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.

Project Overview

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.

Implemented monitoring system on top of Prometheus, Grafana, Slack

Security protection - AWS WAF, DDOS protection

Why Did Informa Rely On K&C For This Business Critical Migration Mission?

Michael Krusche

CEO at K&C

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.

Our competitive advantage:

German management
and high standards of client service
Tech Stack
our proven expertise in React, microservices and DevOps was taken into consideration
Great results at enterprise level
we work with companies of all sizes from start-ups and SMEs to blue chip corporations. In this particular case, our track record in succesfully delivering enterprise portals for clients including Bosch, Lufthansa, Sparkassen, Nestlé etc. was a competitive advantage.
Expert teams at competitive prices
in 4 Eastern European competence centres at attractive nearshore rates

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The Result

Working alongside Informa’s inhouse 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.

Word of mouth

'We looked for a trustworthy development team, who could bring to life our bold ideas, for quite a while. When Informa and KNect365 first started to work with K&C, there was a lot to do. However, after a couple of months, the result was more than just good. The K&C team has met our expectations, considering their professional integrity, technical competence, drive, and readiness to achieve challenging tasks. And they did all of this on short notice. There is no hesitation from us in continuing our cooperation.'

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.

K&C has been a reliable partner for our projects. 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 the agreed timelines, and at reasonable rates.