Operata unlocks over 6,200 engineering hours to advance CX observability With managed open source
With NetApp Instaclustr, Operata reclaims 6,200+ engineering hours annually, scales to support over 500 million customer interactions, and achieves resilient multi-AZ operations while focusing on product innovation.
- Information technology
- ClickHouse
- OpenSearch
- PostgreSQL
- Managed complex data infrastructure in-house with a lean engineering team
- Onboarding highly regulated customers had created the risk of sudden, large traffic surges that turned infrastructure into a business-critical concern
- Faced instability and insufficient support from a previous hosted Elasticsearch vendor
- Reclaimed 6,200+ engineering hours annually for product development and customer needs
- Seamlessly scaled to support over 500 million interactions and trillions of insights without performance issues
- Achieved resilient multi‑availability zone operations with zero‑downtime upgrades across critical open source databases
"We help enterprises shine a light on what's actually happening in their contact centers. We connect data across networks, agent desktops, AI systems and CX platforms so they can identify and resolve issues in real time. Our customers, typically some of the world's largest contact centers, rely on us to understand not just that something went wrong, but why it went wrong."
— John Mitchem, Co-Founder and CTO, Operata
The infrastructure Bottleneck
In 2022, Operata’s agile engineering team of five set a high bar for resilience and innovation rapidly advancing new products while expertly managing the company’s data infrastructure in-house. This hands-on, inventive culture fueled Operata’s growth and positioned the business to secure its first major regulated enterprise customer, a leading UK bank.
This massive deal brought the expectation of a 5x traffic increase almost overnight. Suddenly, managing infrastructure evolved from a technical task into a serious business risk. At the time, Operata relied on a hosted Elasticsearch service that suffered from platform instability. Worse, the vendor failed to provide the responsive support Operata needed to back its own customer service level agreements confidently. Coupled with rising vendor lock-in concerns following a licensing shift, Operata realized its current path was unsustainable.
"We couldn't have three out of our five engineers focusing on infrastructure at the time. That would have stretched our team too thin, and we would not have been able to deliver on our commitment to the customer."
— John Mitchem, Co-Founder and CTO, Operata
A true partnership for open source data
To protect agility and support its growing customer base, Operata began searching for a partner who could help them stabilize their data systems without slowing innovation. They found that partner in Instaclustr. “For us, finding a partner isn’t about offloading a problem, it’s about finding someone who’s as invested in our customers’ success as we are,” said Mitchem.
Here’s how Instaclustr delivered value:
An extension of the team
Instaclustr stepped in as an extension of Operata’s engineering team, helping them transition from a restrictive hosted Elasticsearch service to a modern, open source stack anchored by OpenSearch and PostgreSQL. The result was a significant, immediate improvement in platform stability, query performance, and reliable technical support.
Flexible and secure deployment
Instaclustr’s flexible deployment models allowed Operata to retain full control of its data to meet the strict security and compliance needs of its regulated enterprise clients. “That ability to host in our environment, especially for regulated industries, was a game changer,” said Mitchem.
Massive-scale ClickHouse management
The partnership deepened as Instaclustr took over management of Operata’s ClickHouse analytics environment, which sits at the very core of their observability platform. Instaclustr now manages the ClickHouse clusters that power all of Operata’s observability and analytics workloads, reliably processing a massive scale of 500 million interactions, billions of agent minutes, and trillions of insights.
“Instead of my engineers worrying about another overnight migration or playing catch‑up with outages, we’re able to focus 100% on building what differentiates us, a great customer experience,” said Mitchem.
Exceeding expectations and building the future
“Having a partner that can guide us through upgrades and resolve issues before they become problems has fundamentally changed the way we operate."
— John Mitchem, Co-Founder and CTO, Operata
A partner through and through
Looking forward, Operata plans to continue partnering with Instaclustr as it explores new stream processing tools, real-time analytics, and machine learning pipelines. By letting Instaclustr handle the operational heavy lifting, Operata ensures nothing stands between its engineers and the next breakthrough in CX observability.
For enterprises looking to unlock scalability and efficiency, NetApp Instaclustr is ready to guide you toward success.
“The time and mental energy saved by working with experts has been invaluable. Choose partners who are invested in your success. It makes a world of difference,” said John Mitchem, Co‑Founder and CTO, Operata.
