Client Story
ATR International
Deploying a Hybrid Transition to Cloud Infrastructure With AWS CloudFormation
ATR International (ATR) is a technical staffing company that connects diverse job-seekers with opportunities across the United States. As a full-service talent supplier, their offerings extend beyond recruiting to provide an asset management and time tracking solution for their clients.
While their on-premise system served their clients well for many years, ATR knew they could improve application performance and enhance client offerings in the cloud. Through collaborative planning sessions with Soliant Consulting, our team uncovered the benefits of a hybrid cloud transformation and a strategic, cost-conscious strategy to make this transition.
Hybrid Cloud Transition
To alleviate ATR’s existing performance issues and system crashes, Soliant set up a Linux EC2 instance on AWS to separate their web server from their application server. Rather than moving both the application server and the webserver to the cloud, we recommended a hybrid approach as the most cost-effective for the first iteration of the transformation.
Application Modernization
With a secure, resilient infrastructure in place, the Soliant Cloud Native Applications team focused on modernizing ATR’s eTime application. The organization had a thick client solution for their back-office users, only accessible via LAN or VPN. It served as the system of record for ATR contractor timecards and ATR manager approval of these timecards. The legacy PHP web application lacked version control, had security vulnerabilities, and suffered generally from poor usability. Up to 600 unique daily users access the eTime application with up to 50 concurrent users, and ATR needed an upgrade.
Soliant designed a custom solution using AWS CloudFormation. The architecture is comprised of three components:
- A Node.js API proxy deployed via ElasticBeanstalk
- A React.js web client app deployed via S3 and CloudFront
- An OAuth2 IdP built on top of ORY Hydra to support secure password-hash authentication against existing table based users
All three components leverage AWS CloudFormation for efficient, reliable deployment to UAT and Prod environments. The new application allows ATR contractors and ATR managers to interact with the legacy back-office system of record using a modern, responsive, secure, and reliable web application.
AWS Services Leveraged
- AWS CloudFormation
- ElasticBeanstalk
- Linux EC2 Instance
Third-Party Services Leveraged
- ORY Hydra
- Node
- Nginx Reverse Proxy
- Let’s Encrypt
AWS CloudFormation
AWS CloudFormation empowers organizations to codify their infrastructure. You can programmatically automate the modeling and provisioning of the AWS and third-party resources your applications need. Deploy CloudFormation to build and tear down stacks quickly and in a standardized manner to reduce development time and costs, reduce resource costs, and increase reliability.
Cloud Transformation Results
The new hybrid solution delivers 99.99 percent uptime, increased speed, and reduced loading times. Through the modern web interface on which the ATR staff & clients collaborate, ATR continues to deliver award-winning staffing solutions.
The work we completed for ATR International proved once again that AWS is an effective platform for rapidly deploying infrastructure in the cloud. Our clients love how easily we can scale up and down depending on customer requirements and needs.
About ATR International (ATR)
ATR International is a staffing and consulting leader that serves the IT, engineering, accounting & finance, professional, manufacturing, and scientific industries. Founded in 1988 as a two-person Hispanic-owned business, we have grown to serve Fortune 500 organizations while putting more than 35,000 people to work totaling over 14 million working hours. Our entire business model is based on building relationships and deep connections with our diverse base of clients, contractors, internal staff, and local markets.