Faster. Smarter. Greener. Oris and Liip enhance their development workflow with a PaaS 

Celebrating over 120 years of mechanical excellence and beauty, Oris has been a pillar of sustainable, independent Swiss watchmaking since 1904. By forging its own path and sticking true to its values, Oris has built a renowned brand and a stunning product range which they have continued to innovate and expand over the last century. Expansion which today includes a sharp, intuitive web and ecommerce platform. 

Having initially hosted their website with another hosting provider, Oris came to Liip, their digital agency, to consolidate their providers as they already had some Drupal applications running successfully on Platform.sh. A PaaS provider that they had found ready-to-use, simple to configure, and offered similar features to their previous hosting provider. With the added bonus of streamlining their providers to establish an easier, centralized developer experience. 

The agency partner to forge the PaaS 

Liip has delivered industry-leading strategic digital projects for its customers for over 15 years—9 of which they’ve spent as a dedicated Platform.sh customer. From consulting and development to the final go-live for standout web applications, award-winning mobile applications, and data-driven ecommerce hubs, Liip has consistently developed long-lasting, user-centric, open-source products for hundreds of customers. 

Customers including Freitag, Zurich Tourism, and more, whose applications the Liip team has chosen to build and run on Platform.sh time and time again. What has led to their track record of successful projects across a diverse tech stack and why is a PaaS useful for digital agencies in today’s market? The Liip team is here to tell you through the lens of their key long-term customer, Oris. 

What is a PaaS?

Already know the answer? Skip to the next section to continue with the story. For those in need of a little more background, a PaaS—or Platform-as-a-Service—is a cloud computing model where a third-party host provides a business with a complete development and deployment platform—learn more. 

The PaaS features that sealed the deal   

Following the success of various other customers using Platform.sh to support the development of their applications, the Liip team was quick to pitch the switch. Focusing on a few key attributes that aligned with Oris’ brand and application requirements—scalability, CDN, and a platform that was quick and simple to get started with. As well as the Liip development team’s preferences and needs, specifically, quick and simple development environments to allow them to manage the development of different features simultaneously across both Oris’ applications and those of their other customers. Developers were able to focus on developing the application while Platform.sh automated all of the infrastructure management. 

Simple, no-configuration resource settings

Our container-based approach assigns default resource settings to every project created on Platform.sh—depending on the chosen plan—enabling developers to get started as soon as possible. This is a key component for Liip in managing its many ecommerce customers, including Oris, which require fast-paced, scalable production often across multiple sites.

Resources can then be customized to meet the changing requirements of a particular application at any time. Liip can easily scale resources up or down on both horizontal and vertical dimensions to serve the needs of the Oris website. Then with auto-scaling, all that manual work is taken care of for them during unplanned traffic surges. Auto-scaling capabilities kick in by detecting site timeouts and immediately triggering an upsize, whether you’re dealing with millions of requests per hour or managing thousands of applications. A handy tool during busy sales periods. 

A robust CLI with comprehensive coverage

An easy-to-use, highly functional user interface was crucial for Liip, and by proxy Oris, in a hosting provider. No one wanted to spend time figuring out how to navigate an over-complicated platform, especially when it came to small changes and tight deadlines. The Platform.sh CLI uses Git as its main API added to REST API to manage the platform and accomplish tasks efficiently, with its source code hosted on GitHub. All of this was familiar territory for the Liip development team and meant they could get moving quickly, and all from one place as anything you can do within the Platform.sh web user interface Console can be done with the CLI. 

Automated backups for secure development 

The Liip team alleviated the need for manual backup management with our automated backups feature. Lifting a weight off the development team’s shoulders when it came to Oris’ application security and maintenance. For all Production environments on Platform.sh, which Liip is using, a daily complete byte-for-byte backup of your entire environment, including the stored data, is taken at least once every day. Maximizing application security while maintaining optimum uptime as backups between 03:00 AM and 05:00 AM in each project’s timezone to avoid disruption and optimize uptime.  

A Swiss greener hosting region 

Both Oris and Liip are dedicated to doing good, particularly regarding environmental sustainability. This is a key component for Oris in their design and manufacturing and remained a steadfast consideration in how they approached their digital activity, including their website. That’s why the announcement of a new greener hosting region for Platform.sh in Zurich, Switzerland, their home country, was welcome news. 

Adding Switzerland as one of our public regions, with its use of low-carbon and renewable energy sources, ensured that Oris and Liip could continue to stand strong in their commitment to sustainability. With the Zurich Google Cloud region and our location-based approach to application hosting, it was simple for Oris and Liip to choose a greener option for where their data is stored while complying with data sovereignty laws—empowering them to deploy globally and comply locally.

The PaaS was greener on the other side 

It’s 9 years since Liip first embarked on their PaaS journey with Platform.sh and have transformed and enhanced the developer workflow of many of their customers as a result—and Oris is no exception. Their long-standing partnership has enabled them to overcome challenges, refine processes, and achieve their goals together, delivering a sleek, functional ecommerce platform they can be proud of. 

As a dedicated agency partner and advocate for our Platform-as-a-Service, Liip is a shining example of how a PaaS can open up new doors for digital agencies, no matter the size, location, or stack. Want to know more? Check out our Agency Partner Program or request a demo from our team.