Case Study - Smart Building Data Analytics System for Equans

Building an Agile, Accessible Data Platform

Equans BeLux, a leader in the energy and services sector, includes a Smart Buildings division that primarily serves commercial and office management companies. This division faced significant challenges with their data processing capabilities and approached Necko Technologies seeking a more flexible and efficient solution to fully leverage the smart building data they collected.

Their requirements included:

• Processing 10 distinct data streams from different monitoring devices in various formats
• Transforming and delivering data to customers across different third-party monitoring systems and dashboards
• Managing a substantial data volume from 250 clients with devices transmitting logs every 15 minutes
• Migrating historical data dating back to 2014

Having previously collaborated with Necko Technologies on an earlier successful project, Equans engaged us to architect and implement a new system on AWS that would meet these complex requirements.

A Serverless Architecture for Fast, Scalable Data Processing

Necko Technologies designed a comprehensive serverless solution using AWS services to meet Equans' challenging requirements for speed, flexibility, and scalability. The core components of our architecture included:

1. High-Performance Database: We implemented Amazon DynamoDB as the primary database service, providing single-digit millisecond performance at scale to handle thousands of data points arriving every few minutes.

2. Flexible API Management: We utilized Amazon API Gateway to create, publish, and maintain APIs that could easily adapt to customer requirements and integrate with various monitoring systems.

3. Secure Data Transfer: AWS Transfer Family was implemented to facilitate secure, simple, and scalable file transfers between systems.

4. Scalable Storage: All processed data is stored in Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3), allowing Equans to retrieve any amount of data from anywhere.

5. Serverless Computing: We leveraged AWS Lambda throughout the system, enabling code execution without server management overhead.

6. Workflow Orchestration: AWS Step Functions powers the event-driven system, providing visual workflows for distributed applications and serverless orchestration.

Our implementation included automated processes for data conversion, standardization, and compression before forwarding to customers' systems. We developed the entire infrastructure using Infrastructure as Code (IaC) principles, making it easily deployable and manageable.

Expanding Capabilities and Customer Satisfaction

The solution we delivered has transformed how Equans serves its customers, creating new business opportunities and enhancing their service offering:

Expanded Service Capabilities

The new system's flexibility enables Equans to connect with virtually any customer system, regardless of format or protocol requirements. As Julian Fickers, Project Engineer at Equans, explains: "This is a more developed version compared to what we had before. We can link to just about any systems a customer might have. We can just say 'yes' to them now."

New Business Unit Creation

The enhanced capabilities have enabled Equans to establish a dedicated smart buildings solution team, focusing on actively assisting customers with their building management needs.

Effortless Scaling

The event-driven, serverless architecture allows Equans to quickly scale their operations without incurring heavy overheads, making it simple to onboard new customers, buildings, or data sources.

Intelligent Data Handling

Our solution automatically buffers data to prevent customer systems from becoming overloaded, ensuring optimal performance across all integrations.

Zero Maintenance Overhead

Perhaps most importantly, the system requires minimal management from Equans' team. As Fickers notes: "When AWS is configured properly, it never fails. It's not like a server that needs rebooting or software that crashes, we can just relax and sleep well at night."

Self-Service Analytics and Advanced Capabilities

In addition to solving Equans' immediate challenges, our solution has opened new doors for future development:

Self-Service Data Access

A new API developed by Necko Technologies will allow Equans' customers to access and query data directly, providing greater autonomy and insight capability.

Advanced Analytics Potential

"The next step is to start using some AWS analytics services," explains Jérôme Dauge, co-founder of Necko Technologies. "We could provide tailor-made reports because the data can now be queried directly in AWS."

Innovation Platform

The AWS-based system positions Equans to innovate continuously, with easy connections to additional AWS services for improved customer offerings, smarter sensor data utilization, and enhanced analytical capabilities.

Cost-Effective Data Archiving

While Equans doesn't currently archive historical data, our architecture allows seamless future integration with cost-effective AWS archive and cold storage services when needed.

AWS Services Used