Part of the Orange Group

Raiffeisen Bank

Microservice platform for Raiffeisen Bank Croatia

In 2018, the Croatian branch of Raiffeisen Bank began a digitization program, to better prepare the Bank to respond to changes that we observed in the financial services market and customer behavior. BlueSoft has become the Bank’s key partner in this transformation by providing the StarBoost platform, which became a technological enabler for the Bank’s business.

Microservice platform for Raiffeisen Bank Croatia

Challenge

Do the tight schedule of the project and some space for refining the requirements sound familiar to you? In addition to standard project challenges, in this case, overcoming the cultural difference (hey, really, what difference? :)) and building trust and good cooperation with the client by doing most of the work remotely were essential factors. The fact that this was the first project carried out with Raiffeisenbank Hrvatska and a project of strategic importance motivated us even more.

The biggest challenge of the project, apart from purely technical and project-related matters, was the expectation that it would enable greater organizational changes, such as improving the cooperation of Dev and Ops teams, increasing IT flexibility and efficiency, or shortening Time To Market. This would not be possible without understanding the full picture of the situation and the strong support that the project has gained not only among management but also at lower levels of the organization.

From the start our approach focused on shifting the experience that our engineers gained in other projects, including those related to digital transformations. Besides, from the very beginning of the cooperation, we focused on fully open communication and high visibility and transparency of our work so that we could quickly build a partner relationship and receive feedback.

Main benefits

  • Flexible and open architecture allowing quick implementation of the business solutions
  • Shortening the TTM (Time To Market) for business services deployed on the StarBoost platform
  • Cost optimization by using Open Source technology in place of commercial enterprise-class solutions
  • Improved cooperation between development teams and a bank’s division thanks to the implementation of DevOps practices
  • Stability and security of the solution confirmed by external audits
  • Attractive workplace – the Bank, as a technology company, using popular, commonly known technologies and coupling it with a modern approach to software delivery.

Solution

3 months timeframe

SOLUTION 1

3 months timeframe

we managed to deliver the platform within

7 Software and DevOps

Solution 2

7 Software and DevOps

engineers involved in delivery of the platform

30+OpenSource

Solution 3

30+OpenSource

technologies pre-configured and documented on 1300+ pages on the confluence

35+ templates

Solution 4

35+ templates

playbooks, dashboards, automated scripts

20+ micro-services

Solution 5

20+ micro-services

are running in the production environment with more than 10 deployments monthly after one year of the digital journey

The StarBoost platform was our response to the bank’s needs. It was an integration of several Open Source technologies to finally provide a coherent work environment for developers and allow us to deploy microservices written by them.

To save time, OpenShift was selected as the core of the platform, which provided some basic out-of-the-box functionalities related to container scheduling and orchestration. There was no necessity to provide a new code repository as we integrated with GitLab, which was already fully functioning on the Bank. CI / CD processes were based on Jenkins.

We decided to employ the Elasticsearch – Fluentd – Kibana stack to provide centralized logging capabilities. Grafana was used to create dashboards to help monitor the platform itself and the services running on it. Zipkin provided us with tracing capabilities, super-important when it comes to the real-life experience with micro-service architecture. The configuration of platform components is managed by the Ansible playbooks and Terraform lets us automate the processes related to infrastructure management.

After passing the security audit and deploying on the production environment, the platform was transferred to further development and maintenance on the client-side. New building blocks of the platform were introduced as a part of subsequent projects using the StarBoost. This includes such solutions as the framework for implementing front-office and back-office functionalities, Camunda-based processes engine, and the rules engine using Drools, to name a few.

This, in general, puts the Bank on the continuous improvement path in regard to building its capabilities not limited to selected technology or vendor. The sum of all components of the platform gives IT the right set of the tools that are necessary to meet the requirements of the Bank’s business flexibly and agilely.

Technologies we used

With our broad expertise, extensive experience, and 800 highly qualified engineers, we are your one-stop shop for all your IT needs. By choosing BlueSoft you profit from the latest technologies tailored to your business, giving your enterprise an opportunity to surpass the competition.

OpenShift
Ansible
Terraform
Gitlab
Jenkins
Kafka
Flink
Elastic
Fluentd
Zipkin
Prometheus
Grafana
KeyCloak
PostgreSQL
Redis

Result

By implementing the StarBoost platform, the Bank obtained technical possibilities to carry out a digital transformation program. Immediately after the platform was implemented, the first team began to develop business services, thus allowing quick verification and confirmation of assumptions and expectations. The project to implement the new mobile application was the first to consume new technologies and a new way of developing the software.

The implementation of DevOps tools and changes made in the organization of work and teams have contributed to the improvement of cooperation between development teams and the operational team. So not only technologies have changed but, above all, the organization itself.

Within a year of implementing the platform, development teams managed to close over 400 business stories, which translates into more than 20 microservices running in a production environment. On average, the Bank performs more than 10 deployments monthly, which is evidence that the goal of shortening the time to market has been achieved.

At the same time, the Bank is not dependent in any way on the selected technology or vendor, which confirms our fair approach to building a long-term partnership with our customers.

Client's view

Enkelejd Zotaj

Executive Director of IT, Raiffeisen Bank Croatia

The StarBoost platform delivered by BlueSoft became an enabler for making digital transformation happen. It allowed the Bank to apply modern architectural patterns and obtain the optimization of operating costs by employing open-source technologies. A project of delivering a platform lasted 3 months and, immediately after its completion, the process of developing and delivering business services written in a microservices architecture began. Given the quality of the solutions provided, experience, knowledge, and the means of sharing it with our employees, we recognize BlueSoft as a key partner in the process of a digital transformation.

Other Projects

Raiffeisen Bank
Raiffeisen Polbank Deployment Of NFC HCE Application Mobile Wallet
Banking and Financial Services

Raiffeisen Polbank Deployment Of NFC HCE Application Mobile Wallet

BlueSoft developed and deployed the Mobile Wallet app which provides mobile phone payments using NFC HCE technology.
Trans.eu
Microservices-based integration platform for trans.eu
Logistics & Transportation

Microservices-based integration platform for trans.eu

A scalable microservices-based integration platform in a cloud environment for handling large numbers of requests.
Raiffeisen Bank
NFC HCE application Mobile Wallet
Banking and Financial Services

NFC HCE application Mobile Wallet

BlueSoft developed and deployed the Mobile Wallet app which provides mobile phone payments using NFC HCE technology.

What Can We Do For Your Business?

Contact Us!
×