Success Story
Canadian Black Book Case Study (Backup)
Backend, middle tier, front end, mobile (iOS & Android), security and monitoring from architecture throughout implementation.
Success Story
Backend, middle tier, front end, mobile (iOS & Android), security and monitoring from architecture throughout implementation.
Canadian Black Book (CBB)
A Subsidiary of Hearst Business Media Corporation
Automotive Industry
50 to 500
Toronto, Ontario
Full Digital Transformation
• Microservices
• DevOps
• Machine Learning
• CBB Connect: 219,000 users yearly
• CBB Connect: 30,000 Vehicle searches a day
• CBB Connect: 10,950,000 Vehicle searches yearly
The auto industry is evolving. How vehicles are bought, sold and financed is also changing. One constant: the industry and its various markets continue to trust Canadian Black Book insight and its innovative delivery systems to make the right business decisions faster.
Today, Canadian Black Book is a division of the Hearst Business Media Corporation who boast 360 corporations under their wing. Their line-up of innovative products and services includes new and used vehicle value services, custom data licensing solutions, as well as lender origination and risk analysis.
CBB had outdate software & hardware solution that was not compatible to cloud native digitally transformed evolution of technology in the current world.
As a leader in the automotive data collection and distribution industry it was crucial that they were able to internally and externally communicate at the current pace of business. As every company is now a technology company.
Translucent through our partnership model has been able to work with the various moving parts of the complex CBB applications; backend, middle tier, front end, mobile (iOS & Android), security and monitoring to be a major partner from architecture throughout implementation.
CBB Connect:
Web Application & CBB mobile application – IOS & Android:
What is CBB Connect?
Bar Code Scanner of the V.I.N. # of vehicles.
The application allows the user to search the vehicles by scanning a VIN or enter it manually.
Three ways to enter V.I.N.:
• Specialized keyboard
• Scanner
• Drop down menu
CBB Evaluation based on parameters such as mileage, year, model, make, and other key indicators.
CBB Estimator:
Web Application – responsive design
CBB Estimator allows consumers to enter their current vehicle year, make, model, mileage and the new car they would want from the dealer in order to get a trade in value when they purchase their new car.
This is a good tool for the consumer and an excellent tool for the company to drive business and close on very qualified leads.
Technologies used to create a Total Digital Transformation:
Microservices:
Built distributed systems tailored to CBB’s operations and product offerings to transform their old legacy applications.
Microservices allows for pivot and scalability while minimally affecting day to day operations. Consistently upgrading based on user feedback to keep CBB an industry leader in today’s competitive landscape of a digitally transformed world.
DevOps:
TEKStack™:
Translucent has a years of experience in the build pipeline and has created multiple tools under the TEKStackTM umbrella for CI / CD that maximizes effectiveness and efficiency to help your technology mimic your business operations.
Kubernetes cluster (EKS -AWS) running Dockerized containers designed in multiple languages and tools: Java, Spring, Angular, Node JS, databases MySql & ElasticSearch, HazelCast (cache solution), RabbitMQ (messaging bus), Nginx (API Gateway & reverse Proxy)
Monitoring:
Prometheus is used to collect metrics data from the Kubernetes cluster and the Microservices, as well as APM Application Performance Metrics.
ElasticSearch: To aggregate the logs from the cluster and the Microservices
Grafana: To create dashboards to visualize and display from Prometheus
Kabana: To create dashboards and visualizations for ElasticSearch
Sentry: Error tracking software to find exceptions in Microservices and Alert
Machine Learning: The applications and systems have been Optimized for machine learning. The ability to implement automated DevOps pipeline, Security, Monitoring and Alerts to true AIOps is available.
Letter of Reference | Mike Compton CTO, Canadian Black Book
When I arrived at Canadian Black Book as the new CTO one of my priorities was to come up-to-speed on all the projects that were underway and learn more about the third-party technology companies being leveraged. On the product development front, I learned that a company named Translucent Computing was under contract to provide their software development services in redeveloping the core mobile and web-based products.
The more I learned the more I realized that we had been fortunate to find a technology of their caliber. The architectures and technologies that I was brought in to implement were already being integrated and deployed by Translucent. Specifically, all the new products were built on a strong foundation using the AWS cloud, terraform for infrastructure deployment, Kubernetes for cluster monitoring and scaling, app containerization using Docker, and a strong dose of DevOps to ensure the pipeline was automated.
A lot of technology vendors claim to have expertise with these technologies, but those boasts aren’t always a reality. You need to hire great engineers that work well with clients and that, in a nutshell, is what Translucent Computing has brought to Canadian Black Book.
Mike Compton, CTO, Canadian Black Book
A division of the Hearst Business Media Corporation