FusionCharts, a data visualization company, wanted to minimize their operational and process overheads. HashedIn helped them in improving their processes and operations efficiency through technology.

Improved the operational efficiency of FusionCharts

Executive Summary

Problem StatementFusionCharts is a charting company that provides a library of charts to the developers where they could make required dashboards for their clients. The existing operation processes created a long queue for features that had to be rolled into production systems sequentially. Any new feature required a series of configurational changes in their sandbox. All these practices increased operation turnaround time. The Marketing team could not update website content without the intervention of the developers, causing unnecessary delay.

They wanted a solution that would reduce turnaround time for their operations. A deployment architecture had to be built to streamline feature rollout. They also wanted to eliminate delays in updating website content.

Business Requirements

ObjectiveImplement a system to standardize operation processes and reduce turnaround time.

Key RequirementsSummarized requirements put forth by the client were as below:●● Content management system for the marketing team to perform A/B testing. Create re-usable

templates to ease the process of updating the content● Efficient practices and architecture for deployment and integration● Implement a tracking system to monitor operational overheads●

Impact and involvement of stakeholdersThe Document Management System also involved bringing all the stakeholders under a single platform, hence our solution had to provide value to each of them involved:

● Developers: Greater focus on code due to reliable operational procedures● Marketing Team: Display relevant content on the website with an efficient CMS

Our Solution StructureHashedIn performed a tech assessment for 2 weeks. A list of recommendations was generated. Once the final list of changes was approved, HashedIn began implementation of CI, feature branches in SVN and other minor process tweaks. Jenkins was implemented for continuous deployment and integration. We worked with their tech team to orient them to the new process and documentation.

HashedIn helped them in implementing processes like a content roll from stage to the production environment and continuous integration for their customized CMS. Technology-driven recommendations were offered that enabled faster time to market and higher performance.

Solution Approach

Solution Dynamics and Interactions

The Overall solution had 3 components - Improving their deployment strategy, optimizing the operational efficiency of the marketing team to create new pages in their CMS and changes to development template that would eventually reduce the time to market for the new pages/features.

We also implemented few automated tools like Jenkins for CI/CD process and New Relic for advanced monitoring(note that this was done in 2015) of their AWS setup. We migrated their infrastructure from local setups to new EC2 servers in AWS.

For technical team, we engineered their release process to make it faster and efficient. For marketing team, we introduced processes that would increase their turn around time to update and create new pages.

For 3 different components, we had to find a list of inter-operable stack for a smooth migration. Here are few considerations while finalizing the tech stack.

Deployment

We analyzed their deployment strategy and created a detailed report on how their internal deployment process could be improved. To begin, we started analyzing the performance of a sample deployment which took ~90 mins; many manual steps were involved. Even at the end of it, the web servers had to be manually restarted.

We introduced Jenkins and created few automated scripts for implementing CI/CD which brought down the process and manual dependency; thus reducing the time required to ~40 mins. We then deployed their app servers in a virtual server by creating an image and installed all required auth certs in that image. This ensured that the code is portable and there are manual punching in of password from deployment team for every development. This reduced the deployment process time to ~27 mins.

Marketing

We identified a ready to use template in their CMS. This template helped the marketing team in replicating the existing pages. The launch process for marketing reduced from a week to 4 hours.

Development

We created many reusable components, which could be reused by developers to create new templates. These components saved a cumulative effort in the creation of new pages, both from marketing and deployment team. This way, development team was only required when there was a new page design requirement.

Business Outcomes

FusionCharts standardized processes for their marketing and tech teams. HashedIn helped them build their deployment architecture and JIRA was proposed for tracking. This helped FusionCharts go to market faster and reduced their turnaround time from weeks to days.

1. Standardized all the processes for tech and marketing team2. We helped in building their deployment architecture3. Proposed Jira - To have more effective tracking of the system4. Implemented Jenkins - For continuous deployment and integration5. CMS - To do the A/B testing. Created templates/pages for reusability

HashedIn has helped many promising firms across the globe by building customized solutions to give the users a completely hassle-free experience. Kindly let us know if you

have any specific problem/use case, where we can provide more information or consult you.

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