iLovePDF

iLovePDF a full suite of PDF editing tools to simplify document management. The idea originated in 2010 when Marco Grossi, its founder, tried to merge two PDF files. At the time, there were no free online software programs he could use to merge the files easily, so he spent more than 20 minutes merging them. When he realised how tricky this was for him, he began to wonder how complex it would be for people who did not have his level of technical skill. For this reason, Grossi decided to share his solution online, so that users could save time editing their PDF files.

More than a decade later, iLovePDF consistently ranks among the world's 50 most visited websites. Starting with just two tools, it has expanded to over 25, which user can use to sign, merge, compress, divide, add watermarks, and protect PDFs, as well as convert them to and from popular Microsoft Office formats like PowerPoint, Excel, and Word. What started off as a basic website evolved into a multi-platform application available on mobile phones, work desktops and web browsers, via extensions and plug-ins. The company also offers an API, so that other developers can integrate tools in to their local systems.

Through its website, iLovePDF is renowned for offering one of the most comprehensive and high-quality PDF solutions at highly competitive Premium service. Its user base includes a range of different profiles and specialisms (students, teachers, lawyers, administrative agents, businesses, governments, etc.). Users upload their documents onto the website, edit them online, then download them to their devices or directly to cloud services like Google Drive or Dropbox.

To respond to the needs of more than 15 million users per day in countries all over the globe, the company looked for a cloud provider that could host its infrastructure and offer the ability to scale and manage traffic spikes, while also offering the very highest security settings. Integration agility was another essential factor, too.

When our website is saturated with visitors, we need to be able to scale our server infrastructure immediately. This is why OVHcloud’s quick integration process was a key factor in our decision.

Marco Grossi, CEO, iLovePDF

The main challenge of iLovePDF is to ensure stability for its infrastructure, and availability for its tools — even while the website is receiving a high number of visitors, and while a lot of files are being uploaded. This means they can guarantee that users can access their services at any time.

To achieve this objective, the company looked for a trustworthiness service, with servers that offered outstanding CPU and RAM performance, a high data transfer capacity, and private networks. Not to mention maximum security - one of the company’s main requirements to ensure maximum privacy and sovereignty of iLovePDF platform users' data.

iLovePDF found in OVHcloud a trustworthy, reliable and stablished cloud partner that would enable it to meet all its technical requirements, and the critical privacy demands of its end users. OVHcloud's cloud solutions have enabled it to build its infrastructure –which is spread across several of OVHcloud's European datacentres– with maximum security, in compliance with the most demanding regulations, such as ISO/IEC 27001 standards.

We have found OVHcloud to be the best provider of dedicated servers and cloud services. This is partly because it is a large company, but the main reason is because of its presence in Europe. This is essential for both security, and compliance with the GDPR as well as the ISO 9001/27001 standard.

Marco Grossi, CEO, iLovePDF

Advance dedicated servers host the web applications, offering high levels of computing power, a high storage capacity and excellent connectivity. The Public Cloud solution hosts their micro-services. With pay-as-you-go resources available on demand, it delivers flexibility and agility for the infrastructure.

The dedicated servers and cloud servers are connected to one another via the vRack, the OVHcloud private network. With this technology, servers located in different regions can transfer data to one another privately and securely. And to distribute traffic across regions, iLovePDF uses the OVHcloud Load Balancer.

The backup measures that have been set up are very strict. As an example, one of the backups for signed encrypted files, which are generated by one of the tools offered by iLovePDF, is hosted on Storage dedicated servers. These offer a very high storage capacity, and high fault tolerance for hardware with their RAID configurations.

The company has also recently integrated the SMS Pro solution from OVHcloud, to send verification messages to its users. This service is quick and easy to implement, enabling them to send SMS messages to users worldwide with their company name as a custom sender name. They can also receive information on the delivery status of their messages.

OVHcloud was able to meet all of iLovePDF’s needs. The OVHcloud global infrastructure includes 43 datacentres, and 44 other points of presence linked by a 100Tbit/s private fibre optic network – so the SaaS provider has the geographical coverage it needs to offer services globally. This also guarantees quick loading times for users. And by picking European datacentres for all of its servers, the company can offer optimal security, with data protected by the GDPR.

iLovePDF manages its entire infrastructure autonomously, and the OVHcloud philosophy is aligned with its way of working, enabling the company to get optimal performance at a lower price than other providers. Its IT team is also very agile for the deployment process. And in the event of an incident, OVHcloud quickly and calmly resolves the issue.

While OVHcloud offers everything we need to manage our infrastructure ourselves, without having to contact third parties, each time we identified a new need, we received outstanding advice and quality on the choices we could opt for. We are also very lucky to have  Carlos, our Account Manager, who is always available to clear up any doubts and resolve incidents.

Juan Eduardo Eguiguren, Business Developer, iLovePDF

iLovePDF is currently focused on developing a digital signature solution, which is also hosted on OVHcloud infrastructure, and has just launched new image editing, e-signing, and PDF APIs. To support businesses in their digital transformation, the company is dedicated to delivering solutions to streamline document processes while ensuring the highest standards of security for user’s data.

In addition, as a SaaS provider, iLovePDF joined the Open Trusted Cloud Program, an ecosystem of accredited SaaS and PaaS solutions hosted in the open, reversible and trusted cloud offered by OVHcloud. This allows them to leverage the benefits of a common platform of competitive European solutions and join synergies to generate greater business opportunities.