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A scalable parking and valet management system
Category: Sports, Entertainment
Services: Headless CMS, Ecommerce Development
- A 20% increased in the number of managed parking spaces.
- The client was able to identify the best selling parking slots and the rush hours
- 40% time saving realized in finding parking spaces using our system
About TagB
Tag B Group is well-known transportation, parking, garage management, and valet service provider based in Washington, D.C. It wanted to create a scalable solution to maintain a full parking and valet management system for multiple users.
Challenge
- It was difficult for TagB group to manage parking and valet services without a proper system. There was no way to see real-time data from diverse users, such as customers, parking lot owners, etc.
- Managing a proper record of locations and parking criteria, manually scheduling parking, and allocating valet services on time was difficult.
- Users have to either manage without reservations or suffer from lags in parking lot bookings.
- There was no method to acquire useful insights into user behavior. Therefore, it was impossible to make data-driven decisions for business growth.
- To make infrastructure management easy to manage and less error prone.
- To manage common access and security requirements.
- The client wanted a reliable and secure code.
- The client wanted a highly available and low cost infrastructure.
Solution
Intuitive and engaging applications:
- Mobile and web applications were developed to build a consolidated platform for multiple users (super admin, admins, clients, business users, etc.) We created three applications for three different platforms: Android, an iOS mobile
application, and a web application. - Using cloud-based tools, we developed seamless user experiences across all applications.
- After we delivered the solution, there has been a 20% increase in the number of parking spaces managed by TagB.
- Examples of users include i. customers who want to save time by pre-reserving parking places for their automobiles. ii. Parking lot owners that wish to keep track of what’s going on in their lots. iii. Super admins oversee the centralized
system, which can be accessible via the web and mobile apps. Other users include enforcement workers, guest users,
admins, and more.
Secure and robust architecture:
- A system with microservices-based architecture was developed for efficiently handling various third-party as well as custom-developed integrations. It includes payment integrations and multiple user modules. The database architecture
was designed using the cloud-based service Amazon RDS.
User modules & business dashboards:
- Various user modules were created, including super admin, admin, customer, clients, enforcement staff, etc.
- We created a strong set of dashboards, reports, and visualizations that provide precise information for day-to-day activities across the platform. Super admins, for example, will be able to see activities undertaken by clients, admins,
customers, and others across the platform. Clients who owns parking lots would be able to see daily activities through the dashboard as well. - Using the detailed analytics that we provided, the client could identify that the 13:45 to 16:45 time slot is rush hour for their business. The client also was able to unearth the insight that the 3 hour slot was its best selling slot.
- The users were able to save 40% time as compared to previous system in finding the parking space
Payment & refund management:
- Created a safe and reliable payment management system that allows users to add several payment methods. The refunds will be made in the same manner as the original payment. Payment statuses can be updated by super admins
or clients as pending, received, refunded, or advanced.
Integration with LPR camera:
- We developed a system that can be integrated with a License Plate Recognition(LPR) camera. The camera captures the plate numbers of the vehicles entering and exiting the parking lot. The system either stores it for later review or runs the image through video analytics software. Further, it compares it with license plate numbers database records for verification.
Easy and secure Infrastructure management:
- Our DevOps team has used the AWS CloudFormation for defining cloud infrastructure as code. When it comes to microservice architecture it is very hard to manage with monolithic infrastructure.
- To efficiently manage our infra with high availability and low budget our DevOps experts have set up frontend service on CDN networking which are serving private Amazon S3 bucket data. The backend services are running on Amazon ECS service. Apart from that Amazon RDS is set up for data tier.
- Another concern was that of minimum budget utilization. We have implemented an AWS ECS service container as a service (CAAS) platform for resolving this issue. We have used AWS cloud formation for automation of all our network
resources.
Manage common access:
- Our DevOps experts used the Networking VPC ,Subnet, NAT gateway and AWS IAM service with custom user policy and less privileged resources to help the client manage common access
Provided a reliable and secure code:
- Our DevOps engineers used SonarQube to automate code analysis and review. The tool also helps the developers identify potential security vulnerabilities in the code, such as SQL injection and cross-site scripting (XSS). Also, we have used Jenkins for ci-cd pipeline automation.
Architecture Overview
AWS Services
Amazon RDS:
- Amazon RDS was employed to store application and user data, including user account information, parking lot information, license plate number recording, and so on.
In Amazon RDS, restricted access has been kept for specific IP addresses for security purposes.
Amazon ECS:
- Containerized APIs were developed and hosted in Amazon ECS, which can be used by front-end applications.
- For delivering new modules and updates, Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS) manages the application’s microservices backend. Examples include various modules and functionalities such as advanced parking booking,
payment and refund administration, parking lot creation, etc.
AWS Task Definition:
- Task definition gives commands to ECS; for example, each task will have certain configurations such as data volumes,memory utilization required, and a number of containers required.
AWS Lambda & Lambda Edge Security Headers:
- The main function of AWS Lambda function is to compress users’ profile pictures.
- Lambda edge security headers add a security layer when content is displayed using CloudFront from an S3 bucket. For example, several users will book parking spots from various places using the app posing a significant security concern.
S3 Bucket:
- Documents belonging to various users, such as administrators, customers, and clients, were stored in an S3 bucket. Clients of Tag B, for example, will have access to data on revenue tracking, parking spots, and booking slots. These
individuals will register as customers on the site and will need to upload documents, which will be stored in S3.
Amazon CloudFront:
- CloudFront was used to distribute static and dynamic content across the application frontends. It helped create customized user experiences and deliver content with high speed using its edge computing capabilities across multiple
channels. - CloudFront distribution, for example, pulls files from S3 and displays them in the frontend, as indicated in the diagram. Also, it chooses and restricts access to particular information for specific people. For example, admin users can not access the company’s financial information.
AWS SES & SNS:
- AWS SES is a service that sends emails to users. An email will be sent to the user after the successfull registration with the application, for example. Alternatively, bills will be delivered through email after consumers make a payment.
- Users receive notifications from AWS SNS. Notifications for communications about offers, payment refunds, pass expiration, and other topics will be sent.
Amazon ECR:
- Docker images were stored in Amazon Elastic Registry(ECR) for deployments.
Application Load Balancer:
- In the case of multiple requests from different users worldwide, the application load balancer distributes traffic across various targets, such as EC2 instances of ECS containers in multiple availability zones.
Monitoring:
- CloudWatch is used to keep track of infrastructure-related logs, metrics, and data, while CloudTrail is used to keep track of operational actions in AWS accounts.
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