Switch2
Switch2 is the UK’s most experienced and capable provider of end-to-end solutions for heat networks.
Case Study
June 11, 2024
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time
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Switch2 is the UK’s most experienced and capable provider of end-to-end solutions for heat networks. They make a success of heat networks owned by local authorities, housing associations and private developers. They help to optimise energy efficiency, manage renewable energy, and focus on well-performing schemes, whilst minimising costs to the resident.
Switch2 operated their systems on-premises, and they have become challenging to maintain and to scale. The many tens of thousands of meter points they support created a spiky load pattern on their systems, which was inefficient in terms of usage, running in an overnight batch job.
They asked D55 to help them migrate to AWS and refactor systems to be more efficient and make best use of the newer features and functions available in the cloud. Their business objectives were to improve the IT landscape to be more cost effective and scalable, and crucially to be able to focus on the provisioning of new products and services to market faster – focusing on their core business knowledge and value to end clients.
D55 worked hand in hand with the in-house development team at Switch2 to assess their systems and workloads, planning how to migrate or modernise their applications.
We worked with their knowledgeable team to rearchitect existing systems following a CQRS pattern to create asynchronous, event-driven architecture, and containerising core metering functionality using ECS. The system now scales effectively under load when required and is reliable and efficient, requiring very little human intervention.
As part of the migration and modernisation, D55 also assessed which systems could be replaced, and found several that in the language of AWS’ 7 R’s could be “Re-Purchased”, i.e. replaced with off the shelf SaaS software as a commodity rather than in house code.
With the migration and modernisation complete, Switch2 are well positioned to focus on delivering new services to market – and has already done so. As a market leader in their sector, they plan to continue to innovate, taking advantage of the 200+ services AWS has to offer – including making the best use of their data and looking at AI to make their solutions more efficient.
"D55 are a highly experienced team that helped lead our business to push for and deliver an innovative and ambitious legacy to AWS transformation, with confidence. D55 have become a valued development and consultancy partner thanks to their excellent practical capability and their ability to apply the most appropriate working methodology to the challenge at hand."
