Industry: Logistics

AWS Blockchain-Inspired Platform

CME Group

AWS Blockchain-Inspired Platform

Saves 70% of Client Budget MoM

Background

CME Group and Britain’s Royal Mint collaborated to create a new gold trading platform based on Blockchain Technology running on Amazon Web Services.

The Challenge

The client needed help creating a Blockchain Validator Solution capable of controlling transaction flow within a private network on the Cloud. Additionally, they required a cost-effective “Scale on-demand” architecture solution as a result of uncertainty in expected network transactions volume. This meant a high level of data and transaction security was required due to nature of the transactions, including rigorous fault tolerance with high up-time SLAs.

The Solution

Kopius’* team of AWS experts implemented an AWS solution while also providing ongoing AWS Managed Services post-launch. As an AWS partner, Amazon Web Services were easily leveraged to locate all development, testing, and production environments. This allowed for instant scaling in a ”pay for what you use” model. Additionally, our team managed Cloud use based on Amazon CloudWatch services, allowing a 24×5 support and full real-time supervision. We also introduced world-class DevOps best practices and tools to regularly maintain the environment. Our flexibility allowed the CME to update servers and enable more instances on-demand with Amazon Machine Images (AMI).

Results

CME Group achieved an average cost savings of 70% per month on AWS compared to their on-site servers. Through CloudWatch, monitoring cost 60% less than before. The client now has a highly scalable and fault-tolerant Cloud environment managed by our Cloud Managed Services group. In the end, it took 50% less time to build and deploy our solution than with an alternative resource.

*Work was performed under the previous business name, Tradehelm

Scale On-Demand Architecture Solution

DSC Logistics

Scale On-Demand Architecture Solution

Saves 40% MoM

Background

DSC Logistics (aka CJ Logistics) delivered integrated and multimodal logistics services, connecting every corner of the world via air, sea, and land. The company is an industry leader in transforming logistics and supply chain management into a critical business strategy based on innovative thinking and high-performance operations.

The Challenge

DSC needed a cost-effective “Scale on-demand” architecture solution to accommodate fifty new warehouse sites. Furthermore, application integration was required against legacy technologies and solutions. Given the client’s knowledge of Cloud technologies or implementations, Kopius* stepped in with budget-friendly software development and testing environments to mimic production.

The Solution

Kopius’ teams presented strategy, technology, and architecture to solve the client’s challenges. We used Amazon Web Services to locate all development, testing, and production environments providing instant scaling in a ”pay for what you use” model. Next, we brought in Docker and Ansible as configuration management and deployment tools, allowing seamless configuration launch. Finally, Kopius introduced world-class DevOps best practices and tools to DSC for continual program maintenance, including an automated testing framework.

Results

DSC now saves 40% on monthly hardware costs compared to previous years, and the new infrastructure allows DSC to duplicate its Kopius team size, work in parallel on multiple applications at once, and improve its time to market by 55%. Overall, DSC expanded its capabilities without rewriting or extending any of its legacy systems, saving $450K in development expenses.

*Work was performed under the previous business name, Tradehelm

Agile DevOps Approach Improves QA Testing Times by 97%

DSC Logistics

Agile DevOps Improves QA Testing Times by 97%

Time to fix technical and functional issues reduced by 45%

Background

DSC Logistics (aka CJ Logistics) delivered integrated and multimodal logistics services, connecting every corner of the world via air, sea, and land. The company is an industry leader in transforming logistics and supply chain management into a critical business strategy based on innovative thinking and high-performance operations.

DevOps

The Challenge

To accommodate the addition of fifty new warehouse sites that would bring new software application components to their ecosystem, DSC needed to perform quality assurance on the integrity of its data and pre-existing legacy services while efficiently integrating new services. They also needed their testing frameworks and resources to work in a DevOps environment.

The Solution

Our team recommended a mix of tools and best practices to provide earlier feedback to developers in conjunction with the DevOps team. Kopius’* team implemented:

  • REST-Assured Java framework to verify service health
  • Selenium to validate user interaction with all application services – web, mobile, and desktop
  • Automated load-testing framework created with Gatling to mimic a performance load of thousands of users

Results

Kopius’ automated checks within a continuous integration server reduced the prior testing cycle times by 97% overall. Thanks to a graphical system focused on quality and testing times, management and the development team had greater visibility into the process. This helped them reduce the time it took to fix technical and functional issues by 45%. In the end, DSC’s quality assurance team had more free time to perform true quality assurance on the product rather than running manual and semi-manual test scripts. This increased the overall level of quality and experience in the application.

*Work was performed under the previous business name, Tradehelm

Fortune 500 Commercial Real Estate and Logistics Solutions Provider

Fortune 500 Commercial Real Estate and Logistics Solutions Provider

Data Warehousing and Analytics

Fast Growing Company Upgrades its Data Systems

Challenge

This client is a leading global investment manager and business leader in commercial real estate and logistics. The business was growing fast and expanding its footprint across five US regions.

Fast growth can be exciting, but it comes with challenges. As the business expanded into new regions, its legacy home-grown tools built in Excel struggled to meet the operational needs of management. The company had significant data but was reliant on manual processes and unstable data processes to produce reports that were critical to decision making.

The leadership knew that there were important insights hidden within their data but couldn’t reveal those insights with their legacy tools.

This challenge inhibited agility, innovation, decision-making, and reporting.

Solution

Kopius was engaged to develop a data strategy to help our client organize its data and use it to inform the business. Kopius also designed and developed KPI dashboards to make it easier to understand and use the data.

We conducted site interviews with client stakeholders to document the existing reporting processes and technologies in each region, along with tracing the KPIs from current Excel files to source data. The transitory steps focused on data foundation updates, restructuring core data platforms to enable readiness in integration with a unified global reporting architecture. The new architecture was consolidated into a global BI Reporting Suite for automated KPI reporting across regions and performance insights via interactive dashboards to the company’s leadership.

Our design team worked with the data engineering team to develop a branded interface that would highlight key data points based on input received during the discovery and interview period.

Results

The dashboards were launched and widely adopted. The client reports high satisfaction and excitement about the impact and ROI of this project.

This project also initiated a digital transformation for this client. Experiencing the efficiency gained by automating certain reporting functions from varied data sources freed the management team to consider additional opportunities to advance their growing business.

The company is now exploring additional technical advancements that could transform its business, including AR/VR, IoT, Artificial Intelligence, and Machine Learning.

*Kopius performed this work under its previously known business name, Valence.