CASE STUDY

Microservices Platform Development for a Leading Car Dealership Company

Technology Stack

Laravel
Vue.js
Docker
CAP API
Silver Bullet API
MariaDB
Stripe
AWS

The Client

Established in 1994, it is a UK-based car dealership company with 3000 employees. It sells new and used cars along with motor parts. It provides after-sales services such as car servicing and MOT tests. Moreover, it offers car reservation services.

The Challenge

The client wanted to let users purchase and reserve cars online. For this, they required custom features in their website. They were looking to break down their existing app structure into individual microservices to achieve this goal. To accomplish this, they turned to Capital Numbers. Our impressive work portfolio got them to engage with us. Our impressive work portfolio got Stoneacre to engage with us.

We started this project by thoroughly analyzing the product vision. Based on that, we worked on an optimal, service-driven architecture.

The challenge was to build a suite of independent microservices to enable scale and growth. This required us to decouple the overall system into smaller chunks. We also had to integrate multiple backend APIs to keep the ecosystem modular and maintainable.

The Solution

Over the years, Capital Numbers has provided result-based solutions to help businesses stay agile. For this project, too, we used best-in-class solutions to add agility and flexibility to the workflow. We chose the following tech stack for this project:

Firstly, we used Laravel for the backend because it simplifies authentication, supports cache configurations, handles errors, and makes apps highly functional.

For the frontend, we used Vue because it creates lightweight, flexible, and size-efficient UIs.

We packaged each microservice in the app into Docker containers. This helped us push updates and apply patches in specific microservices without disrupting the whole system.

We pulled vast sets of car data such as mileage, registration, etc., using CAP API. Plus, we extracted information related to car finance, parts exchange, etc., using Silver Bullet API.

To effectively manage the above database, we chose MariaDB. Apart from providing ample data support, MariaDB is cost-effective and handles ad-hoc data requests without flaw.

We integrated Stripe to secure all financial transactions and customer data within the app.

Finally, we deployed the platform in AWS because its robust server capacity helps apps run at high speed despite traffic.

Results

Capital Numbers implemented the above with great skill and precision. We kept this platform microservices-driven architecturally and rolled it out on time.

Our contributions were in the following areas:

Crucial Enhancements in the Admin Panel

Capital Numbers integrated two critical elements in the admin dashboard, namely:

Reserve a Vehicle - We added a custom feature that lets visitors reserve a car for three days (or 72 hours). Upon reservation, the visitor receives an email confirming the same. The car dealer, too, gets notified about the reservation and can cancel it should a customer decide to opt out.
Buy a Vehicle - We also added options for visitors to buy a new car through full payment. We added input fields where visitors could enter their vehicle’s registration numbers and mileage to get the part-exchange valuation. We also incorporated a mechanism for the car dealer to dynamically change this car valuation percentage on an hourly basis (if required).

The above features required complex business logic that our developers could perfectly encode and implement.

The final product is a sophisticated online tool that lets users book and purchase cars with just a few taps.

Loosely Coupled Components

As planned, we split the entire platform into loosely coupled components or microservices that are easier to maintain.

Easy Redeployments

We could tweak and redeploy each microservice as needed without affecting the overall code.

Simplified Routing

We could simplify routing - thanks to each microservice that has smart endpoints processing business logic smoothly.

Decentralized Data Management

Our team had the freedom to control unique databases without relying on a central authority.

Failure-resistance

We isolated and fixed faults in each microservice without jeopardizing the entire system.

CI/CD Pipeline

We continuously integrated and deployed smaller batches of code for each microservice to speed up testing and release.

Modularity

Capital Numbers segmented the system into smaller modules or microservices running independently and linked to multiple APIs.

SEO-friendly Pages

Moreover, we optimized and fully indexed the web pages for them to score well on the search engines.

A Powerful Microservices App

Within a short time, Capital Numbers turned the client’s existing app structure into micro fragments or services containing powerful capabilities.

Currently, hundreds of users access this platform for:

Car purchases
Car reservations (at £99)
Part-exchange valuations

The entire client's team has highly appreciated our engineering excellence and timely release.

Our modular development approach can now help the client transition from Vue to Nuxt.js effortlessly.

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