Speaker
Abstract
Ever wondered what is it really like to move from a poorly integrated COTS legacy architecture to a well factored API driven cloud native platform and event driven architecture, globally deployed in AWS EKS with modern observability and daily software releases? Come join us as we review the cloud native modernization journey at RB Global.
As the leader in the global heavy equipment, agriculture, and salvage automobile auction marketplace RB Global had grown organically and through a disparate set of acquisitions, some integrated and some running side by side others. The resulting systems architecture was complex, prone to failure and required a linear growth in personnel to grow the business. While enjoying record growth we realized we needed to drastically simplify our systems and processes and drive higher margins and release a much faster growth potential.
Our strategy was to simplify a very complex spider web of non-cloud native SAAS and homegrown systems into a well factored API driven platform with well-defined domain boundaries, appropriate team topologies and an engineering enablement/delivery infrastructure to maximize engineering productivity. Leveraging that platform, we now can drive a multitude of end user and internal customer experiences with a small efficient engineering footprint.
Interview
A better understanding of the choices and tradeoffs necessary to make progress at a systems and people level, some insights into what went well and what we’d do differently the next time . We’ll also focus on some key decisions and investments that paid much higher returns than anticipated, from modern observability to leveraging new innovative patterns for infrastructure provisioning and delivery infrastructure.
Leaders looking for real world examples of transformation, from staff engineers and leads, to CTOs and Senior Engineering leaders. We’ll have something for everyone.
Topics
QCon London 2024 is a three day conference for senior software engineers, architects and team leads. An international program committee of working engineers selects every session. Patterns and practices, not products and pitches.
Part of the track
Architectures You've Always Wondered About Hosted by Cassandra Shum Vice President of Field Engineering @RelationalAI, Previously @ThoughtworksFrom the same track
Monday 8 April
10:35 Fleming (3rd Fl.) Session architecture Beyond Platform Thinking at RB Global – Build Things No One Expects, in a Place No One Expects It Ranbir Chawla SVP of Engineering @RB Global, Previously SME @Thoughtworks Digital Platform Strategy Team, 30+ Years in Software Engineering and Entrepreneurship Ever wondered what is it really like to move from a poorly integrated COTS legacy architecture to a well factored API driven cloud native platform and event driven architecture, globally deployed in AWS EKS with modern observability and daily software releases? 11:45 Fleming (3rd Fl.) Session 0 → 1, shipping Threads in 5 months Zahan Malkani Software Engineer @Meta In Jan 2023, we received word that we’d need to build a microblogging service to compete with Twitter in a couple of months. This is the (technical) story of the small team that was assembled to take on that challenge, and that shipped a new social network in July. 13:35 Whittle (3rd Fl.) Session Data Architecture Architecting for Data Products Danilo Sato Global Head of Technology - Data & AI @Thoughtworks, Author of DevOps in Practice, CD4ML, and DataIQ UK’s 100 Most Influential People in Data in 2022–2023 Data Mesh principles have brought data products to the forefront of data architecture discussions. However, due to the variety of applications and the vast technology landscape, it is hard to bring those principles into practice. 14:45 Fleming (3rd Fl.) Session platforms How We Created a High-Scale Notification System at Duolingo That Delivered Millions of Messages Within Seconds During a Super Bowl Commercial Break Vitor Pellegrino, Zhen Zhou Building a notification system may seem trivial, but what about building one that could reach million of users within a few seconds? What about doing that right after your advertisement airs? 15:55 Fleming (3rd Fl.) Session Everything Is a Plugin: How the Backstage Architecture Helps Platform Teams at Spotify and Beyond Spread Ownership and Deliver Value Pia Nilsson, Mike Lewis Back in 2014, platform engineers at Spotify identified a problem: the number of internal tools was growing rapidly, and as a result engineers around the company were struggling to find the tools and information they needed to work efficiently. 17:05 Rutherford (4th Fl.) Unconference Unconference: Architectures You've Always Wondered About An unconference is a participant-driven meeting. Attendees come together, bringing their challenges and relying on the experience and know-how of their peers for solutions.