Monolith to Microservices: migrating the enterprise CMS of the world's largest events company
Introduction/The Client
Our client, Informa, is the world’s largest events company and constituent of the FTSE 100. Their core enterprise CMS, which is also white labelled and used by a number of companies, divisions and units throughout the group, was originally built on a monolith architecture, using the Ember framework for its front end and Groovy for its backend. Because those technologies have started to become obsolete, they faced challenges in developer recruitment – a problem only likely to worsen as time went on. The platform also made inefficient use of cloud resources as it had not initially been developed as a cloud-native platform. It was a monolith architecture with only some functions making use of AWS. The decision was taken to modernise and future-proof the platform through a migration to React on the frontend and node.js on the backend. A DevOps team from K&C also integrated AWS microservices, for optimal performance and use of resources in a pure cloud environment. A microservices architecture also allows for more convenient and resource-efficient future updates and maintenance, as well as protecting against vendor lock-in as a strategic consideration. |
The challenge
- Informa's core enterprise CMS was built on a monolithic architecture, using increasingly obsolete technologies.
- Migration to React & Node.js required to future-proof the CMS and make it easier to hire web developers to work on it.
- The CMS also had to be migrated to a microservices architecture, allowing for future continuous deployment.
- The migration to microservices would also mean lower running costs. Because the original monolith architecture was not designed for a cloud environment.
- All of this had to be achieved without any down time.
- All services developed to support white labelling (to allow customization of platform for various divisions and businesses)
Tech Stack & DevOps Tools
React, node.js, microservices, AWS, React SSR, node.js, express, Spring webflux, GraalVM, AWS services (Cognito, DynamoDB, Lambda, Kinesis, Elasticsearh, SNS, SES and others)
Snap CI (Cloud-Based Continuous Integration tool) migrated to Jenkins with using on demand EC2 instances for builds. <br> <br>Implemented monitoring system on top of Prometheus, Grafana, Slack
Security – AWS WAF, DDOS protection
Why did Informa rely on K&C for this business critical migration mission?
As a business-critical development project, Informa entrusted a core part of the work to a K&C team thanks to our successful track record working together on other projects over a number of years.
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The result
Working alongside Informa’s in-house development team as a team extension comprised of front-end developers and DevOps engineers, we migrated in iterations the legacy monolithic platform to a microservices architecture using React on the front-end and Nodejs on the backend.
The platform now makes more efficient use of cloud resources, both in terms of expense and performance and Informa can hire React and Nodejs developers far more easily than the Ember and Groovy experts they previously required.
The platform is now both easier and cheaper to maintain in the present and future-proofed for years ahead and can be conveniently white-labelled by Informa’s various businesses and units.
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Word of mouth
As our outsourced local systems integrator, K&C supported us in the complex integration of products involving multiple contractors. K&C professionalism and technical expertise ensured we overcame the challenge. K&C has demonstrated high flexibility in daily project management and contracting process that enabled agile adoption of new requirements and made it possible for us to meet some strict deadlines that emerged due to recently changed legislation. Also, the project had a fixed price basis for peace-of-mind budget planning.
Irene Hippner Product Manager, Sparkassen Informatik
We spent a long time looking for a reliable development team who could bring our bold ideas to life. When Informa and KNect365 first started to work with K&C, there was a lot to do. However, after a couple of months, the results were excellent. The K&C team has met our expectations with their professional integrity, technical competence, drive, and readiness to realise challenging tasks. There is no hesitation from us in continuing our cooperation.
Gareth WebberChief Technology Officer, KNect365 (an Informa company)
K&C has been a reliable partner for several of our projects. We consider ourselves fortunate to work with established and highly skilled professionals that have a clear understanding of our specific business needs and requirements. I am happy to report that we managed to meet our internal deadlines, and at reasonable rates.
Holger BöttcherHead of Product, Bosch Group Mobility Media
We wanted to leverage distributed ledger technologies and deliver blockchain benefits to users of our free online platform for protection of ideas and intellectual property rights. For this purpose we have chosen K&C as our dedicated partner, as they offered over 20 years of expertise and experience of working with leading companies, demonstrating agile cooperation and timely fulfillment of their commitments. We started with initial workshop and within only 3 weeks K&C team delivered a minimum viable product for Ethereum blockchain project and set up Smart Contracts with Solidity. We’re very happy with the advanced tech stack offered by K&C and already look forward to further cooperation for our envisaged ICO.
Prof Dr Hazbo SkokoFounder & CEO, Save ideas
K&C was a great deal of help for us with custom Java Mapping Engine that enabled fast implementation of migration components. Their automated testing approach ensured high quality throughout. The deliveries have been on schedule, the acceptance was done by Sparkassen pilot group.
Gerhard StecheleProject Manager
K&C supported us flawlessly through the software migration process – from business analysis and installation of the software to the migration itself. The ambitious migration undertaking with many complications arising along the way was a complete success thanks to K&C expertise, high service culture, and the ability to deliver on time.
Hans-Hermann DaubData Protection and Information Security Executive
To create deeply integrated and powerful AI solutions which transform our customers’ business, we do require reliable and fault tolerant infrastructure. With K&C professionals we have successfully achieved this challenging goal for one of our high-load services that receives over 12 mln. requests weekly. We rely on K&C to leverage the benefits of Docker, Rancher, AWS Route53 and S3, ELK, Ceph, Traefik and other advanced tools and design cost-effective solutions for our tasks.
Andreas HartmannProduct & Operations, VAIX
Due to its extensive expertise and valuable experience developing corporate mission-critical portals, K&C has been our reliable partner throughout every stage - from planning to delivery of web solution. This goal-oriented and consolidated cooperation made it possible to develop a high-load web application and integrate it into the Metro AG portal, allowing to submit Yes Telecom offers to more than 1.5 million of prospects within just one month.
Frank KiesewetterManaging Director, YesTelecom
We turned to K&C and have found professional support, as well as a dedicated business partner. They have both expertise in building powerful social web platforms and competence in supporting our complex web development projects - from processes automation to customer co-creation.
Michael MörikeBoard of Directors
As the index calculation service provider to SIX Group, Deutsche Börse AG and STOXX, Indexium demanded sophisticated testing processes. K&C has built an entire test team from the ground up and provided a comprehensive range of testing to ensure the high quality and stability of the application.
Cyrille AlbrechtHead System Engineering
Our rapid growth and integration into the organizational structure of BNP Paribas Personal Finance S.A required a new solution for automating core business processes. Deep technical background and rich experience allowed K&C to provide us with a full range of practical support at each stage of project implementation - from quality management to testing, and to ongoing maintenance. I am happy to mention that the K&C team has a good understanding of our specific needs for lean processes and was able to complete the project within the agreed budget and timeline.
Stéphane AgnelIT Manager
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