Services: Cloudification

Next generation cloud-based asset management

With about 475 employees at locations in Germany, Belgium, France, Italy, the Netherlands and Switzerland, the vwd group (today part of Infront) is an internationally active collection of companies with strong roots in the local financial markets.

The vwd group offers customized information, communication and technology solutions for financial services providers, companies, media operations and private clients.

xitee was building the next-generation cloud-based asset management solution, which replaced the current desktop application (VWD Portfolio manager). The vwd portfolio manager is the perfect portfolio management solution for Private Banking and Wealth Management. The system supports all process steps in portfolio management, from planning through implementation to controlling. It gives the user the benefits of a standard software solution which can be scaled to the needs of the user as required very flexibly, quickly, and cost effectively.

The new platform fully adopts microservice architecture and is part of a larger ecosystem where it also collaborates with numerous other microservices that make it easier for the users to interact with their customers in compliance with regulatory requirements.

xitee was responsible for development of both back-end and front-end part of the system. The back-end team oversees building Position, Transaction, Risk and Performance services which provide data from various existing systems to new web-based front-end.

And the front-end team was building brand new Angular Dashboard & Widget based application to display various information useful for individual investors.

Technologies: Java, Spring Boot, Hibernate, Swagger, Gradle, Docker, CockroachDB, Flyway, Prometheus, Asciidoc, Angular, PrimeNG, RxJS, Highcharts, Sass.

PropTech B2B platform

Reesca AG is our PropTech client with an innovative B2B market place for commercial real estate finance and adjacent services. Large supply of high-quality projects and high demand for professional investors meet there. It is the future of commercial real estate financing.

We are talking about a concept that did not exist in the market for commercial real estate financing and transactions. xitee developed this technology-based B2B platform and Reesca now can be digital, fast and efficient. It is a disruptive PropTech with a distinctive USP and well justified monetisation model, reaping the benefits of a PaaS business model. The goal was to provide proprietary software which offers a wide range of functionalities to support borrowing and lending clients. Real estate developers present their projects to investors who seek opportunity for a good investment.  For both client groups, there are unprecedented benefits that go beyond the obvious advantage of a quick borrower/investor matching. The right match of a project and investor is guaranteed through match engine. Reesca’s mission is to minimize transaction costs, speed up processing times and increase market transparency for investors and developers/owners alike.

Platform use Azure AD B2C for Identity and access management, .Net for backend, Angular for frontend and Ionic for cross-platform mobile development. Application consists of many complex workflows, search engine and user screens for 5 different roles. 

Technologies:

Backend: .NET 5, Entity Framework, MsTest, Automaper, Swashbuckle, Moq, Swagger

Web/Mobile: Angular 11, Material library, Karma, Jasmine, Figma, Anima, Ionic 5

Other: Azure (Azure SQL Databaes, Azure Blob Storage, Azure AD B2C with Custom Policies,..), Multitenancy, Docker, Zabbix, FluentEmail

Quality assurance

There are six foundation blocks (Version control, Continuous integration, Issue tracking, Unit tests, Reviews, Code analysis) that ensure the quality of the software and therefore of the product itself. Various synergies between the specific parts enable transparency and maintainability. At the same time these components work as a toolkit for every single software developer.

Through the usage of a version control, each modification of the code is comprehensibly documented, and each version can be restored at any time. This grants flexibility to the development and allows a precise analysis of all arising errors of the software.  

The use of a continuous integration (CI) system allows a controlled compiling of new software versions as well as continuous reporting for the developers regarding any arising errors during the compilation. Additionally, automatically elicited key figures, which display the state of the product, can be generated and reported. Features and bugs, as well as milestones and project tasks, are managed through the Issue tracking system (JIRA and / or Confluence). This creates traceable and transparent development from requirement analysis to delivery and allows the creation of relationships between individual tasks or features. 

