Synopsis
The client, an international financial services company, approached Coforge for assistance with building an Enterprise Integration platform. Coforge proposed a customer specific implementation approach, based on the discovery phase and assessment reports. Accordingly, an Enterprise Integration platform (AKANA Enterprise Integration Bus- EIB) was built using micro services architecture. This helped the client integrate and scale their I.T. systems quickly to respond the rapid business change with controlled costs. The project was executed within six months, following Coforge’s legacy modernization approach.
About the Client
The client was an international financial services company, active in 18 countries, with a strong presence in several European countries and Japan. Originally based in the Netherlands, the client had over fifteen thousand employees. They provided retirement services, pensions, insurance, investments and banking to approximately eighteen million customers.
Business Challenge
The client’s I.T. systems were built on old architecture which were tightly coupled and not scalable to meet increasing demands. To update the I.T. systems meant a transition from the old system to new digital assets. The process was time consuming and translated to slower product rollouts, leading to tough competition in the market.
The client realized that it had to focus on its core business for profitability and long-term survival. They decided to partner with Coforge based on our experience in executing similar projects with the following key recommendations:
- Adopt phased approach – It was recommended to adopt a phase-wise approach based on the risk assessment
- Incremental Refactor - Frequent, incremental improvements were made based on feedback solicited
- Prioritize Service Extraction - Modules that are changed frequently were to be extracted first to realize benefits
- Self-Contained modules – Modules that can work independently were identified
- New Functionality – New capabilities and functionalities were only implemented to new platforms and any exceptions owing to business reasons were carefully examined
- Pre PI planning events – Stakeholders were brought together to coordinate input objectives, milestones and business and solution contexts
Our Solution
There was an existing web method solution in place. Coforge built an Enterprise Integration platform (AKANA Enterprise Integration Bus - EIB) using micro services architecture. This allowed the client to integrate and scale their I.T. systems, to quickly respond to rapid business change with controlled costs. Micro services were mostly written in Java (Spring-boot and core Java) and Python, allowing transactions to be stateless. Other suggestions made by Coforge were:
- To use Docker, which supports micro services architecture, for deployment
- To use AppDynamics for performance-based monitoring and reporting Coforge recommended the following solution and approach.
- Product rollout time to market– Coforge effected application integration using EIB coupled with DevOps and CI/CD practice to reduce development time from 6 weeks to 1-2 days.
- Integration – Both upstream and downstream applications were integrated with PAS.
- Resilient/Flexible – The new system was easy to enhance, independently test and deploy and allowed the client the freedom to choose technology. It was constructed so that failure of one service would not affect other services.
- Enhanced Application Performance – AppDynamics enabled complete visibility into application performance, real-time monitoring and proactive problem detection.
- Quality – Complete test automation led to zero-defect business service
Delivering More Value
By engaging with Coforge, the client could focus on its core competencies and maintain its leadership position in a highly competitive industry. In addition to technology and digital support, Coforge improved the client’s operational efficiencies by 25 %. The client was empowered to provide standardized and consistent business services across their business. Coforge also assisted by providing oAuth 2.0 support and reusable solutions for use by both internal and external teams. A centralized glossary that identified and defined data in the same way, monetized API usage and a self-service oriented adoption were other positive outcomes of this project.
