Case Studies

DEVINC helps organizations build and modernize applications to take advantage of the latest advancements in cloud, DevOps, data, and AI. We can help you improve performance, usability, security, and scalability while reducing costs and increasing agility.

The following projects were delivered by me in recent years. Let's launch your next project together.

Bert Johnson, DEVINC Principal Architect

SaaS Freight Application Improves Shipping Speed and Quality

Software Development & Application Modernization

An integrated supply chain consortium manages ocean and air freight across thousands of shippers, carriers, and brokers. Its legacy applications were poorly integrated, unable to scale, and offered a confusing user experience.

I designed and built a new SaaS portal to streamline end-to-end logistics and compliance. The one-stop platform natively integrates with third-party logistics (3PL) systems and government databases while offering a robust REST API for custom workflows. The platform centralizes data for better decisions while meeting sovereignty requirements via globally federated services in Alibaba Cloud and Azure.

Thanks to automation and an intuitive web UI, data entry and integration errors have been greatly reduced. The data cutover has been seamless, enabling shippers, consignees, and carriers to accelerate operations without interruption. The new platform has been praised for its performance, usability, and scalability.

SaaS Freight Application Overhaul

Technologies:

Go (Golang) Logo
Go
TypeScript Logo
TypeScript
React Logo
React
PostgreSQL Logo
PostgreSQL
Microsoft Azure Logo
Microsoft Azure
Alibaba Cloud Logo
Alibaba Cloud
Cloudflare Logo
Cloudflare
OpenTelemetry Logo
OpenTelemetry
GitHub Logo
GitHub
OpenTofu Logo
OpenTofu

Reimagined Dispatching Application Paves Way for Business Transformation

Application Modernization & IT Strategy

A leading national plumbing company needed to modernize its legacy dispatching application used by hundreds of CSRs for thousands of technicians. The application, built using RPG decades prior, had significant issues with usability, performance, and scalability. The company's revenue was limited by its ability to schedule technicians efficiently.

I led a team of developers to redesign, rearchitect, and rewrite the application using modern web technologies. A new responsive UI provided a single pane-of-glass view of the company's technicians, schedule, and tickets. Along the way, modern DevOps tooling, automation, and QA processes were introduced. The new application provided reusable APIs that pave the way for mainframe retirement. As a result of this project, we provided a roadmap for technology and business process improvements over the next five years.

I served as the program lead, contributing to architecture, full-stack development, and program management to deliver the project on time and on budget to widespread acclaim.

Dispatching Application Rebuild

Technologies:

C# Logo
C#
.NET Logo
.NET
TypeScript Logo
TypeScript
React Logo
React
SQL Server Logo
SQL Server
VMware Logo
VMware
Okta Logo
Okta
Datadog Logo
Datadog
Bamboo Logo
Bamboo
Snyk Logo
Snyk

State Multi-Cloud Brokerage Safeguards Assets and Saves Taxpayers Money

Cloud Migration & IT Strategy

State government was tasked with providing secure, cost-effective cloud services to dozens of agencies and hundreds of municipalities. I served as the principal architect, leading a team to develop a cloud adoption strategy encompassing governance, architecture, financial controls, security, and privacy. The strategy included a multi-cloud approach to leverage the strengths of Azure and AWS, with options for commercial and Government Cloud.

The team established a Cloud Center of Excellence to provide training, best practices, and shared services to agencies. The team also developed a Cloud Management Platform to streamline agency procurement of cloud services in a secure, cost-effective manner aided by automation. The program simplifies cloud onboarding, satisfies multiple regulatory requirements, and saves tax dollars through shared efficiencies.

In recent years, I have assisted state agencies with cloud product rationalization, architecture decisions, and migration of IaaS, PaaS, CaaS, and data workloads.

State Cloud Brokerage

Technologies:

Microsoft Azure Logo
Microsoft Azure
Amazon Web Services Logo
Amazon Web Services
Kubernetes Logo
Kubernetes
SQL Server Logo
SQL Server
Aviatrix Logo
Aviatrix
Datadog Logo
Datadog
Azure DevOps Logo
Azure DevOps
Terraform Logo
Terraform
ServiceNow Logo
ServiceNow

Continuous Integration, Testing, and Delivery of Secure Software

DevSecOps Automation & IT Strategy

One of the largest institutional banks needed to modernize its software development practices to improve security, compliance, quality, and agility. I served as a consultant to the CTO, leading a team to develop a DevSecOps strategy that would be adopted by all developers.

