40-carrier supply-chain platform re-architected to microservices, eliminating downtime

Context

Modern supply chain software keeps logistics running without downtime or losses. Erbis built one for a logistics company in San Francisco, in what the client considered the biggest move in its expansion strategy.

Challenge

The client had been in the logistics business for a long time, providing software for carriers and their customers. Its supply chain application had been developed many years earlier and no longer met growing customer needs or competed with newer products on the market.

The client asked us to upgrade the logistics software: an application to manage the supply chain and deliveries in real time. High speed and reliability were the main requirements. The application also had to cope with heavy loads and work well with any number of logged-in users.

Pre-development

We started by studying the client’s business and the logistics market. Our business analyst worked on a product strategy and defined the product’s value and the customer problems it would solve.

In parallel, our technical specialists examined the product documentation, reviewed the code and analysed the IT infrastructure. They listed the current features and marked the functionality to be upgraded or built from scratch.

Before development began, we gave the client a product roadmap describing the tasks for the following six months with approximate deadlines.

Solution

Erbis worked on the project for two years with a six-person team: Project Manager, Front-end Developer, two Back-end Developers, UI/UX Designer and QA Engineer.

During development we:

• Shifted to a microservices architecture. This let us scale the product with business needs and deliver many tasks independently. Microservices gave high fault tolerance: if one service crashed, the rest kept working. The project also gained the flexibility to adopt new technologies without risking the whole system.
• Created REST APIs to migrate to a new front end. For example, the existing version had an API for creating, deleting and updating users. In the new admin panel we introduced a “User group” object to bulk-manage users grouped by a shared characteristic, and implemented new methods in a new REST API for it.
• Built new web forms that integrate into customer portals. One form lets customers calculate delivery cost from dispatch location, destination and package weight, compare carrier prices and choose the best option.
• Supported the existing platform while delivering new features to existing customers. A comprehensive software upgrade improved existing functionality and added features to meet growing customer needs.

End product

The supply chain management solution aggregates data from more than 40 US-based carriers. Its analytics tools help companies control shipping rates, negotiate better contracts and identify fraudulent activity.

Features:

• Personalized dashboards
• Real-time notifications
• Self-service portals
• Role-based authorization
• Price comparison
• Package tracking
• Delivery management

Architecture and tech stack

The monolithic Java application was decomposed into Java EE 7 microservices on AWS, backed by Oracle Database, with new REST APIs serving an Angular front end and customer-portal web forms.

• Java EE 7
• Angular
• AWS
• Oracle Database
• Microservices
• REST APIs

Results

The software is used by Fortune 500 companies to reduce costs and increase operational efficiency. It streamlines business processes, makes staff work easier and helps allocate resources rationally.

For our client, the modernization delivered:

• Elimination of downtime
• Effortless scalability
• Fewer calls to the support centre
• Growth in new customers
• Increased profit

What made it work

Erbis’s takeaways from this engagement:

• Roadmap before refactor. A six-month plan agreed up front kept a two-year re-architecture from drifting.
• Decompose for fault isolation first, scale second. The immediate win from microservices was that one failing service no longer took the platform down.
• Keep shipping while you rebuild. New features reached existing customers throughout, which is why the modernization grew the customer base instead of pausing it.
• Put rate comparison in the customer’s hands. Self-service forms that compare carrier prices give customers a reason to use the platform directly instead of calling support.