Ramp: Bringing Web3 to the mainstream with a scalable cloud architecture
About Ramp
Ramp is a financial technology company building solutions that connect the crypto economy with today’s global financial infrastructure. Fully integrated with the world’s major payment methods, Ramp’s core on- and off-ramp products enable businesses and individuals across 150+ countries to convert between cryptocurrencies and fiat currencies.
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Contact usMigrating to Google Cloud freed Ramp teams to focus on developing its product while scaling at speed to bring it to the mainstream.
Google Cloud results
- Reduces infrastructure costs during development by 10x while increasing development velocity with multi-tenant environment in Google Kubernetes Engine
- Improves user availability by eradicating downtime with Google Kubernetes Engine
- Empowers teams to spot suspicious activity and act to prevent outages with BigQuery analysis
- Cuts new employee onboarding time from days to seconds with Identity-Aware Proxy
Lowers infrastructure costs in development by up to 10x
With its blockchain technology, native cryptocurrency payments, and vision of a decentralized web built and owned by its users, Web3 is often heralded as the future of the internet. But accessibility and usability issues pose significant hurdles on the path to mainstream adoption. With its core on-ramp and off-ramp products, Ramp is connecting the crypto economy with today’s global financial system in a mission to make Web3 a reality for more people with a seamless user journey.
Ramp’s widget integration empowers businesses offering crypto-enabled services to let their users buy cryptocurrency and convert it back to fiat money without leaving the host app. What’s more, by ensuring that users don’t have to buy their cryptocurrency from a custodial crypto-exchange, Ramp reduces users’ exposure to risk by giving them control of their own money.
As Łukasz Anwajler, CTO of Ramp explains, "the fall of FTX confirmed that self-custody is the only way for Web3 to go. Everybody should manage their own wallet, because otherwise it isn’t much different from traditional finance. Self-custody gives you the power to stay in control of your own funds."
Letting the cloud provider do the heavy lifting
Ramp has grown rapidly since its inception, and while its previous collection of cloud-based tools and software was adequate for a startup, the team knew that as Ramp continued to grow, it would need a cloud provider capable of scaling with it.
"We were thinking about the future, and not wanting to be held back," Łukasz Anwajler explains. "The tool we were using was outdated and we knew we would end up using kubernetes, because it offers much better flexibility and availability. We were convinced that Google Kubernetes Engine handled that in the best way, as its self-managed service meant we didn’t have to waste any time on configuration."
Having fully migrated to Google Cloud, Google Kubernetes Engine now underpins Ramp computing infrastructure and BigQuery is at the center of how Ramp handles and analyzes data. The company is confident it has the technology to continue to scale at speed.
"Google Kubernetes Engine and BigQuery are the golden standards, the leading solutions in the market," explains Paweł Dawidowicz, Head of SRE at Ramp. "Having them at the heart of our infrastructure makes it easier to integrate with our other tools and means that we don’t have to spend time gluing different services together as we did before."
Moreover, the fact that these services are self managed frees the Ramp team to focus on other, value-added tasks across the business. "We want to invest our energies in making a difference, not just playing with the engine," says Łukasz Anwajler. "Thanks to Google Cloud managed services, we don’t need to spend too much time on maintenance and instead we can focus our time and efforts on making something special for our customers."
"Google Kubernetes Engine and BigQuery are the golden standards, the leading solutions in the market. Having them at the heart of our infrastructure makes it easier to integrate with our other tools and means that we don’t have to spend time gluing different services together as we did before."
—Paweł Dawidowicz, Head of SRE, RampEnjoying uninterrupted services with Google Kubernetes Engine
One immediate benefit for Ramp’s customers was a more reliable service. Previously, any upgrade of Ramp’s infrastructure, such as security updates, required some downtime. Now, with Google Kubernetes Engine to automatically deploy, scale, and manage kubernetes, there are always some virtual machines running while others are being patched, meaning Ramp no longer experiences outages during upgrades, and the users can enjoy Ramp’s product without interruption.
Another benefit of using GKE was a significant reduction in costs, which enabled Ramp to channel more resources into developing its core offering instead. "By using Google Kubernetes Engine in conjunction with other Google Cloud services like SQL or Secret Manager, we were able to set up a multi-tenant environment with a lot of similar environments for testing," Paweł Dawidowicz explains. "We were able to achieve true environment separation while heavily optimizing computing costs by sharing virtual machines and SQL instances, allowing us to decrease infrastructure costs during development by around ten times. As a result, we were able to create even more of those environments, which ultimately increased our development velocity."
