Royal Cyber Transforms Leading Bank’s WEF Project with Open-Source Migration

Open-Source Migration: Transform Banking IT Systems
Royal Cyber Transforms Leading Bank’s WEF Project with Open-Source Migration

Sachin Srivastava

Full Stack – Technical Lead

August 30, 2024

Ready to transform your digital experience?

Introduction

As financial institutions worldwide accelerate their agile digital transformation in banking journeys, the demand for more cost-effective digital solutions for banks becomes imperative. A leading bank in Bahrain partnered with Royal Cyber to address a critical need: migrating their Web Experience Factory (WEF) project to an open-source platform while ensuring seamless integration with their WebSphere portal server. Royal Cyber rose to the challenge, delivering a tailored solution that met the bank’s requirements and unlocked new possibilities for its digital strategy.

Open-Source Migration: Transform Banking IT Systems

Challenges Faced

These challenges are not unique to this bank; many financial institutions face similar constraints when working with proprietary technologies. The bank’s existing WebSphere Experience Factory Portlets, tightly coupled with proprietary systems, were limiting its ability to innovate and scale. With a high reliance on the WebSphere portal server, they needed a flexible, cost-effective, and open-source solution that could seamlessly integrate into their existing environment. Their primary objectives included:
  • WebSphere to Migration to Open-Source: Moving away from proprietary systems to reduce costs and improve flexibility.
  • Script Portlet Deployment: The solution should be deployed as a script portlet on the WebSphere portal server, ensuring smooth user experiences.

Discover ways to Migrate WebSphere Portlets to open-source platforms today! – Watch on Demand

How We Tackled It

Royal Cyber’s approach centered on leveraging modern development frameworks to address these challenges. We implemented a robust backend using Spring Boot and developed the frontend using Angular, ensuring a flexible, scalable, and efficient solution.
  1. Backend Migration with Spring Boot: Spring Boot, known for its simplicity and ability to build stand-alone, production-ready applications, served as the backbone of our solution. This choice enabled rapid development and deployment, aligning perfectly with the bank’s need for an agile and efficient framework that could integrate seamlessly with existing enterprise environments like WebSphere.
  2. Frontend Development with Angular: Angular was chosen for its robust development ecosystem, which enabled the creation of dynamic, responsive, and high-performance user interfaces. Angular ensured that the bank’s application was visually engaging and functionally robust, enhancing the overall user experience.
  3. Seamless Deployment on WebSphere Application Server (WAS): One key achievement was deploying the Spring Boot application on WAS. This demonstrated Spring Boot’s flexibility in integrating with existing technologies while providing the option to move to other servers as needed.
  4. Script Portlet Deployment: We deployed the Angular application as a script portlet on the WebSphere portal server, allowing easy integration and smooth user navigation. This deployment model also allows the bank to utilize other platforms in the future.

Success Highlights

  • Efficient Migration to Open-Source: Successfully migrated the WEF project to an open-source environment, enhancing the bank’s ability to scale and innovate.
  • Modernizing Legacy Systems in Banking: The solution now offers a path forward for banks looking to update their legacy systems, reducing dependency on outdated technologies.
  • Scalable Financial IT Solutions: The solution can now be deployed on multiple platforms using Spring Boot and Angular, reducing the bank’s reliance on any single technology.
  • Open-Source Integration for Financial Services: The application was efficiently integrated with the existing WebSphere portal server, ensuring the bank’s digital experience continuity.

Value Delivered

The solution brought immediate and long-term benefits to the bank, reinforcing their unwavering commitment to digital transformation:
  • Cost Efficiency: Transitioning to an open-source platform significantly reduced licensing costs, allowing the bank to reallocate resources to other strategic initiatives.
  • Improved Performance and Scalability: The new architecture offers enhanced performance thanks to Spring Boot and Angular’s lightweight and efficient nature. The bank can now effortlessly scale its applications, catering to growing customer demands.
  • Enterprise application modernization: The ability to deploy both the backend and frontend on various platforms, including but not limited to WebSphere, empowers the bank with greater control and flexibility over their IT infrastructure.

Lessons Learned & Best Practices

  1. Prioritize Scalability and Flexibility: Moving to open-source technologies like Spring Boot and Angular allows organizations to deploy across various platforms, helping them avoid vendor lock-in.
  2. Emphasize Integration Compatibility: It is crucial to ensure that new technologies can integrate seamlessly with existing systems. The deployment on WebSphere demonstrated that, with the right approach, new solutions can coexist with legacy systems.
  3. Optimize Performance through Modern Frameworks: Leveraging lightweight and efficient frameworks such as Spring Boot and Angular can drastically improve application performance and reduce the time to market.
  4. Regularly Review and Update Deployment Practices: Technologies evolve, and staying updated on best practices for deploying and managing applications helps maintain optimal performance and security.

Statistics Highlighting the Impact of Open-Source Migration

  • According to a recent study, 84% of enterprises view open-source solutions as a critical element for innovation, and 66% of IT leaders believe open-source improves business agility.
  • According to a Gartner report, migrating to open-source can result in up to 30% savings in software expenses.

Conclusion

At Royal Cyber, we understand that digital transformation is not just about adopting new technologies; it’s about rethinking how businesses operate. By migrating to an open-source platform and deploying the application as a script portlet on WebSphere, we have set the stage for the bank’s continued growth and innovation. As the digital landscape continues to evolve, Royal Cyber remains committed to helping businesses navigate complex technological challenges with tailored, scalable, and forward-thinking solutions.

Ready to transform your digital experience? Schedule a consultation with Royal Cyber’s experts today and discover how we can unlock new possibilities for your business through innovative open-source solutions. Whether you’re considering migrating to open-source or looking to enhance your current infrastructure, our experts are here to help. Our team excels in optimizing portal solutions, offering deep expertise in WebSphere Portal and other leading technologies. For more information, you can email us at [email protected] or visit us at www.royalcyber.com and www.websphereportalguru.com.

Author

Harini Krishnamurthy

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