Small and medium-sized businesses and enterprises are the backbone of the US economy generating more than 44% of GDP¹. Yet these organizations are still underserved when it comes to online financial tools—and dealing with payments is no exception. Complaints include hidden fees, limited capabilities, long-term lease agreements, and poor customer service.

These are the issues that we wanted to solve when we launched Helcim in 2020 in Calgary (Alberta, Canada). We provide a payment service that offers low rates through our interchange plus pricing model, no monthly fee for the core payments offering, and numerous payment options, as well as simple, affordable hardware such as card readers. 

Our digital-first approach makes it easy for owners of small and medium-sized businesses to get started. Online sign-up means no paperwork and near instant access to Helcim’s software and all-in-one platform experience. Merchants can choose from a range of payment solutions from the Helcim app including in-person payments, SMS payment requests, online invoices with pay now buttons, and more. 

To achieve our goals, we built most of the business systems and processes in-house including our technology stack, financial partnerships, marketing, and everything in between. This is something that few startups would dare to do, but it enabled us to build a payments platform offering the rich capabilities and performance SMBs really need.

Taking control with the cloud

Before migrating our infrastructure to Google Cloud, it was hosted at two colocation data centers in Calgary. This model served us well, but as we grew, most of our hardware needed to be replaced to maintain service security and performance.

A successful round of Series A funding also impacted our trajectory. Giving us the fuel we needed to scale and innovate faster. When we considered the choice between making a large capital investment in our existing environment, or to transition to the cloud, the decision was clear: The cloud was the way to go.

We looked at other big names in cloud hosting and tested another platform. But Google Cloud is by far the best environment for us. It’s much easier for a lean technology team to manage, as we embark on our first cloud strategy. It also offers all the tools and advanced machine learning capabilities we need.

Google Cloud also comes with the backing of Alphabet, a business that in the past five years has spent more on research and development than any other organization in the S&P 500². The ability to engage the Google Workspace account team for guidance to improve our everyday processes was another bonus. 

A variety of investment and training programs from Google Cloud also influenced our decision. We participated in Google for Startups Accelerator Canada which gave us access to Google Cloud experts across all our technology domains. This helped accelerate our infrastructure migration while ensuring we optimized every service from day one. We were also eligible for $100,000 USD of Google Cloud credits, covering our Google Cloud costs which helped us get everything up and running cost-effectively. The partnership with the wider Google team has been extremely impactful as we stand everything up for our business.

But ultimately, it’s the sheer depth and breadth of the Google Cloud environment that makes the difference. Here are the Google Cloud tools we currently have at Helcim.

BigQuery

We chose BigQuery because it is easy to aggregate new data and apply the right access controls. It also delivers outstanding performance running our analytics workloads.

Vertex AI

Vertex AI makes the deployment of new models exponentially faster, and with Google Cloud, we can do most of the work through containers instead of proprietary tooling.

GKE

GKE has enabled us to migrate to a fully managed cloud service and avoid a lift-and-shift exercise that would have prevented us from getting the full benefits of a containerized infrastructure. Running a new GKE environment also enabled us to significantly reduce platform latency by 20%-50%. We can now deploy projects in hours instead of days. 

Cloud Storage

We updated our centralized file system to use Cloud Storage, which is faster and more scalable.

Cloud SQL

All of our software today is built on top of MySQL, so CloudSQL was the natural choice for cloud database management.

Cloud Run

Cloud Run is more flexible than other serverless tools and was an easy way to reduce the burden of managing some of our services.

Boosting performance across the business

By migrating to Google Cloud, we transformed our application performance. We were able to decouple the infrastructure between systems and use modern server hardware for our compute and database instances. With very little change to our code, we saw a 50%+ increase in the speed of our entire platform.

Giving developers more control of the technology running their systems via containers means that they can enhance systems through more frequent language updates and by deploying new technologies to optimize workloads.

We can more closely monitor our systems to diagnose issues and fix their root cause faster. Being able to quickly add resources gives us further options if we experience platform latency or increased traffic.

Maintaining momentum with machine learning

Leveraging Vertex AI has significantly reduced the time it takes the team to build and deploy new machine learning models. Greater agility in our data stack has also freed up time for exploratory work in the data team. For instance, by creating low fidelity proxy data for human behavior in the application process, we created a new model that will reduce the number of manually reviewed batches by more than 10%.

We’ve also been able to improve our deployment process and the time to rollback. As a result, breaking changes in production have been reduced from more than five minutes to less than 30 seconds.

