Spendee: Building a secure platform for growth on a global scale

About Spendee

Spendee gives its customers the power of unique data analysis in an adaptable environment to help them make the most of their money.

Industries: Financial Services & Insurance
Location: Czech Republic

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About Revolgy

Revolgy is a Google Cloud partner that has helped over a thousand companies in ten countries implement cloud solutions and adapt to change.

By migrating to Google Cloud, Spendee built a resilient infrastructure with scalability and security at the heart of its design.

Google Cloud results

  • Delivers world-class security with flexible, granular permissions
  • Provides peace of mind and reliability with easy replication and backup systems
  • Frees IT team to focus on the product instead of infrastructure

With Cloud IAM, Spendee could have more control over its security without complications

With a focus on clean design and ease of use, Spendee helps around 200,000 monthly active users keep track of their finances by showing them exactly how, where, and when they spent their money. Originally launched as an app from Czech mobile startup Cleevio in 2016, Spendee quickly garnered users across North America, Europe, and Southeast Asia. Within a year, Spendee had spun out into a separate company and had to recreate its infrastructure. Rather than stick with its hosted servers out of Cleevio into a data center, Spendee moved to Google Cloud.

“We saw it as an opportunity to make things better,” says Josef Martinec, CTO at Spendee. “We had to migrate, so why not take the time to think about things like scalability and growth? With Google we could do that with the limited resources of a startup.”

“We saw it as an opportunity to make things better. We had to migrate, so why not take the time to think about things like scalability and growth? With Google we could do that with the limited resources of a startup.”

Josef Martinec, CTO, Spendee

More control, more security with Google Cloud

In early 2017, as Spendee’s user base grew, the company saw that it would soon be serving customers across the world. In addition, Spendee had made its app even easier to use by allowing customers to link their bank accounts to the app, automating a large part of the financial tracking. Scalability and security were now top priorities for the company. Midway through the year, Spendee won a place in the Google Launchpad Accelerator program, which accelerated the company’s adoption of Google Cloud.

Teaming up with Revolgy (formerly Netmail), a Czech-based Google Cloud partner, Spendee began looking at how to not only migrate its infrastructure to the cloud but optimize it for future growth. “We didn’t have much experience with infrastructure, so we would have spent weeks just learning about it if we’d migrated on our own,” says Josef. “Revolgy helped us save a lot of time and effort.”

“With Cloud IAM, we could set up a solution where Spendee can give us at Revolgy all the access we need to manage the infrastructure properly, but it keeps its assets safe and secure.”

Pavel Krejsa, COO, Revolgy

After an initial consultation period, Revolgy proposed an initial migration to get Spendee up and running with Google Cloud with a few tweaks for performance. Pavel Krejsa, COO at Revolgy describes the migration as a “lift and shift plus” accomplished in just two weeks. Firstly, Spendee and Revolgy ported the existing virtual machine architecture to Google Compute Engine to help ensure minimal disruption. Using Google Cloud Deployment Manager helped to simplify the migration process and allowed for easy redeployment in case of failure. Spendee then switched the existing SQL database to Google Cloud SQL, to improve its performance without forcing its developers learn a whole new language. The company used Google Stackdriver for monitoring and logging and deployed Google Cloud Load Balancing to help deal with any unexpected surges in traffic. Meanwhile, Google Cloud Identity and Access Management (IAM) provided easy to use security solutions with fine granular control, helping to keep Spendee’s financial data safe without compromising performance.

“With Cloud IAM, we could set up a solution where Spendee can give us at Revolgy all the access we need to manage the infrastructure properly, but it helps keep the company’s assets safe and secure,” says Pavel.

Google Cloud for more security, scalability, and reliability

With Revolgy and Google Cloud, Spendee has built a more secure infrastructure optimized for growth while maintaining its excellent service. Spendee’s customers can be more assured that their financial data is safer with Google’s comprehensive security certifications and world-class standards. “With Google, everything from physical security, to encryption, to how much control we have over permissions is much better than what we had with a hosting provider,” says Josef. “We have a lot more confidence in our security now.”

As well as security, the move to Google Cloud has also brought peace of mind in terms of the reliability. The migration to a cloud-based platform allowed Spendee to easily replicate and backup important infrastructure components and data in case of an outage or hardware failure. “Database replication and failover states were always a problem in our hosted solution,” says Josef. “With Google Cloud, it was included out of the box, so if something gets deleted, it’s very easy to restore.”

“We plan to grow and grow worldwide. We need a solution that can grow with us, and for us that’s Google.”

Josef Martinec, CTO, Spendee

Ultimately, Google Cloud has let Spendee’s IT team focus their efforts on creating the best app that they can, without worrying about DevOps or infrastructure. “I’m the person responsible for the infrastructure and I can sleep better at night!” says Josef. “Google Cloud has saved me a lot of time on maintenance, so I can concentrate on other things.”

Now that the initial migration is complete, Spendee and Revolgy are exploring new ways to use products such as Google Cloud Machine Learning or Google BigQuery for data analytics to make the app even better for users. The next step is to improve efficiency by containerizing the infrastructure with Kubernetes and take advantage of Google’s global network to enable Spendee to stay as close to its customers as possible.

“We plan to grow and grow worldwide,” says Josef. “We need a solution that can grow with us, and for us that’s Google.”

Tell us your challenge. We're here to help.

Contact us

About Spendee

Spendee gives its customers the power of unique data analysis in an adaptable environment to help them make the most of their money.

Industries: Financial Services & Insurance
Location: Czech Republic

About Revolgy

Revolgy is a Google Cloud partner that has helped over a thousand companies in ten countries implement cloud solutions and adapt to change.