CASE STUDY supported by starting to build out an in-house engineering function to maintain and iterate on a modern digital system . This would allow Green Flag to start delivering rapid digital innovation to meet its business challenges .
Cloud native platform on AWS
Contino designed and built a secure , scalable cloud native platform on AWS that will form the foundation for the rapid development of new digital products and features . The platform is centred around an AWS Landing Zone , which is a set of Shared Service Accounts and services that creates accounts preconfigured with security and compliance guardrails , allowing users to access those resources in a safe and effective manner .
Green Flag is a roadside assistance and vehicle recovery provider , which is part of the Direct Line Group . Formed in 1971 , as the National Breakdown Recovery Club as an AA and RAC competitor , it used a network of local garages and mechanics to deliver recovery and repair services , instead of patrolling mechanics . It has grown to become one of the largest breakdown services in the UK , helping over 2,000 customers each day .
The challenge
Green Flag has high ambitions for the speed and quality of its services . However , the organisation ’ s existing IT systems and processes were proving to be a limitation . The challenge was twofold :
Firstly , its existing IT platform , which connected the business and customers , was outdated and inflexible . This meant that communication was slow , making changes was difficult and costs were high .
Secondly , existing in-house software delivery capability was limited , making it difficult to meet the demands of a modern softwaredriven enterprise .
Green Flag decided to undertake a fiveyear Digital Transformation programme to modernise its technology , create a vibrant engineering culture and in-source its software delivery to enable a rapid , modern , on-demand rescue and recovery service .
Green Flag ’ s vision encompasses the following objectives :
• Customer experience : Quicker and more reliable service to improve customer satisfaction
• Engineering capability : Build a modern , first-class in-house engineering culture to enable rapid digital innovation
• Business success : Grow the business while maximising efficiency and minimising costs
The solution
Green Flag brought in Contino to lend experience and expertise and after an initial week-long assessment , Contino devised a plan to deliver the foundation for the Digital Transformation five-year programme . The technical foundation would be laid by a new cloud-native platform on AWS . This would be
A series of serverless Continuous Integration / Continuous Delivery ( CI / CD ) pipelines were then deployed on top of the Landing Zone to form the foundation of Green Flag ’ s new in-house software delivery function . As the platform is serverless , there is almost zero maintenance of the underlying infrastructure required . This leaves applications teams free to focus on their core task : creating the applications Green Flag needs to deliver a modern rescue service .
Build an in-house engineering function
The team supported Green Flag ’ s recruitment , helping its transformation programme to grow from an accelerated manner , across application and platform teams . Contino trained representatives from each team in AWS best practices , DevOps tools and cloudnative ways of working before reseeding them into their own teams where they could propagate their new skills and knowledge . The teams are now in a position where they can not only maintain and iterate on the new AWS platform , but use repeatable templates to build duplicate platforms for other areas of the business with no extra investment required beyond the additional AWS spend .
The result
In just five weeks , Contino helped Green Flag to build a resilient , scalable , serverless platform in the public cloud . At the same time , together they scaled the internal capability to an 80-strong Digital Transformation team , including DevOps and cloud experts . Green Flag now has the technical and cultural
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