Background
Credora offers real-time credit assessments and analytics, providing technology-driven credit ratings to improve efficiency in private credit markets. The platform utilizes AI-enabled automation for accurate credit assessments and facilitates access to capital through its network of distribution partners and lenders. Credora aims to enhance transparency and efficiency in credit markets with comprehensive credit reports and privacy-preserving technology.
As Credora expanded, it needed to upgrade its DevOps pipeline to solve for scalability, cost and institutional grade processes.
Challenges
- Scalability: As Credora’s user base and transactions increased, the DevOps infrastructure needed to keep up pace with that growth.
- Costs: Credora’s sophisticated architecture and technical needs meant that without careful resource management, costs would become prohibitive.
- DevOps Pipeline: Their institutional grade client base required processes that would be solved with a comprehensive DevOps pipeline.
- Monitoring and Logging: Credora required a robust monitoring, alerting, and logging mechanisms to ensure timely resolution.
- Security: Credora’s focus on data privacy meant leveraging Intel SGX ensuring the DevOps infrastructure had to be of the highest standard to maintain system integrity.
Objectives
- Implementation of Azure AKS: Leverage Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) for optimal scalability and resource management.
- Cost Reduction: Implement an optimized infrastructure for predictable and reduced operational costs.
- DevOps Pipeline Implementation: Ensure a complete DevOps pipeline to streamline CI/CD processes.
- Enhanced Monitoring and Logging: Implement advanced monitoring, alerting, and logging solutions to ensure real-time visibility and issue resolution.
- Security: Implement custom secure Kubernetes operators and CI/CD pipelines for managing privacy preserving architecture.
Solution
Migration to Azure AKS
- Planning and Assessment: Conducted a thorough assessment of the existing infrastructure and identified a sustainable path forward.
- Infrastructure: Setup scalable infrastructure using Infrastructure as Code (Terraform).
- Containerization: Ensured all applications were containerized to guarantee flexibility and maintainability.
- AKS Setup: Leveraged AKS clusters to guarantee institutional grade security with configurability.
- Data Storage: Ensured sensitive data was warehoused in secure and stable environments with failover and risk mitigation built in.
- Testing: Built rigorous testing infrastructure to ensure any new applications can be seamlessly released to production.
Cost Reduction
- Resource Optimization: Utilized Azure’s cost management tools to optimize resource usage, including right sizing VMs and using reserved instances.
- Auto-scaling: Implemented auto-scaling in AKS to dynamically adjust resources based on demand, thus avoiding over-provisioning.
- Cost Monitoring: Set up cost monitoring and alerting to keep track of expenditures and identify opportunities for further savings.
DevOps Pipeline Implementation
- CI/CD Tools: Integrated tools such as Jenkins, and GitHub Actions to create a robust CI/CD pipeline.
- Automation: Automated build, test, and deployment processes to ensure quick and reliable releases.
- Version Control: Implemented version control best practices, ensuring all code changes.
- Security: Integrated security checks into the pipeline to ensure compliance and reduce vulnerabilities.
Enhanced Monitoring and Logging
- Monitoring Tools: Implemented comprehensive infrastructure for application monitoring.
- Logging: Implemented detailed logging for quick issue diagnosis.
- Alerting: Set up proactive alerting mechanisms to spot anomalies or issues in real-time.
- Dashboards: Created detailed dashboards to visualize key metrics and KPIs, providing the team with actionable insights.
Security
- Implemented robust institutional grade infrastructure guaranteeing secure storage of client data and privacy preserving computation of real-time data.
Results
- Improved Scalability: Provided Credora with a scalable and flexible infrastructure capable of handling increased user demand without performance degradation.
- Cost Savings: Optimising resource usage and leveraging Azure’s cost management features led to a significant reduction in operational costs.
- Streamlined DevOps Processes: The new DevOps pipeline reduced the time required for development, testing, and deployment, enabling faster time-to-market for new features.
- Enhanced Monitoring and Logging: Improved monitoring, alerting, and logging capabilities allowed for quicker identification and resolution of issues, leading to higher system reliability and uptime.
- Security on the highest level: Institutional grade secure setup of privacy preserving architecture, ensuring data privacy for clients even if an attacker was to have access to the underlying infrastructure.
Conclusion
The DevOps implementation at Credora, resulted in a scalable, cost-effective, and efficient infrastructure. The creation of a complete DevOps pipeline and advanced monitoring solutions significantly enhanced the company’s operational capabilities, enabling it to continue its growth trajectory with confidence.