Comment Ca Marche.net: A Challenging Proof of Concept

SensioLabs knew exactly how to tackle the technical risks we presented and showed us how to manage them daily

Xavier Leune, Responsable Framework PHP, CCM Benchmark

The company

Comment ca marche.net (CCM) is part of the CCM Benchmark Group, a French company that regroups dozens of websites dedicated to practical Q&A and numerous internet publications, many of which deal with hi-tech issues. During the 2010 merger of Comment ca marche.net and Benchmark Group, a galaxy of different sites came together and today the group counts over 60 million individual users per month spanning 40 different countries. Their staff of 200 people includes approximately 80 journalists.

The problem

CCM originally used a homemade PHP framework that was maintained by about 30 developers in their two offices located in Rennes and Boulogne-Billancourt. They were having performance problems, specifically regarding the wait time for their web pages to open. SensioLabs proposed to do a Proof of Concept and show them that migrating to Symfony would not only handle their time-specific demands, but improve their performance and stability as well. “Having direct access to the framework editor was an essential element in our decision to migrate to Symfony.” Xavier Leune, Responsable Framework PHP, CCM Benchmark.

The solution: Proof of Concept

• Defined the test perimeter, project feasibility and critical requirements

• Comparative analysis of risks and difficulties

• Executed tests and delivered code

• Estimated final charge to realize and integrate the final deployable version and user experience

The story

After the 2010 merger, we heard that CCM was looking at different framework possibilities to support their ever-growing business. They were hoping to improve user wait time for pages to open and needed a solid, well-structured framework that would not only solve this issue, but also allow them to expand in new directions. They wanted to weigh Symfony against other options and issued a challenge: reduce the wait time to 100 milliseconds and we’ll talk.

In less than a week, our team of experts did it. We not only showed them that with Symfony 2 they could meet their demands, but also that they could greatly improve their general performance. SensioLabs analyzed the context and all principal difficulties and recommended solutions, architecture and specific code. “We appreciated each step of our collaboration with SensioLabs, especially the custom-made accompaniment adapted to our specific work rhythm and the high quality of the experts with whom we worked.” Xavier Leune, Responsable Framework PHP, CCM Benchmark.

The Proof of Concept was a success and CCM decided to migrate to Symfony 2. Several reasons played into their decision: proximity and availability of our expert developers and our reputation for quality service and coaching. In addition, the bulk of their internal development team wanted to work with Symfony 2. With all the best conditions in place, they were able to validate the subsequent migration to Symfony 2 and train their entire development team with our experts. “We continue improving the business value of our applications, and, thanks to SensioLabs’ guidance, we can now effectively and progressively migrate our applications without sacrificing that value.” Xavier Leune, Responsable Framework PHP, CCM Benchmark.