The strategy included a rationalized toolset, comprehensive CI/CT/CD pipelines, multiple forms of automated testing, quality assurance standards, and a shift-left approach to security. The team also developed a new governance model that allowed developers to move quickly while maintaining compliance with internal and external regulations.

In addition to DevSecOps, my team provided a multi-year roadmap for improvements spanning infrastructure, data, security, and IT service management.

Bank DevSecOps Strategy

Technologies:

Java Logo
Java
TypeScript Logo
TypeScript
VMware Logo
VMware
Kubernetes Logo
Kubernetes
SQL Server Logo
SQL Server
GitLab Logo
GitLab
Veracode Logo
Veracode

Accounting SaaS Platform Streamlines Tax Workflows

Software Development

I served as the chief architect and lead developer for a successful SaaS tax and accounting product. The software allows CPAs to manage their entire tax workflow in one platform, including data collection, analysis, workpaper generation, and e-signatures.

The software is cloud-native, built using Go, TypeScript, and React, with a Kubernetes microservices architecture that allows for scalability and flexibility. The platform is multi-tenant, with a focus on security, performance, and usability. While primarily hosted in AWS and Google Clouds, it was engineered to support private cloud deployments using OpenShift.

I led the first year of product development and successfully launched with multiple clients. I recruited the initial team of engineers and transitioned operations to them, where they've continued to flourish.

Accounting SaaS Platform

Technologies:

Go (Golang) Logo
Go
TypeScript Logo
TypeScript
React Logo
React
MongoDB Logo
MongoDB
Kubernetes Logo
Kubernetes
OpenShift Logo
OpenShift
Amazon Web Services Logo
Amazon Web Services
Google Cloud Platform Logo
Google Cloud Platform
OpenTelemetry Logo
OpenTelemetry
GitHub Logo
GitHub
Terraform Logo
Terraform
Vault Logo
Vault

E-Commerce Site Optimizations Improve Conversion Rates

Application Modernization

I frequently assist website owners with optimizing their e-commerce sites for performance, security, and usability. A leading industrial manufacturer needed to improve its retail site's performance to increase conversions and reduce bounce rates.

I assessed the website's Azure configuration, its C# codebase, as well as the team's DevOps processes to identify bottlenecks. I developed a report of dozens of prioritized improvements organized into a phased roadmap. Within weeks, we reduced load times by over 50% through a mix of code and configuration changes.

The site's improved performance led to higher conversion rates, lower bounce rates, and reduced infrastructure requirements.

E-Commerce Site Optimization

Technologies:

C# Logo
C#
.NET Logo
.NET
TypeScript Logo
TypeScript
Microsoft Azure Logo
Microsoft Azure
Cloudflare Logo
Cloudflare
SQL Server Logo
SQL Server

Multi-Cloud Migrations Unlock the Best of AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud

Cloud Migration

I have helped dozens of organizations migrate to the cloud, ranging from small and medium businesses to Fortune 500 clients. These projects have varied from tactical (i.e., rapid IaaS lift-and-shifts due to data center closures) to strategic (taking advantage of unique cloud capabilities).

One large hospital system was migrating to all three major clouds in order to take advantage of best-of-breed options. While that approach isn't recommended for most organizations, I helped them deploy their landing zone architectures in each cloud and established standards and clear criteria for adopting each cloud product.

I oversaw migration of Windows and Linux workloads (IaaS), containers (CaaS), and multiple data workloads (DBaaS and PaaS). I also supported a team of researchers performing repeatable genomics analytics workloads in AWS.

Multi-Cloud Migrations

Technologies:

Microsoft Azure Logo
Microsoft Azure
Amazon Web Services Logo
Amazon Web Services
Google Cloud Platform Logo
Google Cloud Platform
Kubernetes Logo
Kubernetes
SQL Server Logo
SQL Server
Azure DevOps Logo
Azure DevOps
Terraform Logo
Terraform
ServiceNow Logo
ServiceNow

Turn-Key Cloud Management Platforms Increase Agility and Reduce Risk

DevSecOps Automation

I have built cloud management automation tools for multiple clients, including the state cloud brokerage above. Each allows for self-service provisioning of common templates in a secure, compliant, predictable, and cost-effective manner.

