Fabsystems Modernizes Their Software To Optimize Costs, Flexibility And Scalability

Overview

Fabsystems Inc. is a SaaS solution meant to help steel companies, like its parent company Thornberg Steel Inc, accurately and efficiently estimate their steel requirements.

Steel estimation is a time-consuming process that if not done accurately, can cost millions of dollars to construction companies. To limit the possibility of something like this happening, Fabsystems created a game-changing software that accurately estimates steel requirements in 75% less time than other steel estimation software in the market.

D3V helped Fabsystems prepare for expansion by modernizing their software into a cloud solution – further increasing its lead in the market and bringing cost savings in the process.

The Challenge

Fabsystems had initially developed a desktop application but as the company grew, so did the demand for a modern, easily accessible, and scalable solution. That’s when Fabsystems decided to become a cloud-based product. The desktop application was one of the most accurate and fastest steel estimating software on the market and it was imperative that none of this speed and accuracy was lost in the conversion while increasing ease of usage, scalability, and flexibility of updates.

We recognized the importance of this problem and the need to create an intuitive software that helps shops, effectively improving their estimating process, reducing estimating time and human errors. Our solution Fabsystems, reduces the time consumed for Steel Estimating by 75% at 1/3rd the price of an average solution available in the market.
-Terry Thornberg, CEO, Fabsystems Inc.

Our Solution

After a comprehensive audit, D3V engineers decided that the best course of action would be to modernize and deploy Fabsystems as a cloud-based software on Google’s App Engine, coupled with Cloud SQL & Google Cloud Storage for availability, scaling and ease of deployment.

This new system introduced many new benefits including:

• Less staff for upkeep
• Less hardware
• Fewer operational expenses
• Traffic splitting between versions
• Improved time-to-market
• Easier updates through a one-command deployment

With major code refactoring at our hands, it was paramount for us to optimize the operational responsibilities. With careful consideration in keeping the customer’s unique needs at the center of our attention, we found that fully managed serverless solutions such as Cloud SQL and App Engine Standard with built in Stack Driver logging and monitoring was the right choice to power the Fabsystems SaaS application.
-Dheeraj Panyam, Google Cloud Architect, D3V Technology Solutions

Key Accomplishments

Moved to a serverless architecture

Any cloud-based application that’s not built on a serverless architecture suffers from some innate limitations including less flexibility and scalability. That’s why the decision to move to a fully managed serverless solution was made.

The App Engine Standard meant that Fabsystems was not only more flexible in terms of updates but also more scalable. More importantly, the built-in Stack Driver logging and monitoring meant that it was now easier to scan through logs, find bugs, and troubleshoot application errors.

Increased application performance by more than 50%

Google’s Compute Engine uses high-performance virtual machines that, when coupled with App Engine solutions including smart analytics, AI, and infrastructure modernization, helped increase their application performance by more than 50%.

Reduced cloud spend

A fully managed serverless solution means that Fabsystems Inc no longer has to worry about hardware being underutilized or hardware becoming obsolete in the future because Google’s App Engine automatically scales according to your traffic needs.

In fact, Fabsystems was able to reduce cloud spend by 30% by moving to a flexible pricing model that only charges for consumed resources. Even greater cost savings were achieved due to lower maintenance staff and hardware requirements.

Reduced time-to-market

One of Fabsystems’ primary goals was to focus on updates and increase functionality in the near future. This was another reason why we chose to go serverless – it allows companies to introduce new changes without it affecting the entire system. This means faster testing, easier fixes, and quick feature releases.