Thanks to BigQuery, we can make better use of data to support key business decisions. Previously it was hard to aggregate data from different sources and while maintaining our strict requirements for customer data confidentiality. We also needed specialist SQL knowledge to consume it. By investing in a more modern data stack, the availability of trusted data across the organization has increased exponentially. 

We’ve also overcome the constraints imposed by static hardware environments especially when maintaining a high-availability configuration between two locations. With Google Cloud, we’re no longer constrained by such a rigid arrangement and the deployment velocity of new infrastructure tooling has been reduced from months to days.

Security is another area where Google Cloud excels. From hackers and fraudsters to bots and web attacks, it protects our users, applications, and data, while facilitating compliance with local and regional authorities. We can also integrate more easily with our security partners ensuring that we can empower our team to stay ahead of cyber criminals and other external threats.

Building the payments platform for the future, today

When we look to the future, Google Cloud opens the door to dozens of opportunities to widen our appeal to SMBs while remaining competitive. Its advanced infrastructure for cloud computing, data analytics and ML supports our roadmap to profitability and will help us attract future rounds of funding.

Above all it provides a foundation for growth. We grew 400% in 2021 and raised more capital in the spring of 2022 to grow even faster. In 2022 we were also listed as one of the top payments processors by industry publications such as Nerdwallet and Merchant Maverick. With Google Cloud, we can build on this success, continue to innovate, and help our SMB customers take their payments and e-commerce strategies to the next level. 

If you want to learn more about how Google Cloud can help your startup, visit our page here to get more information about our program, and sign up for our communications to get a look at our community activities, digital events, special offers, and more. 

To learn more about Google for Startups Accelerators and to apply to a program in your region, visit the website here. 

^{1. Small Businesses Generate 44 Percent Of U.S. Economic Activity
2. Alphabet: Big Value In Big Tech}

After three migrations to different cloud providers, the company managed to migrate with no system outages for the first time, supported by partner Sky.One.

Results

• Migrated four SAP environments and four servers in just one month with no system outages
• Zero unavailability periods since migrating
• Less time spent worrying about operational issues increases the focus on business

50% savings on monthly cloud costs

Rossi Residencial, one of Brazil’s largest construction companies and real-estate developers, with around 150 employees, hundreds of business and engineering partners, and nationwide service, has used SAP solutions for financial management since 1999. Taxes, accessory obligations, accounting requirements, and other processes are managed through the system in an integrated and automated manner, which provides the business with crucial support.

Over the past few years, the company has begun to promote independent, sustainable business units to focus on strategic locations and products. This prompted its technology team to adapt as well, and they saw the cloud as an opportunity to add flexibility to SAP’s management.

“If I need to open a new branch or break ground on a project, the entire system core is already in the cloud and I don’t have to worry about local infrastructure,” explains Eduardo Araújo, Rossi’s IT Manager. “It also means our operational costs are significantly reduced.”

A few years ago, the company started working with the ECC component in the EHP 8 version, using modules such as FI (financial accounting), CO (controlling), MM (materials management) and TRM (treasury and risk management). But the dollar’s high exchange rate in 2020 increased costs with their then provider too much. The team was also not satisfied with the provider’s service, leading it to look for a new provider and a partner to support migration.

An essential requirement the new provider had to offer was high availability and scalability. Potential partners had to perform migration in a short time window (as the contract with the other service was about to expire) and be familiar with the previous provider to ensure the operation’s success. After spending some time searching, the company chose Google Cloud and Sky.One for the project.

“Out of the cloud options we researched, Google Cloud offered us the best financial conditions and a solution that truly catered to us. And out of the many partners we contacted, Sky.One offered the best work planning and service.”—Eduardo Araújo, IT Manager, Rossi Residencial

First migration with no system outages

The tight migration deadline meant the company would not have the time to install every app in Google Cloud from scratch, so Rossi asked the Sky.One team to mirror its entire previous architecture, that is, migrate the virtual machines from the company’s four SAP environments and four servers from other apps directly to Google Cloud.

After mapping the source structure in detail along with Rossi, the partner was able to complete migration planning in a month. “If you map before migrating and thus understand the customer’s environment well, you are able to prepare the destination so it has every integration and its respective access,” says Ricardo Nunes, Solution Expert at Sky.One.

