CHALLENGES
Cutting costs for a cross-departmental system
Our client is at the forefront of delivering innovative healthcare to patients around the world, and that means generating a lot of data for researchers to use daily.
The company chose MarkLogic as their Data Hub solution but encountered several performance issues after implementing a complex, cross-department system.
Although buying more licenses for their MarkLogic database was an option, we helped the client make the system more efficient and performant.
Datavid performed an initial architecture review of the system, identifying areas of improvement and cost cutting opportunities.
SOLUTION
Architectural improvements & a new delivery model
After conducting an architectural review, it became clear that the delivery model of the system was leaking money as it lacked key testing and deployment automations.
The development and deployment process was a waterfall/agile hybrid.
The combination of waterfall project management and lack of automations resulted in high costs for releasing new features to the system.
There were two primary areas of work:
- Architecture: Datavid produced a report with steps on how to improve the design of the system, including cost estimates and delivery timelines.
- The delivery model: an integrated continuous delivery pipeline was proposed to automate how new features were released to the production system.
Datavid did several Proof of Concepts (PoCs) to validate the solutions before implementing them into the production system.
Both areas are now in continuous development (with the delivery pipeline started in July 2021), and the client is already experiencing benefits from the improvements.
RESULTS
Increasing performance & reducing release times
As a result of the performance issues solved via the architectural re-design of the system, the client reduced their costs significantly and increased the efficiency of the system.
The second benefit they have experienced is a significantly shorter delivery cycle from ideation through development and all the way to production.
Both of these benefits are moving the client towards the goal of cutting costs and making the system as efficient as possible while maintaining a good user experience.
In summary, an architecture based on best practice, a more automated delivery pipeline, and faster cycle times led to higher productivity and an improved ROI.
