ParkMobile is a leading provider of smart mobility solutions that connects consumers to parking inventory. They faced challenges with scaling their architecture to support growth. They adopted Gloo and Kubernetes to decompose monoliths, enable developers, and securely scale their platform. They are now leveraging service meshes and serverless technologies to further modernize their architecture and support multi-cluster and multi-region deployments.

1. 1 | Copyright © 2020
ParkMobile Case Study
Positioning for Scale with Gloo, Kubernetes and Cloud

2. 2 | Copyright © 2020
Betty Junod
Solo.io
VP Marketing
Chris Salomon
ParkMobile
Director, Software and
Reliability Engineering
Rafael Ramirez
ParkMobile
Lead, Site Reliability Engineer
Anthony Mallica
ParkMobile
Senior, Site Reliability Engineer
Matt Ball
ParkMobile
CTO

3. 3 | Copyright © 20203 | Copyright © 2020
Q: Who is ParkMobile?

4. 4 | Copyright © 2020
Our mission is to power smart mobility for every driver and
vehicle, everywhere.
We do this by creating innovative solutions that connect parking and mobility
ecosystems, thereby eliminating friction and maximizing convenience and efficiency.

5. 5 | Copyright © 2020
The ParkMobile Network
30% of ParkMobile members use our app as they travel across markets
ParkMobile connects consumers to the largest network of municipal, private, airport,
transit and venue parking inventory in the U.S. Our mission is to power smart mobility for
every driver and vehicle, everywhere.
Our Products & Services
• On & Off Street Mobile Payments
• Prepaid Parking & Reservations
• Charging Stations
• Fleets Programs
• Mobile Payment for Gated Parking
• Event & Venue-based Parking
• Validations
• Transit
On-Demand
Reservations
Both

6. 6 | Copyright © 2020
About ParkMobile
400+
CITIES &
MUNICIPALITIES
125+
UNIVERSITIES
20+
AIRPORTS
9 Million+
MONTHLY
TRANSACTIONS
41
OF THE TOP 100
CITIES
• Ranked #3 in the Navigation category only behind Waze and Google Maps
• Adopted by over 1 in 15 U.S. drivers
• 173% increase in new clients over the last 5 years
• Over 5 million new users joined the ParkMobile network in the last 12 months
• We processed 20 million more transactions in 2019 compared to 2018
17 Million+
USERS NATIONWIDE

7. 7 | Copyright © 2020
ParkMobile as a Platform
ParkMobile has developed the most capable platform in the industry. Our technology provides:
• consumers with the most innovative experience in the market,
• our clients with the most robust, self-service portal for their back-office, and
• our partners / developers with secure, online access to our APIs and supporting artifacts.
PM360ParkMobile.IO Developer Portal

8. 8 | Copyright © 20208 | Copyright © 2020
Q: What was the technology
challenge at ParkMobile?

9. 9 | Copyright © 2020
The ParkMobile Ecosystem (100+ Integrations)

10. 10 | Copyright © 2020
Our Engineering Vision
Availability
Access Codes
Rates & Policy
Payments
Locations
Reporting
User Notifications
Enforcement
Loyalty
User Management
Supplier
Inventory
Back-End
Domain Services
North:South API Gateway Services
Channels
Mobile
East:West
Service Mesh
Web API
§ Cloud infrastructure
for scale and elasticity
§ Domain /
microservices
architecture
§ Cloud-native design
patterns
§ High performing,
reliable products &
services

11. 11 | Copyright © 2020
Our Approach to New Partner Solutions
Evolving Architecture
Support Old and New
FLEXIBLE MODERN SCALE
Innovative and Proven
Kubernetes Native
Exponential Scale
Secure at Scale
VALUE PARTNERSHIP
Investment
Value Exceeds Cost
Client-Centric

12. 12 | Copyright © 2020
Challenges in Growth
1. Enabling and Empowering Developers
2. Cost Drivers of New Infrastructure
3. New Traffic Patterns (North/South and East/West)
4. Decomposing Monoliths
5. Security
6. Increasing Stack Complexity

13. 13 | Copyright © 2020
Our Evolving Technology Stack – Mix of Old and New
Web Backend
Platforms

14. 14 | Copyright © 202014 | Copyright © 2020
Technology Infrastructure:
Our API Gateway Search

15. 15 | Copyright © 2020
Some Challenges Faced with Other Solutions
• Large and heavily utilized but outdated in terms of implementation details
• Security issues that should not be there
• Expensive - Some required us to stand up a dedicated team
• Expensive - Large up-front cost compared to value
• Inflexible - Lack of support for evolution between old and new applications

16. 16 | Copyright © 2020
Why We Chose Gloo @ParkMobile
• Ease of Implementation & Support
− Super easy to learn
• Kubernetes Native
− Installs directly onto Kubernetes cluster
− Uses Kubernetes API and CRDs for configuration
− Convert virtual services to Helm and include with existing app Helm charts
− Kubernetes worker nodes live in same VPC as apps (both in and out of Kubernetes
cluster)
− Access to all local network resources without excessive amount of load balancers
• Infrastructure as Code
− Dev teams manage own projects' API endpoints and configurations through GitOps
− Takes the concept of treating infrastructure as cattle to the next level
FLEXIBLE
MODERN

17. 17 | Copyright © 2020
Why We Chose Gloo @ParkMobile
• Scalable
− The ability to scale seamlessly with the application (based on app needs)
− Minimum scale and performance requirements
• 100k Request Per Minute Minimum
• Gateway overhead did not add more than 50ms.
− Seven Gateway proxies are using < 1/10th of a core and < 400MB memory
− Eleven Worker nodes running M5a.4xLarge
• Security at Scale
− Native Kubernetes integration allows for namespacing developers
− Each team’s virtual services are isolated from others
− Ability to utilize Kubernetes RBAC
• Value
− Installs on existing Kubernetes cluster (No additional infrastructure costs for Gloo)
− High performance and throughput with minimal footprint (proxies)
SCALE
VALUE
PARTNERSHIP

18. 18 | Copyright © 202018 | Copyright © 2020
Q: Where are you now?

19. 19 | Copyright © 2020
Lessons Learned
§ Utilize solutions that treat Kubernetes as a first-class citizen
§ Integration with Kubernetes
§ Proprietary cloud provider solutions are convenient but not always the best
§ Product should be flexible to the needs of the consumer
§ Automatability and testability should always be considered when deciding on
solution

20. 20 | Copyright © 2020
Service Mesh Knative Applications Deployment
Implement service mesh
for east-west traffic
Leverage serverless Continue breaking down
monoliths
Multi-cluster
Multi-region
What’s Next for ParkMobile

21. 21 | Copyright © 2020
Thank You!
Learn More
SOLO.IO/GLOO
Community
SLACK.SOLO.IO
Follow Us
@SOLOIO_INC
Learn More
PARKMOBILE.IO
Follow Us
@PARKMOBILE