Neon

neon – The first independent account app of Switzerland.

Excessive fees, inflexible opening times, too much bureaucracy and complicated, slow apps. To us, it was clear: it can’t go on like that. That’s why we built neon.

neon is an account on your smartphone, the way we want it to be. Super cheap – no base fees. Fast and independent. Mobile without limits. And that’s only the beginning, because neon grows with you.

neon uses the APPUiO Container Platform and leaves the operation and scaling of the neon app to VSHN.

Simon Youssef

CTO & co-founder of neon

Hello Simon, can you briefly explain what neon does?

With neon we are building an alternative to the classic house bank – absolutely digital and free of charge. We want to cover the banking needs in payment transactions and for cards – most customers do not need a second bank.

What is your role at neon?

I am one of the founders and CTO and therefore responsible for the development of our app and our backend as well as for the secure and stable operation. The Tech Team now consists of over 10 colleagues across three locations.

What challenges did you face with your application and infrastructure?

We use a broad network of partners to develop new features quickly and cost-effectively. This brings with it typical issues and problems regarding availability, unannounced interface changes, firewall changes and network settings.

In order to get a reasonable grip on this, we depend on having an extremely good view of the state of our systems and partner systems. For this we use New Relic on the one hand and on the other hand, our own services have to be super-resilient. This is made technically possible by the Managed OpenShift Stack from VSHN and process-wise by consistent CI/CD with all test stages.

How did you hear about VSHN and why did you choose APPUiO as your container platform?

VSHN and APPUiO was a recommendation from our network. We are very grateful to the Contovista team for this.

What have we achieved together and how do we currently support you?

VSHN has been our service provider from day one, we have grown together and we trust VSHN absolutely regarding competence and commitment. In our setup, it is not always easy to isolate a fault, as up to four parties are involved in troubleshooting – VSHN has never let us down.

Where can we improve?

Pricing. 🙂

In the grey area before APPUiO Dedicated nodes are worthwhile, the model is a bit expensive and your SLA could be a bit more flexible.

Why or for what would you recommend us?

I would recommend you for Managed Infrastructure, DevOps consulting and Managed OpenShift.

Thanks for the interview and your open feedback, Simon. We are very pleased to be able to support neon on its further growth path.

The interview was carried out by Markus Speth, CMO of VSHN.

About neon

neon – feel free. Because freedom is everything. neon is proof that banking does not always have to be expensive and complicated. With our intuitive and simple neon app, you can access your finances at any time. And with the free neon Mastercard, you can pay or withdraw cash worldwide at the cash desk or online. Your account is with Hypothekarbank Lenzburg and all account management is free of charge. It is also protected by the Swiss Deposit Protection Fund for up to CHF 100,000. neon is driven by the wish for some freshness in the stale financial world. A 15-person team from the Zurich and Munich area is working hard to make this goal a reality for you.

About VSHN – The DevOps Company

VSHN was founded with the intention to fundamentally shake up the hosting market. As a lean startup, we focused on the operation of IT platforms through automation, agility and a continuous improvement process. Completely independent of location and without our own hardware, we operate extensive applications according to the DevOps principle agile and 24/7 on any infrastructure, so that software developers can concentrate on their business and IT operations are relieved. VSHN (pronounced like “vision”) is the leading Swiss partner for DevOps, Docker, Kubernetes, OpenShift, Rancher & 24/7 Cloud Operations. Learn more on www.vshn.ch

About APPUiO – Swiss Container Platform

APPUiO is the largest Swiss container platform for the design, development and operation of applications. Based on proven Open Source concepts such as Docker and Kubernetes, APPUiO enables DevOps: through automation and self-service, development, deployment and operational processes are accelerated and the collaboration between software developers and business organization is improved. APPUiO is a joint brand of VSHN und Puzzle ITC. Learn more on www.appuio.ch