The tool chosen to move the environments was Migrate for Compute Engine (previously known as Velostrata), which streamlines, facilitates and reduces risks for app migration to Google Cloud. Sky.One selected an expert in this solution to conduct the process, which was also supported by Google Cloud experts to make any needed adjustments.

The process took just a month to complete. The environments were successfully migrated with zero impact on operations, an unprecedented feat for the company. Now SAP environments run in a new infrastructure consisting of Compute Engine, a service for creating and running VMs, and Cloud Storage for data storage.

“This is the first time, after three previous migrations to private and public clouds, that our users have not felt any impact and we didn’t have system outages. It was a six-hands project that worked very well.”—Eduardo Araújo, IT Manager, Rossi Residencial

Flexibility to deal with every business need

Since the migration, Rossi has not suffered system outages or handled related user requests and incidents. Performance has remained high even after the team resized the VMs. The flexibility to add or subtract resources based on the company’s demands proved crucial. “Rossi operates in a segment with elasticity. In any given year, we can have two/three projects or ten. That’s why it’s important to have that resource in the cloud,” says Araújo.

Since the company does not operate 24/7, another benefit from migrating was the ability to schedule when to switch on and off servers, bringing cost savings. Furthermore, billing in reais at a fixed exchange rate with dollars led to a 50% cost reduction versus the previous provider.

The ease of integration between Google Cloud and SAP’s tools pleasantly surprised the team. “We were worried about potential incompatibilities, and we didn’t know if we would be able to work like before. Today we can work even better than before,” says the IT manager. According to Sky.One, the fine adaptation between the solutions becomes noticeable right after migration.

“Google Cloud’s solutions support all SAP migration steps, but after migrating we noticed that daily operations had become even more tightly integrated.”—Ricardo Nunes, Solution Expert, Sky.One

The cloud’s stability and security have streamlined the IT team’s daily routine. They no longer have to go to the company outside business hours to perform updates or repairs. Currently, employees can work remotely with peace of mind and maintain business continuity throughout Brazil.

With more time to focus on business needs instead of operational issues, the team is contemplating the addition of new Google Cloud tools. Rossi’s next challenge is to bolster its business operations and customer service even further using data analytics and AI solutions, making the most of its broad database.

The retail industry is rapidly evolving, with customers demanding exceptional digital experiences, and retailers adjusting their businesses to be more efficient. With many retailers relying on SAP for critical business functions like digital transactions, finance, supply chains and more, this shift has led them to look for ways to modernize these systems, deliver them on highly scalable infrastructure, and extract more value out of the data from within them.  

I’m proud that we are helping German retailers successfully migrate business-critical SAP systems onto Google Cloud, minimizing risk and downtime and ultimately helping them build a foundation for future growth. Our work with retailers like Otto Group, one of the world’s largest ecommerce businesses, MediaMarktSaturn, the large consumer electronics retailer, and METRO, the wholesale retailer with operations across Europe, demonstrates our deep partnership with SAP to support customers’ digital transformations.

Helping Otto Group IT run SAP on secure, sustainable infrastructure

Otto Group, a leading online-retailer and services group in Germany and one of the world’s largest ecommerce companies, migrated their SAP workloads to Google Cloud in order to modernize their SAP landscape and build a more agile environment that would enable them to quickly scale up or down according to business needs. 

The Otto Group, which consistently balances the sustainable use of resources and climate-neutral action with economic growth, is also able to leverage Google Cloud’s clean infrastructure to deliver the bulk of its internal SAP environment, ensuring the company’s business systems are running on secure, sustainable infrastructure. Since 2017, Google has matched 100% of its global electricity use with purchases of renewable energy every year, and is now building on that progress with a new goal of running entirely on carbon-free energy at all times by 2030. 

With Google Cloud, Otto Group has told us they have access to better means of automation and improved network capability compared to what they had with their previous provider. Through this cloud migration, Otto Group IT is providing modern and flexibly scalable SAP systems to their internal customers.

Powering MediaMarktSaturn’s online ecommerce experience 

For MediaMarktSaturn, SAP is critical to the smooth day-to-day running of its business, so the company was keen to ensure maximum availability and stability with a cloud environment. After a thorough examination of its business needs and hands-on support from Google Cloud’s teams, MediaMarktSaturn elected to migrate its SAP HANA database onto Google Cloud, enabling a performance increase of four times compared to its previous on-premises installations.

