ABOUT RITTER SPORT

Founded in 1912, the family-owned company has its headquarters in Waldenbuch, Germany, a second production site in Breitenbrunn, Austria, and subsidiaries in other international markets. Today, it employs around 1,750 people and achieved a turnover of 505 million Euros in 2021. 

Alfred Ritter GmbH & Co. KG is the first, and only (up to this point), major chocolate bar manufacturer to source only certified sustainable cocoa for its entire product range, which includes the Ritter Sport and Amicelli brands. This is in line with the company's own claim to do the right thing to make really good chocolate. The colorful Ritter Sport squares are sold in over 100 countries worldwide.

EXISTING WEB HOSTING BROUGHT TO ITS KNEES

Ritter Sport chocolate is not only available to customers in Retail or flagship stores, but also in the company's own online shop. For Ulrich Strack, CIO at Alfred Ritter, the demands on eCommerce are clear: Loyal fans should be rewarded with good service and smooth processes – a priority, “especially in online retailing”, he says. It is important to the company that the online shop is available at all times and that shopping is a pleasant experience for customers. This also means that the content loads quickly, the purchasing process runs smoothly and without complications, and the goods ordered arrive at the customer's premises promptly. A resilient and conductive IT infrastructure is an important prerequisite for this. 

With several thousand visitors per day, this is no problem for the online shop of Alfred Ritter in regular operation. However, this can change considerably when the popular special editions of the Ritter Sport brand come into play. These limited bars pick up a current event or trend and pour it into chocolate. In the case of particularly popular editions, the number of visitors rises significantly within a few seconds. Up to 10,000 bars of chocolate sometimes end up in the virtual shopping cart within a minute – and suddenly the existing IT infrastructure reaches its limits.

AWS MEETING THE NEEDS OF THE CUSTOMER

Simply increasing the computing power would also have been possible within the framework of classic web hosting. However, since this increased performance is only necessary at certain peak times, this variant did not appear to be appropriate to the needs and would have resulted in extremely high costs. Instead, a scalable solution was needed that could quickly and reliably adjust to fluctuating loads and continue to ensure a smooth and pleasant shopping experience. 

After the experience with the Unicorn special edition, Alfred Ritter first came into contact with AWS. Both sides quickly agreed on which AWS Services were particularly suitable for the company's specific requirements. The changeover to the AWS Cloud was then carried out together with the company Zoi. 

Alfred Ritter uses Amazon CloudFront to accelerate web applications and to guarantee a trouble-free and user-friendly shopping experience in the online shop. Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) provides the necessary agility. Depending on requirements, horizontal scaling can be flexibly implemented for events such as special editions. And vertical scaling of relational databases is also easily possible with Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS). This allows the company to adjust infrastructure and server performance accordingly a few hours before and after the event.

The hype surrounding the exclusive Ritter Sport Unicorn Chocolate also triggered very high visitor numbers within a very short time, which finally led to the switch to Amazon Web Services (AWS). After the existing web hosting was almost brought to its knees by the sudden rush of visitors, it was clear that the existing capacities were not sufficient enough to support the popular special edition releases.

IN-HOUSE ONLINE SHOP BECOMES MORE RELIABLE AND RESILIENT

The result is a cloud solution that is optimally tailored to the individual needs of the company and makes the in-house online shop more reliable and resilient. The infrastructure is now equipped for both day-to-day operations and the next special edition release. The change has therefore already paid off for the family business: “The tailor-made AWS solution has maneuvered us through a rush of purchases and has met our high quality standards”, Ulrich Strack sums up. 

STEP-BY-STEP IMPLEMENTATION 

The company decided to completely rebuild the infrastructure with an improved set-up and greater resilience. To achieve this, AWS, Zoi, and Alfred Ritter carried out an iterative conversion with comprehensive load tests. The existing shop was first transferred to an AWS test environment and then run through auto-scaling. In this secure area, the limits of the system could be safely sounded out and any weak points could be resolved in advance. Such comprehensive testing and scaling are almost impossible with classic web hosting. 

MONITORING AND REACTING IN REAL-TIME 

The chocolate manufacturer worked with »Infrastructure Events« to test the new environment. This format will continue to be used after the introduction. Employees of Alfred Ritter and AWS can monitor the workload in real time. If problems occur, they have the possibility to react immediately and intervene if necessary. This offers additional security and control. The sooner a problem is detected, the sooner the company can take countermeasures and, in the best case, avoid major failures altogether. 

FLEXIBILITY AND SCALABILITY 



Another advantage is that the cloud solutions from AWS are particularly flexible and scalable. This enables Alfred Ritter to provide the appropriate infrastructure at any time: In phases of high capacity utilization, there are no disruptions, but during normal operation, the usual server capacities can still be used. Depending on requirements, the corresponding systems are booted or shut down. This is also noticeable on the cost side: You always pay for exactly the service that is used and only as long as it is actually in use. 

Sweet detail: The successful cooperation of Alfred Ritter with the AWS solution designed by Zoi resulted in a special edition on AWS Transformation Day.

The infrastructure is now equipped for both day-to-day operations and the next special edition release.

For our loyal fans and customers, we always want to be available with high service standards, especially in online business. A tailor-made AWS solution maneuvered us through a rush of purchases and met our high-quality standards.