The Interaction between these three systems (Version Control, CI, Issue Tracker) as well as the interaction of the developers with them provides additional benefits, which increase the quality of the products even more. Any changes only need to be documented once, since the version control, issue tracking and CI systems automatically transfer the modifications. Because of this automatic transfer to the Issue Tracking System, every change is assigned uniquely to one requirement, which provides complete traceability to each action. The developer gains quick feedback through the CI System, since each change in code automatically generates a new software-version.

The usage of Unit-Tests and the integration of these tests into the CI System allows a quick identification and debugging of errors, even while the software is still in development.  

Additional to this, reviews ensure that at least two people view and test the code before a component is cleared for further testing.

IoT solutions

Internet of Things is more and more often being used in various fields and sectors and is becoming an essential part of our lives. It also brings numerous benefits such as costs saving, increasing effectivity or adding value to existing products and services. Thanks to the IoT, we can easily collect real-time data without having numerous people involved. IoT solutions save your time and money in a long term and help “normal” physical objects become digital devices.

The concept of IoT is very simple – it is basically taking physical objects and making them “smart” by connecting them to the internet by sensors. Once the device is connected to the internet, it can receive or send information (or do both). This can be done with different objects in various fields. We have experience with IoT projects in various sectors, such as the healthcare sector (e.g. to monitor and control medical devices and ensure its future service and maintenance) or in real estate (for example for room occupancy measurement).

The foundation of the IoT architecture consists of:

  • “Things”: objects which are connected to the Internet and monitor and gather information about their environment. They send the information to the IoT gateways.
  • IoT data acquisition systems and gateways: collect the unprocessed data, convert them into digital streams, filter and pre-process them so that they are ready for analysis.
  • Edge devices: in charge of further processing and enhanced analysis of data.
  • Data centers: data is transferred, stored, managed and further analyzed here. The centers can be either cloud-based or installed locally. This is where the data is stored, managed and analyzed in depth for actionable insights.

Our team has know-how and experience in developing and designing tailor-made IoT solutions perfectly fitting to your needs. Discover the world of IoT with us and transform your products and services to another level!

Cloudification

Introduction 

Cloud computing, simply put, is the delivery of computing services. That includes servers, storage, databases, networking, software, analytics, and intelligence over the Internet (“the cloud”) with a clear goal of enabling faster innovation, more flexible usage of resources and economies of scale. You typically pay only for the cloud services you use, which consequently helps to decrease operating costs, helps to run the infrastructure more efficiently, and scale according to the current needs of your business. Another benefit of cloud is low requirements for pre-investment (it is not necessary to invest in the purchase of HW at the beginning of the project, but it is spread over time).

We provide our customers with cloud consulting services, cloud infrastructure services, cloud application development and cloud application migration services. On top of that we are active in the field of IoT (Internet of Things).

Our cloud migration service can help you move towards digital business operations in the cloud. Migrating your in-house servers including services & applications running on them to the cloud can provide you with several cutting-edge advantages for your business. It is however very crucial to perform the transition properly and according to the specific requirements. As every business has different needs, we also follow a slightly different process for each individual cloud migration.With our cloud-native development, we help you to build and run applications that fully exploit all advantages of the cloud computing model. Our cloud-native computing service uses: open-source software stack to be containerized, dynamically orchestrated and microservices-oriented.

Cloud consulting

Adoption of cloud computing can help you to reduce operational expenses, boost innovation, unlock new possibilities, and realize your strategic IT objectives.

Our cloud consulting service starts with understanding of your current technology landscape, business challenges and goals. We know that our clients have unique needs and are at different levels of maturity on their cloud journey. Therefore we are providing a tailored set of cloud consulting services which support you through your decision-making process and help you to accomplish your business objectives.

Based on the level of the cloud adaption in your company, we can provide following expertise:

Cloud adaption: we ensure that your first steps into public cloud are efficient, smooth and secure. Our experts will help you build a resilient cloud platform.

Migration Assessment: The destination platform could be a public or private cloud infrastructure. We help you to assess the suitability of on-premises machines for migration to cloud. We provide you with correct sizing of VMs (virtual machines) and cost estimates for running infrastructure.

