Trust1Team triples development speed with Akka

Trust1Team is part of a diverse group of companies whose activities range from running indoor skiing centers to managing public lighting infrastructure. For existing group companies and new acquisitions alike, Trust1Team provides integration, technology development and prototyping services.

Michallis Pashidis, Founder and CEO of Trust1Team, says: “In addition to serving external clients, we are recognized within the group as experts in solving business challenges through technology. As we tackle new challenges, we always need to keep developing the capabilities of our own competence center.”

Given its expertise in prototyping and in cutting-edge IoT solutions, Trust1Team often works on projects with fast-moving start-ups whose focus is on minimum viable products (MVPs). Turning these MVPs into mature solutions that will attract paying customers requires much deeper thinking around non-functional aspects such as scalability, security, reliability and ongoing ease of management.

“We wanted to increase the speed at which we can develop systems that are robust, scalable and manageable,” says Pashidis. “When you introduce non-functional aspects to a project, that usually creates a steep learning curve for the developers. So we asked ourselves: how can we help developers maintain speed and avoid creating future operational complexity?”

Trust1Team was working on a project to build a diagnostics system that would support sustainable energy initiatives in industry, because energy costs and carbon footprint are growing concerns for companies that operate multiple factories or office buildings. Working with an external partner in industry, Trust1Team aimed to develop a system that would gather data on energy usage, create insight by enabling that data to be visualized, and enable cross-site and cross-function benchmarking.

“Sustainability and efficiency are important elements in Industry 4.0, and we saw an opportunity to build a tool for large organizations to better understand and control their energy usage,” says Pashidis. “Part of the target market is companies that sublet office space to multiple parties and need to determine how to divide the costs. To support the complex calculations this involves, we needed a framework that would allow us to conduct fast model development, with control of persistent entities.”