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Medidata Solutions

Problem
  • Scaling the tech team and setup processes to quickly iterate and find market fit
  • Transformation of the existing MVP into a working product
  • Get access to a technical expertise
Company
  • 128-bit Secure Socket Layer (SSL) encryption,
  • Verisign authentication using Hypertext Transfer Protocol over Secure Socket Layer (HTTPS)
  • Daily testing and certification using ScanAlertTM Hacker SafeTM
  • Comprehensive email virus-scanning with the open source Clam AntiVirus (ClamAV)
Our cooperation
  • CHITA/Daybreak was creating content management and collaboration platform that was fully integrated with Box platform.
  • The system allowed users to create, store, view, collaborate on and edit both regulated and non-regulated content in a single application.
  • This solution was designed to address hurdles in compliance validation and assurance, helping life sciences companies to manage their content needs more effectively.
  • The system provided the ideal environment for life sciences workflow management.
  • It offered pre-configured Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) and Read & Acknowledge training record management, eTMF folder & document types that facilitate eTMF specific functionality such as Properties (metadata).
Solution
  • We onboarded initially 3 and later 5 senior engineers with various expertise to speed up the app development.
  • We setup automatic build and pipeline and automatic deployment to the cloud.
  • The setup allowed the startup owners to demo new features early and get instant feedback.
  • Later, after acquisition by Medidata, we grew the team up to 15 developers, backend and frontend engineers, testers and DevOps engineers.
  • The team addressed integration with Medidata ecosystem and tools (on AWS). Successfully migrated a company document solution (millions of documents).
  • Also added support for additional eTMF, End of Study Media features.
  • We supported about 60 clients. The team later moved from AWS EC2 to ECS and migrated using NuoDB (we also used MySQL).
Results
  • Faster time-to-market: We helped Chita / Daybreak to quickly iterate and find market fit.
  • Access to Technical Expertise: By initially onboarding 3-5 senior engineers we provided access to technical expertise, such as Java, streamlined deployment, and integrations with 3rd party products like Box.com.
  • Reduced development costs: By providing access to a team of skilled developers, we helped Chita / Daybreak and Medidata reduce their development costs and improve the quality of their products.
  • Scaling the team: We were able to grow the team of 3-5 backend and front-end developers to about 17 developers, testers and DevOps engineers.
Key Takeaways
  • Chita / Daybreak’s core team was technical and was able to properly define and communicate company vision to the development team. The communication about the required features and their impact to the company vision was well defined and well communicated.
  • We provided senior team that was able to communicate their technical concerns and suggestions with Chita / Daybreak. The discussion between both teams led to better and more stable product and faster development and deployment.
  • The communication flow between the teams, even across different time zones was smooth. We used daily standups, design documents (for more complex features), Jira and ad-hoc meetings.
Technical Tasks
  • Box.com integration, synchronization local vs Box.com cloud
  • PDF generation with templates, watermarks and metadata, using 3rd party library, ASPOSE for various document types.
  • User and role management system, document structures based on roles and set ACLs (access control lists, R/W) on a large scale system
  • Migration of the existing documents from the 3rd party system (millions of documents and 1000s of users)
  • AWS EC2 to ECS migration, multi-tenancy features, NuoDB integration.
  • A. Main application features
  • Document version management, workflows, doc compare, rendering, e-signatures
  • Full text search using ElasticSearch
  • Mobile application for iOS
  • Audit log, reports, telemetry and monitoring.
  • B. SDLC and Release model
  • Agile approach with formal release cycle
  • Using Bitbucket (GIT), Jira, Jenkins
  • Rigid traceability and documentation
  • Heavy reliance on automated testing
  • C. Technologies and Tools
  • Java 8/11, Spring Boot, Git/Github, Spring Security, Hibernate, MySQL, AWS S3, AWS ECS, AWS EC2, AWS ElasticSearch, Free Marker, ASPOSE PDF/Word/Excel, JUnit, Apache Tika, Jenkins ...
References
Other links