Putting data at the heart of product development
Another way in which Ramp has been able to develop its products and processes more efficiently is through the use of BigQuery and Looker. By gathering data on all elements of its business, from costs and financial data through to compliance, and storing it in BigQuery, Ramp is able to use data to make important strategic decisions and to refine new features for its customers.
"Everything we do is data driven," says Łukasz Anwajler. With BigQuery, Ramp combines data from its A/B testing platform with other data points from users and partners to create dashboards in Looker for easy data visualization. "We consult the data to see what’s working and what’s not, and then tweak the product on that basis. This is essentially the whole lifecycle of product development, and it all starts with the data," he adds.
BigQuery is also enabling Ramp to avoid service outages by identifying suspicious requests from unknown IPs. By connecting Cloud Audit Logs to BigQuery, Paweł Dawidowicz is able to analyze incidents "almost in real time, in just a few clicks," to find the root cause of potential performance outages and take action to prevent them.
Cloud Audit Logs also helps Ramp’s security team to maintain audit trails, meaning they are able to see clearly who does what, where and when, helping Ramp to keep its customer data secure.
A simple approach to streamlining security processes
As a financial infrastructure provider working with cryptocurrencies, Ramp takes its security very seriously. Before migrating to Google Cloud, the company used VPNs to access its back office application, to protect it from public access. This meant that a new configuration had to be created for every new person joining the organization. The faster Ramp scaled, the more time consuming this process became, with up to 15 new employees joining every month.
Unwilling to compromise on security, Ramp discussed the problem with the local Google Cloud team in Warsaw, which recommended transferring its existing VPN setup to Identity-Aware Proxy to verify user identities and control access to its systems.
"Our onboarding process for new engineers is now very, very easy," says Paweł Dawidowicz. "Where it was previously a complex configuration process of a few hours or even days, adding new joiners with Identity-Aware Proxy gives them access to whatever production systems they need in a matter of seconds. It’s not only streamlined our onboarding process, allowing us to scale more quickly, it’s strengthened our security in the process."
"Adding new joiners with Identity Aware Proxy gives them access to whatever production systems they need in a matter of seconds. It’s not only streamlined our onboarding process, allowing us to scale more quickly, it’s strengthened our security in the process."
—Paweł Dawidowicz, Head of SRE, RampStanding on the shoulders of giants
With less time spent on menial tasks, Ramp’s team is free to focus on developing its core product.
"As a tech company, we need to stand on the shoulders of giants to shorten time to market and invest where we really can make a difference for our customers," says Łukasz Anwajler. "With Google Cloud, product development is faster, meaning we can ship features to our end users more quickly. And the quality of these features, thanks to the data analytics that we have, is also more tailored to our customers’ expectations."
The most significant addition to Ramp’s offering since moving to Google Cloud is the off-ramp feature, which allows users to exchange their cryptocurrency back to fiat currency just as smoothly as they bought it. This feature is crucial in Ramp’s mission to make Web3 more accessible and more secure, ensuring that new users aren’t locked in to their cryptocurrency, and that they retain control over their finances throughout their journey.
For Łukasz Anwajler, this freedom to focus on building business value all comes back to the scalability that he and his team needed when Ramp first began its migration to Google Cloud.
"To me as a CTO, one of the miracles of this setup is that even though we grew significantly as a company, the architecture matured with us," says Łukasz Anwajler. "Thanks to our cooperation with Google Cloud, we are prepared for what comes next. Today we can have two million users, by tomorrow we could have 10 million, and we know our infrastructure is ready to handle it. And that gives us real confidence for the future."
"Thanks to our cooperation with Google Cloud, we are prepared for what comes next. Today we can have two million users, by tomorrow we could have 10 million, and we know our infrastructure is ready to handle it. And that gives us real confidence for the future."
—Łukasz Anwajler, CTO, RampTell us your challenge. We're here to help.
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About Ramp
Ramp is a financial technology company building solutions that connect the crypto economy with today’s global financial infrastructure. Fully integrated with the world’s major payment methods, Ramp’s core on- and off-ramp products enable businesses and individuals across 150+ countries to convert between cryptocurrencies and fiat currencies.