When an industry leading company wanted to digitalize more services and move them to the cloud, they came to Ductus. As part of the ongoing assignment, we are responsible for developing and managing the AWS microservices architecture.
Challenge
Transition, manage and develop digital financial services as part of a move from on-prem to Amazon Web Service, AWS cloud environment.
Solution
Seven Ductus consultants are responsible for multiple large AWS systems, each consisting of many microservices.
Partnership
Ductus consultants form an integral part of the client’s IT team. They take part daily in stand-ups and are involved in the research, development and implementation of new automation services.
Benefits
Ductus supplies an entire development team that handle operations – improve existing applications and developing new applications from scratch. Specialist IT resources can be onboarded as required.
About the client
One of Scandinavia’s largest financial consulting companies, with over 70,000 clients and more than 1000 employees at offices across the region.
On-prem to AWS cloud
Ductus has been working with the accounting company for several years, assisting them with their digital transformation. A key part of the digitalization program has been transitioning on-prem services to the AWS cloud. Ductus software engineers have been actively involved in designing the AWS microservices architecture and the cloud transition. Today, Ductus consultants are responsible for managing the AWS environment, acting as an extension of the client’s IT department.
“We have been working with them for several years,” says Max Block, AWS Certified, Ductus Principal Solutions Architect. “Prior to that, we developed automation services for an accounting company that the client acquired. Thanks to this, we have a good understanding of the industry and what is required both from regulatory and customer-facing perspectives. We’re also well acquainted with the company’s IT environment and strategic goals – where IT plays a key role.”
Driving digital accounting
Today, the company leads the way in automation, having launched multiple innovative services – better suited for robots – to minimize repetitive book-keeping and invoicing processes. Ductus developed an automated accounts assistant which removes the need to book invoicing data manually. The system reads the issuing and due dates, payment amounts, and VAT and account numbers of company invoices and books the data. With tens of thousands of invoices handled every month and no one standard for writing invoices, machine learning has been key to providing a reliable service.
Integrated IT teams
Ductus consultants are responsible for much of the tech-heavy workload at the company, ensuring that existing systems function smoothly. If new systems need designing or developing, specialist resources can be called upon and allocated to meet demand.
“We have a broad mandate in our role,” continues Block. “This ranges from developing systems like the automated accounts assistant to designing the AWS cloud architecture and ensuring operations run smoothly as a result of this.”
AWS Microservices architecture
The AWS ecosystem developed for the client includes multiple large systems, each consisting of many microservices. Although a complex architecture, the team deemed it the best way forward to meet the company’s requirements as it grows its operations.
“Working with microservices comes with its challenges,” explains Block. “Obviously, there are a lot of moving parts handling partial system outage that require inter-service communication. This makes design, development, testing and deployment more complex. But when the challenges are properly addressed, the benefits are significant.”
Infrastructure as Code (IaC)
Although the Ductus team spends a lot of time writing Infrastructure as Code (IaC) in AWS, the consultants also code in Python, C# and Typescript in the different projects they are involved in. The team work closely with inhouse developers, even taking part in daily stand-ups. Fortnightly meetings are also held where team members present their projects along with any innovative ideas they have that will help improve efficiency and/or support business initiatives.
”We act as a sounding board in discussions about cloud capabilities and how the microservices environment can be leveraged. Our technical know-how allows the company’s IT team to focus on developing and testing new processes and services that will facilitate their business growth. We build new applications and make sure that the tech behind the scenes works as it should do – always,” concludes Block.