Cloud Optimization: We analyze your cloud infrastructure, detect under- and over-provisioned instances and idle resources, and identify security gaps to remove performance bottlenecks and lower your cloud computing costs.

Cloud strategy: It’s no longer about looking at one application or a specific part of the business, but how to transform your whole company, help it to to develop faster and be more efficient than the competition.

Cloud migration

Our cloud migration service can help you move towards digital business operations in the cloud. Migrating your in-house servers including services & applications running on them to the cloud can provide you with several cutting-edge advantages for your business. It is however very crucial to perform the transition properly and according to the specific requirements. As every business has different needs, we also follow a slightly different process for each individual cloud migration.

Before the cloud migration begins, it is important to establish its goals. The migration goals are individual for every company. For one company it could be an increase of the performance of an application or enabling new services. Other company might expect cost savings or relieving the IT department from application support duties.

The other important concern when establishing cloud migration goals is to agree when the old infrastructure has to be terminated.

After migration goals are agreed on, the company focuses on creating a security strategy. The ultimate objectives for a security of the organization don’t change with the introduction/implementation of cloud services, but the way how those objectives will be achieved is going to be modified. Security teams must still focus on reducing business risk from attacks and focus on getting the confidentiality, integrity, and availability assurances built into all information systems and data. Cloud cybersecurity requires a different approach compared to the on-premises security. In the cloud environment, corporate assets are no longer protected by an on-premise firewall, and the network perimeter basically does not exist.

When a company becomes confident with security assurances, it is time to choose a suitable cloud provider and to copy the data over. This should be done continually throughout the migration process so that the cloud data remains up-to-date. There are many tools which support migration of complete servers as well as the individual databases.

The most complex part of the process is then moving the company application including their business intelligence. This part might involve refactoring or rewriting the code.

After a proper testing and verification, the last step of the process is to switch the production from on-premise to the cloud.

Cloud-native development

With our cloud-native development, we help you to build and run applications that fully exploit all advantages of the cloud computing model

Our cloud native computing uses an open-source software stack to be:

  • Containerized: every part (applications, processes, etc.) is packaged in its separate container. This eases the reproducibility, transparency, and resource isolation.
  • Dynamically orchestrated: containers are actively scheduled and managed to optimize resource utilization.
  • Microservices-oriented: segmentation of the applications into microservices, which greatly increases the overall agility and maintainability of applications.

Among the main advantages of cloud native development belong: 

  • avoiding high initial costs with pay-as-you-go model. No initial infrastructure investment needed
  • reducing the time-to-market with optimized infrastructure setup, CI/CD delivery & deployment
  • innovative technology – cloud application platforms are exposed to the latest technology, such as big data, AI (artificial intelligence), IoT (Internet of Things), etc.
  • global scale – ability to scale elastically according to the needs. Start small but be ready to grow big
  • ensuring high availability & reliability – cloud computing makes data backup, disaster recovery and business continuity easier and less expensive

The main challenges for organizations connected to the cloud native development are:

  • optimization of the infrastructure costs
  • selection of the perfect technology cloud set-up
  •  the need of building of DevOps culture

Cloudification

Cloud computing, simply put, is the delivery of computing services. That includes servers, storage, databases, networking, software, analytics, and intelligence over the Internet (“the cloud”) with a clear goal of enabling faster innovation, more flexible usage of resources and economies of scale.  You typically pay only for the cloud services you use, which consequently helps to decrease operating costs, helps to run the infrastructure more efficiently, and scale according to the current needs of your business. Another benefit of cloud is low requirements for pre-investment (it is not necessary to invest in the purchase of HW at the beginning of the project, but it is spread over time).

We provide our customers with cloud consulting services, cloud infrastructure services, cloud application development and cloud migration services. On top of that we are active in the field of IoT (Internet of Things).

