Fhinck: Choosing Google Cloud to leverage a dynamic and scalable architecture
About Fhinck
Fhinck is a Brazilian IT startup whose aim is to increase operational efficiency in Shared Services Centers (back-office activities) in large companies.
Tell us your challenge. We're here to help.
Contact usThanks to the migration, the startup now creates and automates multiple daily tasks through scheduled functions, thus freeing up employees to focus on planning business strategies.
Google Cloud results
- Lower database query response times: from 3 minutes to just 5 seconds
- 40% cost savings
- Reduced request collection time: from 40 to 10 seconds
- Enhanced security, including data encryption, multi-factor authentication, and advanced identity and access management capabilities
Nearly 40,000 requests received per minute
Fhinck is a startup based in São Paulo offering a virtual assistant for shared services centers (SSCs) and areas with back-office activities and several employees. After installation in customers’ devices, this software assistant assesses response times and operations, and also analyzes each user’s journey.
The software’s goal is to identify workflow improvement opportunities and, consequently, boost employee productivity, focusing on data intelligence and the wellbeing of professionals.
As this software collects a large amount of data, including information that needs to be thoroughly processed, one of the startup’s main challenges related to infrastructure scalability.
When using another cloud provider, Fhinck previously applied a virtual machine for the software’s data collection API. However, as customers increased, the number of installed machines expanded accordingly, leading to more requests through the startup’s API.
In this scenario, the environment’s scalability was limited and included downtime issues. The volume of data processed with each query was also not properly supported. Fhinck then started to look for other solutions to meet its needs, and Google Cloud’s BigQuery proved the best choice.
"When we realized we had to expand, we decided to migrate to another cloud, also because we wanted to try out new technologies to improve performance, streamline data visibility, and provide a service that supported end customer demands."
—Michel Zarzour, CIO, FhinckA new environment to be explored
During this planning stage, the organization took part in Google I/O, an annual conference hosted by Google in San Francisco, California. This event offers developer-exclusive sessions where new features are showcased and guidance is provided for professionals to enhance their products through specific techniques.
"We connected with engineers and other professionals and discussed the design of our environment. All this was facilitated by the conference. We stayed for 10 days, and it was a truly enriching experience. Back in Brazil, we continued to receive the support we needed to develop our system, which took about four months," says Fhinck’s CIO.
The migration kicked off in May 2019, and 84TB of data was transferred in just one week. After completing this journey, the team developed APIs in Google Cloud’s environment, and also ran tests to ensure the new model was working properly.
"BigQuery was our first data storage choice, especially as it offers a data lake where we can keep large amounts of data that need to remain unchanged. We also love Cloud Functions, which is ideal for creating APIs and ensuring proper communication between our software and the cloud."
—Michel Zarzour, CIO, FhinckAs Fhinck’s software scans response times and operations, information is sent to the cloud every 10 minutes, and a stable infrastructure is required to make this happen. Pub/Sub is used to manage data traffic and classification, whereas Cloud Storage is used for tasks involving raw data storage and backup policies.
By leveraging serverless tools, the startup has been able to change the focus of day-to-day operations, which are now automatically managed by these solutions, and free employees to pursue innovation and look for new features.
Cost-saving and performance benefits
Thanks to an architecture that is dynamic enough to deploy new features, Fhinck has gained scalability and moved from an infrastructure receiving 2,000 requests per minute to an environment handling nearly 40,000 requests per minute.
Database query response times were also reduced from 3 minutes to just 5 seconds, and request collection time dropped from 40 to 10 seconds.
"A significant benefit from migrating to Google Cloud was cost savings, about 40%, including the flexibility to use tools only when required. Security was also enhanced thanks to data encryption, multi-factor authentication, and advanced identity and access management features."
—Michel Zarzour, CIO, FhinckWith Google Cloud, the startup now creates and automates multiple daily tasks through scheduled functions, thus freeing up employees to focus on planning business strategies. And this is only possible thanks to a cloud-based environment that provides agility.
When thinking about next steps, Fhinck intends to incorporate artificial intelligence, especially for data management and classification purposes. To this end, solutions such as Dataflow and TensorFlow are perfect to build predictive models. Finally, the startup expects to obtain more value from data and other benefits, both for its customers and management teams.
Tell us your challenge. We're here to help.
Contact us
About Fhinck
Fhinck is a Brazilian IT startup whose aim is to increase operational efficiency in Shared Services Centers (back-office activities) in large companies.