The most complete cloud management platform (CMP) I deployed used ServiceNow as a service catalog front-end and triggered Terraform workflows through Azure DevOps. This provides a single intuitive portal for deploying infrastructure and applications across on-prem and multiple cloud environments. All pipelines are observable, and data flows back to each organization's configuration management database (CMDB).

While CMPs aren't applicable to every organization, the core principles of automation, traceability, and scalability are universal.

Cloud Management Platforms

Technologies:

Microsoft Azure Logo
Microsoft Azure
Amazon Web Services Logo
Amazon Web Services
Kubernetes Logo
Kubernetes
SQL Server Logo
SQL Server
Azure DevOps Logo
Azure DevOps
Terraform Logo
Terraform
ServiceNow Logo
ServiceNow

Rapid Email Intelligence MVP Validates CRM Opportunity

Software Development

A CRM software company had the innovative idea to inject context to inbound messages, such as the sender's CRM, ERP, and social media data. This would allow customer service reps to get a full view of their customers and campaigns directly within their inbox, without having to cross-reference other systems.

The project was initially based on my open source OpaqueMail .NET proxy library, which augments emails with end-to-end encryption over IMAP and SMTP. I partnered to extend the proxy and develop a product MVP featuring flexible plugins for Salesforce, Dynamics, LinkedIn, Twitter, and other systems.

The minimum viable product validated market feedback, and the vendor has since spun the product into its own company.

Email Intelligence MVP

Technologies:

C# Logo
C#
.NET Logo
.NET
TypeScript Logo
TypeScript
MongoDB Logo
MongoDB
GitHub Logo
GitHub

Insurance Cloud Decision Models Bolster Security and Agility

Cloud Migration & IT Strategy

A pharmacy benefit manager had a diverse mix of workloads across all three major clouds, as well as on-premises data centers. The CTO needed to rationalize the mix of cloud and on-premises workloads to reduce costs, improve security, and increase agility.

I partnered with the enterprise architecture team to rationalize workloads, define architectural standards, and define clear decision models for applications, infrastructure, and data. This included a guided decision matrix of where to host each workload based on security and compliance, performance, cost, and human factors.

By reducing cognitive load and layers of approvals, development teams were able to deploy features faster. The effort also helped consolidate redundant environments and prevented further sprawl.

Insurance Cloud Decision Models

Technologies:

Microsoft Azure Logo
Microsoft Azure
Amazon Web Services Logo
Amazon Web Services
Google Cloud Platform Logo
Google Cloud Platform
VMware Logo
VMware
Terraform Logo
Terraform
Vault Logo
Vault

X-Ray: Internet Intelligence Platform Analyzes the Web's Architecture

Software Development

In addition to client projects, I have been developing X-Ray, an ongoing study of how the internet is built. The tool monitors over one billion hostnames and URLs using agents from multiple clouds.

Each website is fingerprinted for its technology stack using dozens of signals, including headers, file contents, DNS records, network details, and certificates. From that data, I've been able to identify technologies and exact versions of products used, which can be cross-referenced against CVE and other vulnerability databases for early alerts. I'm currently enhancing the tool with machine learning.

The ultimate goal of this platform is to detail the internet's architecture, chronicle how it evolves, and provide data that helps site owners make better decisions around performance, security, and marketing.

X-Ray: Internet Intelligence Platform

Technologies:

Go (Golang) Logo
Go
TypeScript Logo
TypeScript
React Logo
React
PostgreSQL Logo
PostgreSQL
Microsoft Azure Logo
Microsoft Azure
Amazon Web Services Logo
Amazon Web Services
Google Cloud Platform Logo
Google Cloud Platform
Cloudflare Logo
Cloudflare
OpenTelemetry Logo
OpenTelemetry
GitHub Logo
GitHub
OpenTofu Logo
OpenTofu

Contact Bert @ DEVINC

Ready to launch your next project? Reach out today for a free consultation and let's make it happen.