Case studies/Center Parcs - Digital Services

Center Parcs - Digital Services

As part of its digital services strategy and cloud adoption journey, Center Parcs reached out to Nasstar to leverage the benefits of serverless AWS technologies.

CLIENT

Center Parcs

INDUSTRY

Leisure & hospitality

SERVICE

Cloud

PARTNER

aws

The client

CenterParcsUKandIrelandoffersshortbreaksforfamiliesatsixforestlocations.

The business was facing challenges in the delivery of its digital services strategy and the execution of its cloud adoption journey. Center Parcs needed to enhance its online capabilities to provide a better experience for customers accessing its website and mobile app. 

This case study can also be found over at Colibri Digital, part of The Nasstar Group.

Our goal

Createauser-centricsolutionthatdeliverscostsavingsandagilityforwebandmobileapps.

The challenges

CenterParcshandlesthepersonallyidentifiableinformation(PII)ofthousandsofpeople.

It wanted to ensure that user data and interactions were secure across its digital platforms.

Its applications also needed to offer a consistent and high-quality experience, even as traffic levels fluctuate during holiday periods. This needed to be achieved without manual intervention or the over-provisioning of resources.

As part of its digital services strategy and cloud adoption journey, Center Parcs reached out to Nasstar to leverage the benefits of serverless AWS technologies. While traditional cloud services often involve paying for idle resources, serverless technology costs are calculated by actual usage, eliminating unnecessary expenses.

Nasstar has been working with Center Parcs to design and deploy a secure, agile, and cost-effective solution which integrates with the organisation’s existing backend Enterprise Service Layer REST services.

Our solution

Nasstar’s serverless AWS solution helped Center Parcs overcome its challenges by delivering secure, cost-effective, and high-performing digital services that scaled automatically. The setup supported fast delivery needs, with all resources properly in place and messages flowing smoothly through AWS.

01

Nasstar designed a solution that directly addressed the specific needs of Center Parcs's website users as well as mobile app users. To provide business value as quickly as possible, Nasstar’s Delivery Team made their technical decisions based on three main categories:

Performance: Ensure that all digital services provided by Center Parcs are responsive and offer an excellent user experience.

Scalability: All services must have the ability to handle varying levels of user traffic without the over-provisioning of resources.

Security: Services must be secure by design and protect sensitive user data from unauthorised access.

02

The use of Amazon API Gateway for website users and AWS AppSync for mobile app users was a strategic decision to optimise data transfer and user experience. API Gateway was chosen for its ability to handle data-rich responses, while AppSync was suitable for mobile app users who needed smaller, specific data sets. This approach allowed for leaner payloads, reducing the amount of data that needed to be transferred.

03

The deployment of the serverless solution allowed Center Parcs to provide improved online capabilities to its customers. The use of version-controlled Infrastructure as Code (IaC) and Terraform ensured accuracy and repeatability during deployments, enabling Center Parcs to easily promote new versions of APIs through its AWS environments as required.

04

By focusing on performance, scalability, and security Nasstar was able to address Center Parcs' business challenges and provide a solution that was tailored to its specific needs. The solution improved performance by ensuring high-quality user experiences, increased scalability by handling varying levels of traffic, and enhanced security by protecting customer data and interactions.

The outcome

Find out how our expertise could transform your organisation.

Security

Security has been built into every layer of the solution and uses security-related AWS services and capabilities such as the AWS Web Application Firewall and Lambda Authorizers deployed as part of the API Gateway and AppSync resources.

Cost efficiency

Using serverless technologies such as API Gateway and AppSync, cloud costs are based on actual resource usage rather than relying on long-running resources which may sit idle during periods of low traffic.

Sustainability

By scaling up and down to meet demand, the use of serverless technologies is contributing to a more energy-efficient and sustainable IT environment.

Observability

CloudWatch, an AWS native tool for monitoring and observing customer solutions, now provides metrics against each of the deployed resources. This enables a high degree of end-to-end infrastructure observability, real-time alerting, and feedback.