
—Marc Canals Pi, CTO and web developer, Lewolang“To implement the solution, we got in touch with Nubalia, a Google Cloud partner. They were able to configure our platform and helped ensure maximum availability. The process was very fast and straightforward, allowing us to focus on developing our product.” Nubalia provided full service, from a proof of concept, to designing the environment, migrating the web application, and deploying and maintaining the solution.
Hosting the app on Google Compute Engine instances, Lewolang completes its architecture with assets on Google Cloud SQL and Google Cloud Storage, using Google Cloud Load Balancing to manage traffic between instances. Security was another concern, as Lewolang stores its bespoke courses and sensitive client information. “Encryption-at-rest by default was something that no cloud provider apart from Google Cloud could offer at this price point,” says Marc.
“For a small startup there are so many advantages to using Google Cloud,” Marc continues. “We can precisely follow real demand, by configuring your systems to scale. Our automatic scaling system will create new instances in under 60 seconds and close redundant VMs less than 30 seconds after they become inactive.”
“Having a system that is fully scalable is so important right from the very beginning. Imagine a new customer that has issues using a new product from a company they haven’t heard of before. They might never come back.”
—Denisa Ivanoiu, Marketing and Communications, LewolangOptimizing scaling from the very start
The Lewolang app is online and growing organically, unrestricted by infrastructure or cost limitations thanks to autoscaling on Google Cloud. Next, the team is looking to integrate the Google Cloud Speech API to improve spoken language learning and to implement Google Cloud Endpoints for a new mobile app.
“Having a system that is fully scalable is so important right from the very beginning,” says Denisa. “Imagine a new customer that has issues using a new product from a company they haven’t heard of before. They might never come back.”
Tell us your challenge. We're here to help.
Contact us
About Lewolang
Launched in 2018, Lewolang is an online learning resource, specializing in spoken-language learning, for Spanish speakers looking to learn English.
About Nubalia
Based in Spain, Google Cloud partner Nubalia helps companies create cloud solutions and pursue digital transformations.