Electrica Furnizare Achieves 99.99% Uptime with Zitec & AWS

The Market

In Romania’s energy sector, the challenges are clear. European data from Simon-Kucher shows that 35% of consumers are willing to switch providers due to better pricing. Hence, consumer churn is on the rise, as many consider switching providers due to poor customer experiences and budget-friendly alternatives.

What’s more – the Romanian energy sector has become a prime target for cyberattacks. In 2023, it accounted for 31% of reported incidents, the highest among all industries. Therefore, Electrica Furnizare needed a transformative solution to eliminate downtime, secure sensitive data, and meet growing expectations.

The Challenge

Electrica Furnizare faced significant operational and technical challenges that hindered its ability to deliver reliable services to over 3.5 million customers. The company’s existing infrastructure, built on a monolithic, single-server setup, was not equipped to handle growing demands, resulting in:

• Frequent outages, particularly every Thursday, caused by insufficient disk space and outdated infrastructure.

• Scalability limitations due to the manually configured hardware lacking the flexibility to adapt to surges in traffic or increasing service demands.

• Security risks, as the existing setup left the organization vulnerable to data loss, hardware failures, and potential cyber threats.

• Impacted customer trust due to a lack of ability to access essential services without interruption.

The Solution

Our solution? Infrastructure modernization. For a company serving over 3.5 million customers, downtime isn’t just an IT problem, but a trust problem.

• We replaced Electrica’s outdated infrastructure with a modern, scalable AWS solution, using Amazon Load Balancer and Autoscaling Groups to handle fluctuating demand. The previous infrastructure, built on a single-server setup, limited Electrica’s ability to scale as demand grew.

• By migrating to AWS, we introduced containerization using Docker, which optimized resource use and made it easier to add capacity when needed. Security was a top priority for Electrica. Customers and industry regulations demands that data is being protected from both cyber threats and operational mishaps.

• To achieve this, we deployed AWS-managed secure disks and a WAF Firewall to shield against attacks. Automated backup and recovery solutions further strengthen critical information integrity.

What truly set this project apart wasn’t just the technology, but our partnership, where we took on the role of empowering Electrica with the skills and resources to own their new solution.

• By introducing DevOps practices like CI/CD pipelines, we automated workflows, reducing the likelihood of errors and freeing up Electrica’s team to focus on strategic initiatives and manage their new AWS infrastructure independently.

Why AWS?

As experienced AWS consultants, Zitec’s team designed a scalable solution to enhance availability and performance. The decision to adopt AWS cloud services was driven by several compelling factors:

• AWS is a trusted and well-established company in the market.

• Since its founding in 2006, AWS has had an impressive track record.

• AWS perfectly complemented Electrica’s existing internal competencies, which enabled them to efficiently manage the cloud solutions autonomously, after the initial setup.

• AWS was the convenient and most efficient solution, because it seamlessly integrated with other AWS services already in use internally in EFSA’s systems.

The Process

The journey began with an in-depth assessment of Electrica Furnizare’s infrastructure. Once we mapped out the pain points, we designed a tailored solution to address their unique challenges. Our analysis revealed that AWS’s ecosystem provided the flexibility and reliability Electrica needed. So, we migrated their infrastructure to AWS and adopted containerization with Docker to optimize resource allocation.

This allowed for seamless scaling during peak usage periods, so that their systems could meet growing customer demands without interruptions.

Scalability wasn’t the only goal. Security was deeply integrated into the process. Another critical aspect was efficiency. By introducing DevOps practices, including CI/CD pipelines, we automated many of Electrica’s development and deployment workflows.

This eliminates the risks of manual errors, reduces maintenance overhead, and frees up internal resources for strategic initiatives.

The Results

• 99.99% uptime through AWS migration and infrastructure modernization. This way, Electrica nearly eliminated the weekly disruptions that plagued their operations.
• 99.5% improvement in website performance, which now delivers faster response times and a smoother customer experience.
• Industry compliance and boosted resilience against cyber threats with advanced security measures like AWS-managed secure disks and a WAF Firewall.
• Reduced operational overhead that allows internal teams to focus on innovation, achieved by automating key processes.