Amplify - Optimizing Cloud Infrastructure in Salon Management

Amplify

Optimizing Cloud Infrastructure for Improved Efficiency in Salon Management

Development

Cloud Infrastructure

AWS

Integrations

Strategy

Industry

Personal Care

Introduction

Henley’s Gentlemen’s Grooming is a premium barbershop and men’s grooming brand offering high-end services tailored to discerning customers. With a focus on providing a luxury experience, Henley’s blends traditional grooming techniques with modern flair, offering haircuts, beard care, skin treatments, and waxing in a refined, club-like setting. The brand's commitment to top-tier service and ambiance makes it a standout in the men’s grooming industry, appealing to clients seeking quality, comfort, and style in personal care.

To enhance its service offerings and improve the client experience, Henley’s Gentlemen’s Grooming developed a one-stop application platform for salon management called Amplify. Amplify allows Henley’s to streamline essential operations, including appointment scheduling, employee shift management, inventory tracking, service and product management, as well as reporting and accounting. Initially built to serve the specific needs of beauty and hair salons, the software has the potential for expansion into other personal care businesses.

The Business Challenge

After launching, Amplify faced significant performance issues and unexpectedly high cloud infrastructure costs exceeding $6,000 per month. These challenges stemmed from an overly complex Kubernetes architecture, which delayed the full implementation of the application and became a substantial financial burden. If left unresolved, these issues threatened operational efficiency, would further escalate costs, and could ultimately derail the entire project. To address these risks, Amplify sought MethodData’s technical expertise to identify the root causes, enhance performance, and reduce infrastructure expenses, ensuring the platform's sustainability and long-term success.

AWS Solution

As an AWS Advanced Tier Partner, MethodData leveraged our cloud expertise to diagnose and resolve the root causes of high AWS costs. Our solution was to transition to a serverless AWS architecture, incorporating services such as SQS for scalable load management, Cognito for simplified user authentication, Fargate for scalable compute, and DynamoDB for efficient database management. This new serverless approach not only optimized costs but also provided a scalable foundation for future growth. MethodData also recommended a comprehensive redevelopment of the backend to improve overall performance, enabling the platform to scale efficiently while maintaining sustainable infrastructure costs.

Implementation

The first step of the backend re-engineering focused on database optimization. MethodData reduced the database complexity by normalizing it—streamlining over 200 redundant tables to a more efficient structure of around 70-100 tables. This restructuring reduced complexity and significantly enhanced data processing speeds. To further simplify database interactions, we implemented a Data Access Layer using a class called CRUDServiceBase, centralizing all database operations for more consistent data handling.

The next stage was to redesign the application's data flow with a microservices architecture. We used API Gateway as the interface between the web application and backend microservices, managing and routing requests to the appropriate services. This architecture allowed each microservice to operate independently, handling specific functionalities such as payments, customer management, and employee scheduling. By fully decoupling functions, we ensured seamless scalability, improved performance, and increased resilience for the entire application.

Results

After implementing MethodData’s solutions, Henley’s saw a substantial reduction in AWS infrastructure costs, lowering the monthly expenses from approximately $6,000 to $2,000. Amplify successfully launched in Henley's pilot store, operating for about a month with no significant issues—only minor adjustments were needed. Following this successful pilot, Henley’s is preparing to expand the product to approximately 10 additional locations by Q2 2025, signaling confidence in the platform’s performance and scalability across multiple stores.

Conclusion

Through targeted optimization, MethodData helped Henley’s achieve significant improvements in Amplify, reducing AWS infrastructure costs by over 66% and enabling stable operations in a pilot store. MethodData’s strategic restructuring—from database normalization to a microservices architecture with API Gateway—addressed key performance and scalability challenges while ensuring future adaptability. This allowed Henley’s to confidently begin expanding to additional locations while maintaining optimal performance.