Technology takes the stage

If you’re not familiar with software applications and (telecom) infrastructure, you might think that every tech expert can do it all. But that’s rarely the case. Nowadays, there are so many different types of applications that it’s impossible to know them all. Mitchell: “Most IT professionals and developers are proficient in a few types of technologies and understand the basics of some other languages. This allows you to bridge the gap between different applications and connect them using everyone’s expertise.”

The process of tying systems together largely happens in the backend. This is Glenn Suierveld’s domain: “In the backend, we integrate various underlying systems and applications to meet customer requirements. But that doesn’t directly result in something functional for users. That’s where frontend developers come in. Mitchell then looks at it from their perspective to ensure it’s set up in a way that’s easy to use.”

One of the major projects from the past year was the complete transition to PortaOne. We’ve been working with this platform for a few years, but not everything was managed through PortaOne yet. Glenn: “We kept running into the issue that processing changes in the PortaOne portal took a lot of time. Everything had to be done manually. Thanks to the implementation of ESPF (External System Provisioning Framework), we’ve made significant progress in this area, and changes can now be implemented much faster.”

Another major project was phasing out the on-site data center. This infrastructure falls under the domain of Peter Mijnster: “A few old services were still running on-premise on the servers. This year, I worked with Glenn and Thomas (Hazelaar) to reconfigure some servers so that everything could eventually be moved to the cloud, and the last servers in the data center could be decommissioned. By now, that space is completely empty, marking the completion of this long-running project.”

Our services now largely run in the cloud (AWS – Amazon Web Services), with a portion still hosted in the data center in Amsterdam. Eventually, the plan is to keep only a small part in Amsterdam, with the rest being fully delivered from the cloud. “With AWS, you no longer need investments in new hardware, which saves time and money. Additionally, it’s faster due to advancements like Infrastructure as Code. This allows everything to be managed in a way similar to software development. As a result, you can activate new services more quickly—such as a voicebot—which is also qualitatively better and easier to manage. Thanks to a combination of Infrastructure as Code and the flexibility of the cloud, it’s possible to manage the substantial number of services, servers, and components we currently have running, even with the current size of the team,” according to Peter.

Peter is also the person responsible for information security and access control within Sound of Data. “For questions like who has access to what and how we should best store data, colleagues come to me. When storing sensitive personal data, such as customer passports required for applying for local numbers, I ensure that the storage and access meet the necessary requirements so that it is both secure and functional.”

You’re not done with just the infrastructure and backend—a well-functioning frontend is just as important. After all, this is what the user sees and interacts with. Mitchell: “Because the last services were transitioned to PortaOne and the backend was adjusted, the frontend, our own admin portal, also had to be rebuilt. In such cases, I put myself in the shoes of the end user and ask questions to fully understand what they need. The ultimate goal is to deliver a portal that works intuitively and retains as many useful features as possible.”

The fact that everything has now transitioned to PortaOne doesn’t mean the work is done. Mitchell: “We still have several improvements planned that will allow changes made in the backend to be visible in the frontend in real time. This will greatly enhance the user-friendliness of the portal. And thanks to a framework tool like React, you can now achieve this much faster and with less manual coding.”

Collaboration between team members takes place through various channels. Now that employees alternate between working in the office and from home, tools like Slack are particularly useful. Glenn: “A lot of our internal communication happens via Slack. Sometimes it’s just to quickly check if someone is available for a call. This is convenient when you’re focused on coding and don’t want to be interrupted. Additionally, we have daily stand-ups and regularly plan sprints, so we stay well-informed about each other’s work.”