Arity implemented a two-pronged approach to its modernization. First, to help prevent disruption of its road map and get the most value, it chose services offered by AWS that fit well within its existing architecture, which meant that Arity could efficiently shift to the new solution. Second, while Arity was focused on migrating its existing infrastructure, it started changing its architectural approach so that it could use its new solution from the beginning of product development.
Arity uses the self-managing ability of HAQM Managed Service for Apache Flink to transform and analyze streaming data in near real time using Apache Flink. On HAQM Managed Service for Apache Flink, Arity generates driving behavior insights based on collated driving data. As a bridge between data analysis on HAQM EMR and near-real-time data analyses and to connect data streams, Arity uses HAQM Data Firehose, an extract, transform, load service that reliably captures, transforms, and delivers streaming data to data lakes, data stores, and analytics services. Arity gets data from its streaming infrastructure, pulls the data for downstream processing into a self-managed cluster into HAQM Simple Storage Service (HAQM S3)—an object storage service offering scalability, data availability, security, and performance—and then accesses the data from HAQM S3 using HAQM EMR and HAQM Athena, an interactive query service that makes it easy to analyze data in HAQM S3 using standard SQL.
Arity was facing operational challenges associated with maintaining Kafka clusters, keeping them up to date with the latest security patches and bug scans and diagnosing the clusters when issues arose. To move away from having to keep detailed knowledge of individual services and to increase focus on its business logic, Arity transitioned to HAQM Managed Streaming for Apache Kafka (HAQM MSK), which makes it simple to ingest and process streaming data in near real time with fully managed Apache Kafka. Using HAQM MSK to manage Kafka, Arity reduced operational overhead and associated costs using HAQM MSK by taking advantage of automatic scaling to use clusters more efficiently, such as by reducing cluster idle time during periods of lower use. Arity’s modernization reduced monthly infrastructure costs by 30 percent, and the cost per trip connection decreased by 36 percent. These savings mean that the company can better devote its resources to core business needs instead of self-managing its telematics solution.
Modernizing its architecture has led Arity to increase its development capacity because of lower associated solution management overhead. Developers can better focus on their jobs, innovate faster, and improve product time to market. Arity also adds improvements to its products faster and identifies and resolves events sooner. “We can now solve customer challenges in weeks, where before it would have taken quarters,” says Banikazemi.
AWS offers support that helps Arity understand and use its products. “We receive great support from the teams at AWS,” says Banikazemi. “When we need something, they are within reach.” Arity looks at training as an investment in its team that enhances its architecture, and it takes advantage of the personalized training opportunities offered by AWS. The company recently offered a well-received training event and plans to offer more training in the future.