Tpay Achieves New Heights with Application Modernization on Azure

 

Tpay serving the region’s direct carrier billing needs

There are 381 million mobile users in the Middle East, however, the online mobile payment sector is underserved and underutilized. Tpay has served this sector with its unique payment gateway that covers more than 33 operators across the Middle East and Africa. Direct Carrier Billing allows any mobile subscriber to pay for goods using their mobile phone where the costs are then added to their mobile bill. Not only does this new technology have higher conversion rates for app stores, it is much more accessible for the general population especially those who don’t have a bank account, and it has a much higher security level than any payment method. Tpay’s gateway differentiates itself with intuitive BI dashboards, automated tools for easier integration and free testing services across all operators. 

Business expansion limited by local hosting

Tpay , the first and biggest direct carrier billing provider in MEA has been enjoying  massive growth in the past years covering more than 14 countries in the MEA region. Tpay’s platform allows any customer with a mobile to buy online services. This growth in transactions did not fit the outdated local hosting model of the company, as more resources and storage capacities were needed. It was indeed very frustrating for Tpay that it had to decelerate its expansion because of its local storage capacities, modest processing capabilities, and technical limitations posed by a local hosting infrastructure. In addition, the performance of their solution was often impeded due to the inadequate processing and storage capacity of the local data servers.  Not to mention Tpay was always at the risk of unplanned service outage due to an unstable local hosting infrastructure. The modest hosting setup also did not offer any DRP services that would safeguard it against any unexpected service outage.

The hunt for the experienced digital partner and resilient cloud platform to aid the transformation

Faced with their annoying problem, Tpay was determined to find a trusted partner that would help them modernize their solution into a cloud hosted one. A Microsoft gold partner with more than 100 Azure migration and application modernization projects,  LDC was the perfect partner to migrate to Azure , the cloud platform with answers to all their problems . Assembling a comprehensive team that not only included the technical team, but R&D and web development LDC first underwent a detailed environment assimilation in order to evaluate the volume of the transformation and hence properly plan the migration accordingly.

Over whelming customer challenge met with swift solution

Identifying the criticality of the application to the customer, it was vital for LDC to move fast and meticulously and leave no room for slip-ups. After an ample planning phase that spanned more than 3 months, we were ready to move forward. The migration was carried out over a span of one month, the billing platform infrastructure was upgraded to Azure IAAS, SSD disks were used and different VM tiers were utilized for better workload balancing. Tpay’s infrastructure was also transformed to microservices allowing for continuous deployment of large and complex applications and paving the road for smooth future technology upgrades.  The modernized infrastructure and new technologies utilized offered a better configuration for more transaction processing. All of this was done with zero downtime, meaning the operation of the customer was not affected in any way. 

Scalable , smooth growth with Microsoft Azure

Modernizing their applications to Azure hosting helped Tpay stabilize its operations and upgrade to more advanced infrastructure technology. Azure hosting is synonymous with improved business service SLA, it means improved resilience, durability and redundancy of the data center. All Azure upgrades come with a DRP (disaster recovery plan) to further guarantee a smooth operation .  In addition the nature of Azure’s scalable cloud storage meant Tpay can easily expand its capacity without having to worry about capacity calculations, as storage and processing power are added  instantaneously as needed.  New technologies utilized on Azure also allowed for more efficient processing so lesser resources would be utilized.

Winning Customer Trust with GDPR compliance

Upgrading to Azure hosting provided an added benefit of complying with the GDPR (Global Data Protection Regulation). GDPR compliance is a requirement if you will provide any services to European Union citizens, it also satisfies important regulatory compliance. Providing GDPR compliance helps gains the trust of customers as they rest assured their data will be handled with the utmost security. Achieving GDPR compliance is a challenging task, not only is it technically difficult on local datacenters but is costly too. Microsoft Azure provides built-in integrated tools that allow for effortlessly complying with GDPR.

Proactive future enhancements for improved performance

Our solution does not stop here, as proactive solution providers we also recommended moving in parallel to upgrade their infrastructure to PAAS, with Azure web apps, DB instances, event hub, and data management solutions. Once this advancement is finished processing will be enhanced and costs optimized. Thanks to the microservices architecture Tpay will be able to swiftly move to the new configuration once it is ready with no interruption to its normal flow of business, and most importantly top management will be spared from the migration and resourcing headaches.  Added to that our diligent team is also working on integrating an insightful big data module to further amplify the value of Tpays applications. The module is built using three popular open-source tools; Elasticsearch, Logstash, and Kibana, these tools work on carefully extracting important data from the various applications, processing them and presenting them in visually attractive charts that aid in decision making.

Reliable business expansion at lower costs

Going from 5 million transactions per day to 35 transactions per day after the migration, Tpay massively expanded its customer base in record time thanks to LDC’s timely and proficient solution. LDC’s experienced and technically competent team overcame the challenges of migrating a heavy and large solution while not affecting its performance.  Migrating a modernization application to Azure allowed Tpay to expand effortlessly at much lower costs than expanding its local hosting capabilities. Our solution was also complemented with a 99.9% availability SLA which helped Tpay concentrate more on what mattered and less on technical operation details.

Customer testimonial

Our Business became more sustainable, amplifying as our engines are running on Microsoft Azure with 99.99% Availability SLA which decreased the operations headache tremendously. THANK YOU LDC, we have achieved together an important milestone in TPAY glory road.

Mahmoud Afify, CTO, TPay