Enterprise Data Management

Website — A Development Project

Background

Imagine having a single software platform for complete enterprise data management across the data center to the cloud. With Rubrik, that's not a dream but a day-to-day reality. As the market leader in Cloud Data Management, Rubrik is trusted by the world's leading companies, been already placed, twice, in the top 10 of Forbes Cloud 100, with a valuation of over $3.3B.

In 2016, the 'Fastest Growing Enterprise Company in the Billion Dollar League' and Pixelmatters came together for a great challenge — the development and design revamp of Rubrik's new website.

Development Challenge

Rubrik was growing fast, and so was their website. With a worldwide positioning and exposure, Rubrik.com was being accessed by thousands of users daily.

Pixelmatters had to guarantee a website with good performance, robust security, and a great user experience, despite the users' location. But first, we had to get to know the website from A to Z.

Audit first

The ongoing audits allowed us to identify the website's most critical areas, manage priorities, and efficiently report the progress to Rubrik's team. Our first audit helped us understand the current website — its code standards, architecture, and infrastructure. But it did not end there.

We also ran several performance and security audits to cover all needs that came with Rubrik's continuous exposure.

On-going Development audits.
On-going Development audits.

Ensuring perfomance on a global scale

Performance was mandatory for a website accessed worldwide. The fast solution was to adopt a Content Delivery Network (CDN) with Points of Presence (PoP) to reduce the loading and response times. Akamai, an enterprise-focused CDN, was the perfect match for Rubrik's reality, allowing easy integration from different Content Management Systems (CMS).

After that, the focus was on the cache. We implemented a code-splitting strategy, creating different files for each page — a global entry point file and another with all 3rd-party dependencies. With this splitting, the user wouldn't need to re-download the same code at each deployment — reduced load and response times, better performance, and a better user experience.

Performance comparison using a CDN.
Performance comparison using a CDN.

Global, but local

While being global, Rubrik also had to speak local — we translated the website into four different languages (French, German, Chinese, and Japanese). In addition, such a complex website means having a significant source code to deal with and multiple pages available to the public.

At the same time, Pixelmatters had to adjust the layout considering the impact each language's size would have on the page. Rubrik's website delivered the same seamless experience, despite the users' speech.

Ensuring a fast-growing website

Rubrik's fast growth led to a higher exposure, making security a focus on this project. The security audit already identified key actions, like updating the CMS core and its plugins regularly. But we also carry on regular security checks throughout the project and implemented a Web Application Firewall.

With this, not only could we protect the website in real-time but also secure Rubrik's upcoming news/products in test environments from unauthorized access before going public.

Representation of the Back-End’s issue identification.
Representation of the Back-End’s issue identification.

A development workflow that flows

A well-tuned delivery workflow is essential when working and maintaining a fast-paced project like Rubrik. It helped us coordinate launches, test every feature, and bug fix without interrupting the deployment of other tasks.

Pixelmatters had multiple environments to launch and integrate different features simultaneously without constraints, including a development, a test, and a production environment. An example of this was the integration of third-party services like Marketo, Salesforce, and GreenHouse.

Main Pipeline and branches operate in parallel while different initiatives and third-party apps are integrated.
Main Pipeline and branches operate in parallel while different initiatives and third-party apps are integrated.

Ready for the future

A modularity approach is a key to the fast response to the demands of a fast-growing company (and website) — so, we used different isolated components of JavaScript and reusable UI as the foundation for creating new pages.

Because we already tested many of the components from a functional and UI perspective, we could reduce the development cycles. As a result, Rubrik's website was becoming faster, safer, and ready for the future.

Modularity approach with reusable UI components.
Modularity approach with reusable UI components.
Tim Chen

Pixelmatters hit the middle ground between quality and speed while showing an extraordinary human approach.

Tim Chen

Former Director, Web and Digital Marketing at Rubrik, Inc.

The Result

Agility, quality, and security. That was the way to go on delivering a website for a fast-growing and worldwide company. Rubrik reinforced its positioning as the market leader in the Cloud Data Management space with the website that we've created together. And Pixelmatters couldn't be more pleased to be part of this journey.

Summing it up

By combining a top-notch design and development, we've successfully relaunched and maintained Rubrik's Corporate Website, helping to set the brand as the leader in Cloud Data Management. Rubrik is trusted by the world's leading companies in achieving data control to drive business resiliency, cloud mobility, and regulatory compliance.