ChefTV is a Brazilian cable TV channel and website completely dedicated to cooking. The channel and website feature 24 hours of programming featuring great chefs, pastry chefs, health food, wine, and basic cooking instructions. ChefTV helps Brazilians learn about new cultures and new foods, while also offering recipes and tips. The channel is primarily focused on local Brazilian cuisine, but also highlights international foods from around the world.
The Business ChallengesTo improve their online presence, ChefTV started a partnership in 2011 with Brazilian IT consultancy Concrete Solutions. Amilcar Chavez, founder and CEO of ChefTV states, “When we engaged Concrete Solutions, the idea was to make the brand, which was already strong on cable television, also known on the Internet. That is, we wanted to promote a multi-channel operation.”
To do so, ChefTV’s strategy was focused on three areas: (1) the website, (2) an online kitchenware retailer, and (3) social networks. Chavez says, “Concrete Solutions enabled differentiation and adapted themselves to exactly what we needed. This flexibility did much to improve our presence online.”
Why Amazon Web Services
The website was developed entirely using Amazon Web Services (AWS). Chavez notes: “Our multi-channel strategy was funded like a startup and, as such, there was a need to keep the costs low, without impacting quality or time-to-market. The decision to use Concrete Solution’s expertise with AWS was influenced by the desire to give customers the best experience possible, in both quality and infrastructure. The AWS Cloud helped ChefTV reduce costs and increase scalability, with the ability to increase the number of servers we need on demand.”
ChefTV is using a number of AWS solutions. Both the website and the ecommerce site use Amazon CloudWatch deployed on Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2), backed by Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS) for application storage. Adrian Pacheco, Commercial Director for Concrete Solutions, adds, “All the data resides in Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS) for MySQL with static files like CSS and Javascript being delivered directly from Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3). All instance snapshots are also backed up in Amazon S3. We use Amazon Route 53 for domain name system (DNS) resolution and AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) to administer access to its environment. We decided to use the Amazon Linux AMI to achieve a higher degree of compatibility with other components while using a high quality Linux distribution.”
The website was developed in Python, using Django, and the ecommerce site was built with PHP, using Magento. Chavez notes, “Both websites feature social integration with Twitter and Facebook. The ecommerce site also integrates with Braspag for payment processing and with Correios for delivery.”
The Business Benefits
Pacheco describes the team’s quick pace through the development process: “We opted to use AWS with an agile software development method from the beginning to ensure we would not hinder the project with any last-minute changes. After we started, we deployed the main website within three months, and, two months after that, we had the ecommerce site ready for production.”
ChefTV’s partnership with Concrete Solutions and AWS has allowed the channel to reduce costs while increasing scalability. The development team was quite pleased with its first experience using AWS and plans to use AWS in the future. Chavez says, “We are currently developing a third project that aims to broaden the range of features of the site. Beyond that we plan to expand the technological partnership with both Concrete Solutions and AWS.”
Amazon Case Study: ChefTV
Date: 27-08-2013
