KSA-based FinTech startup
Who
KSA-based FinTech startup, aiming for outstanding rapid development and steadfast reliability in application operations, sought to revolutionize its digital services.
When
In 2023, following a successful funding round, the startup was poised to establish an internal development team to expedite new feature releases and enhance service delivery.
What
The mission was to streamline and optimize the project into a cohesive, high-performing cloud infrastructure, ensuring adherence to local regulatory standards.
Story of transformation
When ITSyndicate embarked on this journey with the KSA-based FinTech startup, we were met with a scenario far from ideal: the project had been initially set up by developers, not cloud engineers. This common oversight meant that the application was functional and needed to be optimized for performance, security, and compliance. The app services were scattered across different hosting providers, leading to disjointed operations and a complete disregard for the region’s stringent regulatory requirements.
Understanding the critical nature of financial services, we recognized the immediate need for a strategic overhaul. Our approach was twofold: first, to consolidate the disparate services into a cohesive, regulated framework, and second, to implement best practices to pave the way for rapid and secure development.
Our team swiftly moved into action, leveraging our cloud architecture and DevOps methodologies expertise. We transitioned the startup's infrastructure to the Google Cloud Platform (GCP), specifically utilizing the newly launched me-central2 region in Dammam to ensure compliance with local regulations. This move centralized the application services and significantly improved performance and security.
But we didn’t stop there. Recognizing the importance of agility and efficiency in FinTech, we introduced automated CI/CD pipelines, enabling the seamless transition from development to deployment. This automation was complemented by implementing robust monitoring solutions, ensuring that any potential issues could be identified and addressed swiftly, minimizing downtime, and maintaining the trust of the startup's clients.
The transformation was profound. Within a short span, the project was not just back on track but was now on the rails of rapid development and innovation. We instilled a culture of continuous improvement, where automation, monitoring, and best practices became the norm, not the exception.
Project roadmap
Q3 of 2023
Foundation and migration
Initiated audit and planning, designed cloud architecture, began service migration to GCP, and optimized CI/CD for security and compliance.Q4 of 2023
Automation and monitoring
Enhanced automation, implemented comprehensive monitoring, refined infrastructure for scalability, and strengthened security measures.Q1 of 2024
Integration and optimization
Integrated advanced features, expanded CI/CD pipelines, optimized performance, and conducted extensive staff training on best practices.Ongoing
Continuous improvement and support
Maintain, update, and improve cloud infrastructure to meet evolving needs, focusing on security, innovation, and optimized operations.Challenges
Scattered microservices
Services were dispersed across different providers, causing inefficiency and regulatory issues.
Limited cloud options
The KSA region had scarce cloud provider options that met local compliance and technical needs.
Infrastructure maturity
The client’s processes and infrastructure lacked maturity, impacting development and deployment efficiency.
Our tech solution
We devised a scalable, manageable cloud architecture, ensuring seamless operation and accommodating future expansion, aligning with the startup's long-term growth ambitions.
We seamlessly transitioned all services to the Google Cloud Platform, centralizing operations within a compliant, secure, and high-performance environment, thus overcoming previous limitations and enhancing overall efficiency.
By establishing automated CI/CD pipelines, we accelerated the development lifecycle, enabling quicker feature releases and minimizing human errors, thus significantly speeding up time-to-market for new functionalities.
We implemented a comprehensive monitoring framework using GCP’s advanced solutions, providing real-time operational insights and enabling proactive issue management, which has been critical in maintaining operational integrity and availability.
Leveraging Terragrunt, we describe the infrastructure with code, ensuring consistent, reliable, and error-free deployments, simplifying management, and facilitating seamless environment updates.
