Case study
Twenty-six years on one platform
Since 2000 I've been the consultant responsible for the hosting behind Wahoo Learning's LMS, and for much of its development. It's the longest continuous engagement of my career and the clearest evidence of what I do.
Who they are
Wahoo Learning Ltd build and operate a multi-tenant learning management system used by corporate clients to train their partner and customer networks. One of those clients is CommScope, whose Training Academy runs on the platform.
Being precise about my role, because it matters
Wahoo own the LMS. CommScope are Wahoo's client. I'm the independent consultant who has managed all of the hosting since 2000 and contributed much of the development. I don't own the platform and I'm not going to imply that I do. What I am is the person who has kept it up for twenty-six years, and that's the thing worth hiring.
On the two numbers you'll see on this page
The engagement with Wahoo started in 2000, so twenty-six years. The CommScope Training Academy has run on the platform for roughly the last twenty of those. Both figures are true and they describe different things, so I've stated them separately rather than picking the bigger one.
The problem
When a technician can't sit their certification, a customer's installation slips. So the platform has to be up, and it has to stay up while the scale grows, which it did, steadily, across twenty-six years, through three rebuilds and without a bad outage.
What I've been responsible for
- All hosting and infrastructure, from the original servers through every migration since
- Much of the platform development: e-commerce, online assessment, a mobile app API, discount passports, student badges
- Database architecture and performance as the data grew
- Security, patching and hardening throughout
- Backup, disaster recovery, and the migrations between providers that nobody notices when they go well
The numbers
All of these are Wahoo's own published figures.
- 2000
- Partnership with CommScope since
- 150,000
- Active learners
- 4,000+
- Partners
- 50,000+
- Annual enrolments
- 130+
- Countries
- 750%
- Partner revenue increase
Using their figures rather than mine is deliberate. Every number on this page can be checked against wahoolearning.com in about thirty seconds, and a number you can check is worth more than a bigger one you can't.
The quote
"For nearly 20 years, our web and operational systems designed by Julian have kept our customers satisfied and supported, with very few issues or downtime."
James is describing the hosting and operational systems around the Training Academy, which is the part that's mine. The learning platform itself is Wahoo's product.
How long it's been running
Twenty-six years. Still running. Still my responsibility.