Results

Of changing and stricter requirements

In terms of safety, reliability and speed

Towards a future-proof infrastructure

With real-time performance insight

tech stack

Used tools & technologies
  • DevOps
  • CI/CD
  • Cloud
  • Microservices

Since 2013, PDOK has been responsible for making current GEO information available in the Netherlands. These datasets (available to anyone) have proper metadata and can be accessed via RESTful APIs and OGC services, among others.

When performing government functions, up-to-date and adequate information about locations is essential for applying for grants and permits or making transactions. Location information also helps analyze social issues. An accurate picture allows policy and solution directions to be formulated.

Challenge

changed desires and imposed standards

It is essential that the information in the platform is functionally correct and always up-and-running. The platform must be reliable, robust and scalable. Indeed, after its launch in 2013, it quickly became clear that the platform was gaining tremendous traction. The first year saw 580 million hits, 5 years later the number of hits grew to 10.8 billion with 8.6 million unique users.

Jeroen also notes that suppliers and end users have changing requirements and that imposed standards (European INSPIRE standard and the Dutch e-government standards) and desired functionalities are firmly subject to change. They have therefore not been idle in recent years, and their ambitions for the future are great.

In recent years, Team Rockstars IT has helped the Land Registry future-proof the infrastructure of PDOK’s platform. They can now access more and larger data sets faster, more reliably and more securely.

According to Jeroen, it is ideal to be able to fall back on software developers who have dealt with these “hatchets” before. IT Rockstars shape the architecture from their experience and develop applications directly with the scrum team.

PDOK has created real-time visibility into the performance of the platform and prides itself on its continuous improvement. For example, they have recently made strides in making applications cloud-ready by publishing Public Docker images, among other things, and testing with Kubernetes environments. It’s all about scalability and reliability. It started with monolithic applications on application servers, then to an environment running entirely on Docker containers to making applications cloud-ready.

Result

Grow with customer demand

Innovation is the key to future success. PDOK wants to continue to surprise its users with new features. The user should not notice anything about the huge growth and crowding of the platform.

In addition, governments continue to demand new standards, requiring them to remain flexible with the future in mind. To be prepared for future growth, they remain busy placing microservices in the landscape as independently and logically as possible.

By properly aligning CI/CD with their microservices landscape, they can scale up and grow with customer demand in a very targeted way. In addition to the topic of microservices, research into potential cloud solutions for the future is also on the agenda.

Collaboration

PDOK X TEAM ROCKSTARS IT

When you can fall back on the experience of Team Rockstars IT professionals with technical innovation expertise at the time of a transformation or digitalization, it gives tremendous peace of mind and confidence within the team. In addition, PDOK notices the positive impact of the IT Rockstars on team dynamics. They include colleagues in their knowledge and standards, which really raises the level of the team.

“IT-ROCKSTARS SHAPE THE ARCHITECTURE FROM THEIR EXPERIENCE AND DEVELOP APPLICATIONS DIRECTLY WITH THE SCRUM TEAM.”

Jeroen Hogeboom, Product Owner at PDOK.