Our cloud migration service can help you move towards digital business operations in the cloud. Migrating your in-house servers including services & applications running on them to the cloud can provide you with several cutting-edge advantages for your business. It is however very crucial to perform the transition properly and according to the specific requirements. As every business has different needs, we also follow a slightly different process for each individual cloud migration.With our cloud-native development, we help you to build and run applications that fully exploit all advantages of the cloud computing model. Our cloud-native computing service uses: open-source software stack to be containerized, dynamically orchestrated and microservices-oriented.

Cloud computing

Cloud computing, simply put, is the delivery of computing services. That includes servers, storage, databases, networking, software, analytics, and intelligence over the Internet (“the cloud”) with a clear goal of enabling faster innovation, more flexible usage of resources and economies of scale. You typically pay only for the cloud services you use, which consequently helps to decrease operating costs, helps to run the infrastructure more efficiently, and scale according to the current needs of your business.

There are three main service models of cloud computing – often visualized in a pyramid where each level of the service model is more specialized than the one before, but it is built on the same basic structure. The one at the bottom (IaaS) is more versatile and customizable fitting to many applications, the one at the top (SaaS) is more specialized and fitting to specific tasks.

  • Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)  is similar to traditional computer hardware (servers, networks, operating systems), but instead of buying the physical hardware, company can purchase the infrastructure as a virtual service through an IaaS provider. These resources are usually easy to scale and offer the customer a complete control over the infrastructure. Examples of IaaS include Amazon Web Services and Google Compute Engine.
  • Platform as a Service (PaaS) stands for a platform allowing companies to develop, run, and manage solutions without the complexity of building and maintaining the infrastructure that is typically connected with developing and launching an app. Developers can therefore focus on the software without having to manage operating systems, software updates, and other infrastructure matters. PaaS examples include Microsoft Azure, the Google App Engine.
  • Software as a Service (SaaS) represents a complete software solution which you purchase on a pay-as-you-go basis from a cloud service provider. Put simply, you rent the use of the particular solution for your organization. Instead of having to install the solution, the users can connect to it over the Internet, usually with a web browser. All of the underlying infrastructure, middleware, app software, and app data are located in the service provider’s data center. The service provider manages the hardware and software, and ensures the availability and security of the app and your data. Examples of SaaS include Salesforce, Microsoft Office 365 and Google G Suite.

Today, the basic division is often enhanced by a fourth dimension – FaaS, going even more specific.

  • Function as a Service (FaaS) allows customers to execute code responsively without having to allocate processing resources ahead of time.  It enables the customers to develop, to run and to manage application functionalities without the need to build and maintain complex infrastructures. This way of app development is often used when building microservices applications and it enables the achievement of the so-called serverless architecture. FaaS examples are AWS Lambdas, Azure Functions.

Another way to divide cloud computing is based on the deployment model.

Cloud deployment describes where the infrastructure for the deployment is hosted and who has access and control to it. There are four deployment models:

  • Private cloud – an exclusive cloud for the organization, can be on-premise but also off premise
  • Public cloud – cloud infrastructure is available to the general public and it is owned by the company selling cloud services
  • Community cloud – the cloud infrastructure is shared by several organizations and supports a specific community that has shared concerns
  • Hybrid cloud – the cloud infrastructure is a composition of two or more clouds (private, community, or public)

This division of clouds defines also the deployment strategy used.

We provide our customers with cloud consulting services, cloud infrastructure services, cloud application development and cloud application migration services. On top of that we are active in the field of IoT (Internet of Things).

Our cloud migration service can help you move towards digital business operations in the cloud. Migrating your in-house servers including services & applications running on them to the cloud can provide you with several cutting-edge advantages for your business. It is however very crucial to perform the transition properly and according to the specific requirements. As every business has different needs, we also follow a slightly different process for each individual cloud migration. With our cloud-native development, we help you to build and run applications that fully exploit all advantages of the cloud computing model. Our cloud-native computing service uses: open-source software stack to be containerized, dynamically orchestrated and microservices-oriented.