This large shipping company (LSC) provides domestic freight and import\/export services in six U.S. states. They became our client based the successful solutions and services we provided to their sister company throughout a continuing long-term relationship.<\/p>\n
LSC\u2019s business and tech challenges are rooted in what happened before they were \u201clarge\u201d \u2013 that is, as a small freight company operating in one state, more than 10 years ago. This small company\u2019s operational books and records were all run on one application, written in Visual Basic (VB), a programming language built by Microsoft. The company housed the application on a local, on-prem computer connected to a local Microsoft SQL database server \u2013 as a desktop tower system.<\/p>\n
When the company expanded into a new state, the application was merely copied over to the new office\u2019s local, on-prem computer connected to a local Microsoft SQL database server. The copied application was tweaked for the new location\u2019s specific considerations, like tax rates and freight regulations. This scenario repeated itself as LSC grew, until it found itself in six states with six separate applications on siloed, unconnected hardware. <\/p>\n
The problems this created are, unfortunately, both common and obvious:<\/p>\n
When LSC first came to us, their main concern was bullet point one above \u2013 a way to centralize their databases. We made LSC a two-stage proposal.<\/p>\n
Our stage one action was to take the six databases that were in the separate states and repost them onto Microsoft’s Azure cloud. This was LSC\u2019s first foray into cloud platforms. We made sure the security in the cloud was set up appropriately for them, so database access was restricted as needed. We helped them set up their connectivity so that their local VB applications, running on their local desktops, would connect through secure tunnels through the cloud and get the data they needed. That is, the VB application still ran locally in each of the six branches, but instead of talking to a local database, they all talked to their own database running in Azure cloud.<\/p>\n
This simple \u201clift and drop\u201d of the databases from the offices to the Azure cloud gave LSC a number of immediate, important benefits. Andy Blank is Prolifics\u2019 Head of Technical Sales, North America, and works with LSC. \u201cAll of their data was backed up. It was centrally accessible,\u201d said Blank. \u201cThey could run reports across all of it and get a consistent view of their database \u2013 knowing their data was secure in the cloud. This first phase was very successful and LSC loved the results of that. It was simple, but it was simply the right first thing to do from a modern IT perspective.\u201d<\/p>\n
Stage two is to modernize the VB application and merge all of the databases. The result would be a single centralized application, using a single database, applying logic to help run the state offices. This will include:<\/p>\n
This next phase will help LSC provide faster quotes, more accurate invoicing, and data-informed marketing decisions.<\/p>\n