Deployment of the Solaris eSConnect solution in Amazon Web Services
Deployment of the Solaris eSConnect solution in Amazon Web Services, implementation of infrastructure and application management standards, and building an analytics environment by Hostersi, AWS Premier Partner
Executive summary
Solaris Bus & Coach, a leading European manufacturer of urban and suburban buses, specializes in zero-emission vehicles, including electric, hydrogen, and trolleybuses. The company has nearly 25,000 vehicles operating in 33 countries across Europe and beyond. Solaris is part of the Spanish CAF Group.
eSConnect is a robust fleet monitoring and management application that enables remote diagnostics for buses. It enhances service capabilities and facilitates data analysis for Solaris operations in real time with the possibility of analyzing historical data. Currently, the database includes over 5,000 registered vehicles, and the planned monthly increase of new buses is 140.
This case study explores the collaboration between Hostersi, an AWS Premier Partner, and Solaris in the deployment and maintenance of the AWS infrastructure supporting the eSConnect application.
The requirements:
Scalability
The eSConnect application must handle large volumes of data, including real-time tracking and diagnostics from multiple buses, requiring the ability to dynamically scale resources based on demand.
Data Storage
The eSConnect application must handle large volumes of data, including real-time tracking and diagnostics from multiple buses, requiring the ability to dynamically scale resources based on demand.
Security
As eSConnect deals with sensitive vehicle and operational data, strong security protocols are essential to maintain data integrity and confidentiality, ensuring the protection of all information.
Compliance and Monitoring
Continuous system monitoring is essential to ensure system health and compliance with industry standards, enabling proactive management and troubleshooting.
Why did Solaris choose Hostersi as Their Partner for AWS Infrastructure?
Solaris selected Hostersi as their partner for designing, implementing, and maintaining their AWS infrastructure. The collaboration process was structured into clear stages, ensuring a thorough understanding of requirements and successful execution.
By partnering with Hostersi, Solaris was able to leverage a wealth of AWS expertise, driving innovation and ensuring the long-term success of the eSConnect platform.
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Discovery Phase
The partnership began with a discovery phase, where both Solaris and Hostersi worked closely to identify the specific requirements of the eSConnect application. Hostersi conducted in-depth interviews and workshops with Solaris stakeholders to understand their existing infrastructure, business objectives, and challenges faced in fleet management.
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Production-Ready Architecture
Following the discovery phase, Hostersi leveraged the insights gained to design a robust and scalable AWS architecture for the eSConnect application. This design prioritized optimizing data flow, high availability, and strong security protocols to protect sensitive operational data. Throughout the collaboration, Hostersi remained focused on aligning the infrastructure with Solaris’s long-term vision, ensuring it could scale effectively as their fleet management needs evolved.
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Deployment
This phase involved deploying services for data collection, processing, and storage, while also establishing monitoring tools to track system performance and diagnose issues in real-time. Hostersi's expertise in AWS infrastructure and commitment to best practices, as part of the AWS Well-Architected Program, guaranteed that the implementation was executed efficiently and effectively.
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Ongoing Maintenance and Support
After successful implementation, Hostersi, a Managed Services provider, continued to deliver maintenance and support to keep the system optimized and secure. Hostersi offers 24/7 monitoring, performance assessments, and proactive troubleshooting to address any emerging issues. This support has been crucial for Solaris, allowing them to concentrate on their core business operations without the burden of managing the underlying infrastructure.
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Design and Implementation of a Cost-Effective Data Analytics Environment
Hostersi skillfully crafted and deployed a cost-effective data analytics environment tailored to meet the needs of data scientists and analysts. The solution integrates Amazon Athena for efficient data access and leverages SageMaker for robust data processing and transformation. Moreover, an automated mechanism was meticulously designed and implemented to facilitate the seamless export of bulk data from InfluxDB to S3, ensuring efficient and economical data lifecycle management.
Conclusion
Solaris chose Hostersi not only for their comprehensive service offerings but also for their proven track record as an AWS Premier Partner. Hostersi’s deep expertise in cloud solutions and their understanding of the transportation sector made them the ideal partner for Solaris. This collaboration highlights a strategic partnership built on a clear process, from discovery through implementation to ongoing support. Hostersi’s ability to tailor AWS infrastructure to meet the specific needs of Solaris's eSConnect application has been crucial in enhancing operational efficiency and positioning Solaris for continued growth in remote diagnosis.
The key components of the AWS infrastructure deployed and continuously monitored by Hostersi
Amazon EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud)
Provides scalable computing capacity in the cloud. It allows Solaris to run their applications on virtual servers, ensuring flexibility to handle varying workloads efficiently.
Automatically adjusts the number of EC2 instances based on demand. This ensures that the application can handle traffic spikes without manual intervention, optimizing costs by scaling down when demand decreases.
AWS Load Balancer and Target Groups
Distributes incoming application traffic across multiple targets, such as EC2 instances. This improves fault tolerance and ensures high availability of the eSConnect application.
Enables serverless computing, allowing Solaris to run code in response to events without provisioning or managing servers. This is useful for executing backend processes efficiently, reducing operational overhead.
A machine learning service that enables Solaris to build, train, and deploy machine learning models for predictive analytics and operational insights.
Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service)
Provides secure and scalable storage for large amounts of data generated by the fleet monitoring application. It allows for efficient data retrieval and backup of critical information.
An interactive query service that makes it easy to analyze data in Amazon S3 using standard SQL. This allows Solaris to generate reports and insights quickly without needing to set up complex infrastructure.
A scalable Domain Name System (DNS) service that ensures high availability and reliability of applications by routing end users to the appropriate resources.
Enables email communication and notifications, facilitating effective communication with users regarding system status or alerts.
Simplifies resource management and automates common administrative tasks, enhancing operational efficiency. It aids in managing the infrastructure and ensuring compliance with the best
Provides in-memory data caching to improve the speed of data retrieval and enhance application performance. This is particularly useful for high-traffic scenarios in fleet management.
MFA (Multi-Factor Authentication) & SSO (Single Sign-On) Implementation
Monitoring and Visualization Tools (Amazon CloudWatch, Grafana, Nagios, Prometheus, InfluxDB, New Relic)
This suite of monitoring tools provides comprehensive visibility into application performance and infrastructure health.
▪ Amazon CloudWatch monitors metrics and logs.
▪ Grafana offers powerful visualization capabilities for data analysis.
▪ Nagios tracks system health.
▪ Prometheus enables robust time-series data monitoring.
▪ InfluxDB, a time-series database optimized for storing metrics and events, provides efficient data storage and retrieval for time-series data related to fleet operations.
▪ New Relic offers detailed application performance monitoring, allowing Solaris to identify performance bottlenecks and optimize user experiences.
Together, these tools ensure proactive issue detection and effective performance management. The key components of the AWS infrastructure deployed and continuously monitored by Hostersi Cloud Migration and Modernization Services
Results
This comprehensive approach, which combines AWS solutions with third-party monitoring tools and robust security measures, has enabled Solaris to effectively manage its fleet through the eSConnect application, optimizing performance and safeguarding operational data.
Solaris has a scalable, reliable, and secure IT infrastructure below eSConnect. Performance testing and ongoing optimizations ensure that the infrastructure can handle the expanding operations of Solaris while maintaining high standards of security and operational excellence.
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