The SAP suite is critical for the ecommerce platform to run smoothly on a day-to-day basis. By migrating to Google Cloud, the retailer is providing even more support and maximum availability for its customers. With Google Cloud’s industry-specific expertise, MediaMarktSaturn’s customers have access to a reliable and stable ecommerce platform, so they can browse for products online from wherever they are. 

Transforming METRO’s business by running SAP workloads in the cloud 

With more than 97,000 employees in 34 countries, Germany’s METRO is one of the world’s largest B2B wholesalers. Previously, METRO relied on unique finance systems that were different in each country,  and updates or system testing required substantial coordination across numerous teams, which was both time-consuming and costly. 

To address these pain points, METRO is moving away from on premise deployments and is now migrating its SAP S/4HANA finance systems to Google Cloud to support everything from classical role-based accounting to the use of cognitive tools. Now, internal METRO teams can work seamlessly across operations, enhancing the services they provide to customers by addressing demands in real time. 

To read more about how SAP on Google Cloud drives agility, efficiency, and innovation for our customers, visit our solutions page here.

The Opportunity for Streamed AR/VR Content 

What if you could get a high quality AR/VR experience without a dedicated physical computer—or even without a physical tether?  

In the past, interacting with VR required a dedicated, high-end workstation and, depending on the headset, wall-mounted sensors and a dedicated physical space. Complex tasks in VR can push the limits of sensor reach, cable-length, and spatial boundaries, entangling the artist and restricting their movement. This solution was not scalable beyond a handful of advanced use cases.

Recently, tetherless VR headsets from manufacturers such as HTC and Oculus have emerged that free the user from these odious restrictions, enabling a new freedom to experience VR and AR from just about anywhere. The enhanced portability and reduced cost has led to substantially increased adoption among consumers and opened up many new exploratory use cases in enterprise.

However, while these headsets are more accessible and portable, a tradeoff in compute power was required in order to achieve these goals. The limited on-device compute power of this new generation of Head Mounted Displays (HMDs) is acceptable for many consumer applications such as casual gaming. However, advanced enterprise workloads with heavy graphics, compute, or memory requirements can be difficult or even impossible to run on these lightweight devices.

By combining NVIDIA CloudXR with their powerful GPUs running NVIDIA RTX Virtual Workstations (vWS) in Google Cloud data centers, you can experience high-fidelity VR and AR applications from just about anywhere with a good internet connection. The heavy computations are performed in the cloud on a GPU-attached VM and the content streams to any CloudXR compatible headset. 

The combination of Google Cloud’s private fiber optic network — the same network we built for global delivery of YouTube content — and CloudXR’s QoS technologies provides the user with the highest possible quality of service. In fact, the streaming experience is comparable to that of a headset tethered to a powerful physical workstation, but without the friction of hardware and cables. 

This combination of power and portability sets the stage to unlock the potential of high-quality gaming and enterprise AR/VR experiences anywhere on Earth.

Case Study: Creating a Masterpiece

Digital character creation is a core skill for many 3D artists today. One of the preferred methods of 3D character creation is digital sculpting, which lets artists create both hard-surface and organic shapes with high levels of accuracy and control.

Sculpting is one of the many tasks in the character designer’s skillset. Artists must also master the texturing, rigging, and posing of characters as part of the digital character creation pipeline. 

Mastering all these tasks can be challenging, and often, the technology gets in the way; working in multiple applications requires switching contexts and workflows, breaking the artist’s creative flow. The traditional user experience can also be unintuitive, forcing the creator to translate what they want to do with their hands and head into mouse movement and keyboard presses.

Masterpiece Studio Pro revolutionizes this character creation workflow by giving artists the first fully immersive 3D creation pipeline. Artists work in VR, giving them a far more intuitive and seamless way to work which combines the best of the digital and physical worlds.

In Masterpiece Studio Pro, the artist can work on the character or object at any scale, using familiar tools and hand gestures to sculpt a model, much as they would a real clay figure. Performing other tasks such as skeleton creation is simple, allowing the artist to work directly with the limbs of a character to place and adjust the joints.

Bringing It All Together

NVIDIA CloudXR streaming from the cloud provides tremendous opportunities for new creative use cases within gaming and across the enterprise. This solution joins Virtual Studio for Gaming as the latest in our series to help developers build better games.

The Masterpiece Studio use case is a powerful demonstration of new modalities for content creation and collaboration. To try CloudXR with NVIDIA RTX vWS on Google Cloud for yourself, see this tutorial. Masterpiece Studio Pro also offers extensive learning materials and a free trial.