A modernised AWS cloud gives Workrate confidence to grow

Running 24/7 on-site security for data centres 

Founded in 2003 and based in the Netherlands, Workrate protects data centres across the EMEA region. Its 24/7 services are designed to help customers safeguard their facilities and comply with strict regulatory requirements about who can enter and under what circumstances.

Data centres are highly sensitive infrastructures and require tight on-site security. Since its founding, Workrate has grown from just three people to a workforce of 2,000 employees who control and monitor door access and front desk functions, log visits, check in deliveries and handle other security tasks by using Workrate’s software, called Workstate, for customers at nearly 200 locations. Today, Workrate’s ever-expanding team provides more than 1.6 million hours of security services a year. 

Workrate’s software system acts as a daily activity reporting tool that combines several features into one. It lets security employees log and view daily security checklists and tasks, enables staff to check in shipments, provides a complete company directory and gives staff access to the customer’s list of approved guests (such as engineers). Workrate also operates an internal system, Workmate, which runs HR, payroll, finance, sales and the company staff roster. 

New cloud and managed service demands

The company had long relied on an on-premises server to support the IT systems for its day-to-day business needs. “At first, we only looked after a few customer locations,” says Eelco Wiertsema, Workrate’s Founder and COO. “We could manage with basic tools, like Microsoft Excel, for day-to-day work. But we soon grew and needed dedicated software solutions for both Workstate and Workmate.” 

That meant moving to the cloud in 2020 – specifically, to AWS. It also meant working with a managed service provider that could maintain and manage those AWS services, freeing Workrate to focus on its core business of security. 

But as Workrate’s business continued to expand after the migration – it expects to see revenues of USD 100 million in 2023 – its need for greater flexibility and scalability also grew. It eventually became clear that the company needed more IT support and cloud expertise than its managed service provider at the time could provide. So the company began looking for a new provider to guide it on the next stage of its cloud journey and turned to SoftwareOne. 

Building a new and modern environment on AWS

It was also critical to work with a service provider that could help the company manage its rapid expansion smoothly and easily. With Workrate’s annual growth rate of 20%, that meant identifying and managing the right AWS solutions to reliably support and grow with the company as its needs continued to change.

SoftwareOne was recommended to us by a number of contacts. SoftwareOne understands our business. They are experts in AWS.

– Jonas Hoving, Software Development Lead, Workrate

Using its deep expertise of AWS services as an AWS Premier Tier Services Partner and AWS Managed Services Partner, SoftwareOne conducted an AWS Well-Architected review to assess Workrate’s needs. It built a SoftwareOne Landing Zone with an Account Vending Machine on AWS and migrated Workrate’s systems to the new AWS environment. Among the services Workrate now uses are Amazon Elastic Container Service for Kubernetes (EKS), Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS) and Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3), an object storage service that provides scalability, data availability, security and performance.