Case Study: CancerCare
Facilitating development and improving productivity. CancerCare, a non-profit organization, was founded in 1944 to help cancer patients by providing them access to information, services, resources and aid. The CancerCare website is at the core of this mission helping site visitors navigate the healthcare system and delivering important information for dealing with their cancer. Newly redesigned and built from the ground up, the website receives over 600,000 visits per year - the number steadily increasing since the new site launched in 2011. In support of CancerCare’s mission, visitor ease of use, and overall experience is a high priority for the IT team and for the organization.
"Not only can I see at a glance which pages are slowing us down, but is shows me at the most granular level what’s holding each transaction up and how to fix it"
Steven Grossi
Sr. Coordinator of Online Projects – CancerCare
Sr. Coordinator of Online Projects – CancerCare
Challenges
- Redesign and rebuild existing site and apps migrating from PHP to Ruby on Rails
- Find APM tool that would aid in both the development and production environment
- Pinpoint performance problems using real-time production information
Solution
- 24x7 monitoring from front-end to back-end with single integrated tool
- Issues, problem and bottleneck identification with pinpoint accuracy using real data
- Transaction Traces and Appdex Report improve IT productivity
Results
- Improved overall web productivity, significantly reducing web staffing requirements
- Makes development easier, more efficient, and more enjoyable
- Prioritize workload more effectively, prevents surprises, removes guesswork
Environment
Ruby on Rails, Apache, MySQL, 8GB quad-core Linux server hosted by Rackspace, Phusion Passenger, Google Custom Search, New Relic
