JoinData
New infrastructure from JoinData offers farmers and partners even more stability, security and speed
Challenge
A fast, secure new data platform solution with minimal impact on users
Target Audience
JoinData’s customers
Result
A revamped data infrastructure in which old data streams can be facilitated significantly faster and more stably
Who is allowed to see and request which data?
The Dutch agricultural sector has to deal with all kinds of agencies, from the government to feed companies to colleagues, who are interested in its data. On the platform of the independent cooperative JoinData, farmers and data providers can see who is using their data and manage and adjust permissions. This way the data is more secure, privacy is ensured and no one can use data for purposes the farmer does not agree with. Farmers can manage and adjust their permissions without having to constantly log in everywhere.
"We wanted to build a new system where the impact for customers was as low as possible, but which could provide a more stable and therefore more reliable service."Sener Celik, JoinData's director
To a new system
For some of the information flows, JoinData had an older system that no longer met its needs. There were outages and delays. There was a need for a fast, secure, scalable solution where JoinData developers could focus primarily on new functionality for farmers and partners.
Focusing on functionality
The Info Support team first replaced one of the systems and migrated it to a standardized management environment. “Given JoinData’s requirements, we saw a nice match with our platform MCPS (Managed Cloud Platform Services),” says Mark Streutker, IT architect at Info Support. “This is the technical layer on which JoinData itself can very easily develop functionality. One advantage is that it runs entirely in Microsoft Azure. It already offers a completely thought-out concept, so we quickly got up to speed to transfer the other systems as well.”
“Migrating from an older data distribution system to a newer system is complex and has a lot of impact. Thanks to the phased and incremental approach, we were able to avoid the negative impact as much as possible."Mark Streutker, IT architect at Info Support
Phased approach
JoinData and Info Support opted for an incremental, phased approach, with new components being delivered each time. Mark Streutker: “As a result, the developers at JoinData can now focus primarily on the functionality of the platform. The approach is now clear to everyone, so new developers can also get on board quickly.”
Minimizing customer impact during a major migration
Mark Streutker continues: “Data flows are now much more stable and failures are virtually non-existent. That was not the case with the old system. We had to adjust continuously and this caused relatively many problems for customers. Over time, the old system had been expanded with all kinds of modifications, so we sometimes ran into surprises when transferring functionalities.” Coordinating with the various stakeholders was also a challenge. “We had to connect with about 250 JoinData suppliers so that they could hook up to the new system.”
"Info Support has a lot of domain knowledge and the project team was proactive from the beginning."Sener Celik, JoinData's director
Despite these challenges, the new system was successfully delivered, says Sener Celik. “Info Support has a lot of domain knowledge and the project team was proactive from the beginning. The cooperation between the Info Support team and JoinData went very well throughout the entire process. Together we have built a great new platform that allows the connected farmers and partners to use a very stable, secure and scalable platform. With this step, JoinData is ready to connect new sectors such as arable farming and horticulture to the platform.”