News Archive / Projects

Data is valuable - one would ideally like to take advantage of it as much as possible. However data protection rightly restricts this to prevent abuse. In the second article of the series "Data use in the age of the GDPR", Stefan Kunkel explains how the anonymised use of data can be achieved organisationally and technically.

Can customer data still be used for other purposes after the GDPR? Our TNG colleague Philipp Kleppmann says yes, as long as they are sufficiently anonymised. In this LinkedIn article, Philipp outlines important considerations that should not be forgotten when starting an anonymisation project.

Back in 2013 BSH launched Home Connect, a new generation of household devices designed to make a lasting difference in customers' daily lives. The key: In addition to high-quality hardware, their focus shifted to individualization and connectivity of the devices, designed to improve the customizability for a variety of different households. The transformation from a traditional manufacturer to a provider of intelligent home appliances and digital services also requires an innovative approach to product development. Following our motto "We solve hard IT problems!", we are pleased to support BSH since 2015 in many ways: From agile coaching to test-driven development of voice assistants, microservices, and frontends, from operating applications in the cloud to the simulation of household devices.

At this point we want to highlight the Bosch Cookit: It was designed from scratch for digital content and services and significantly co-developed by us. Together with BSH we already presented the device itself, our agile approach, and the associated IT landscape at the TNG Big Techday 2021. However, the development is far from being done. By now users can even create and share their own recipes, and further exciting features are in the pipeline.

We would like to thank BSH for the trustful cooperation on innovative topics that create real added value for their customers. As a newly awarded Gold Supplier we are looking forward to continuing to provide BSH with intensive support in improving the everyday lives of their customers.

Are you using the Atlassian Cloud? Are you looking for a possibility to create complex surveys directly in Confluence? We have extended our Cloud version of Multivote & Enterprise Survey for Confluence. It now offers the Survey macro that you might already be familiar with from our Server and Data Center versions. The Survey macro allows you to create complex surveys with a wide selection of different question types while also offering a granular permission concept on both user and group levels. After conducting the survey, you can also view, inspect and export the results. Our Server and Data Center versions also received a major rework in terms of user experience. We are happy to be able to offer the same features in both the Cloud and the Server and Data Center versions of the app. Are you interested? Start creating your own surveys today with a free trial of Multivote & Enterprise Survey for Confluence!

For many online retailers, "Black Friday" represents the annual high-point both in per-day takings and simultaneous customer visits, and it is critical that the virtual shops run by such businesses can withstand this resultant high load. For the peak season in 2021, one of our longest standing clients, an online fashion retailer, expected an even greater increase in their order volume compared with the previous year, as well as likely the highest customer numbers to date. In addition, the substantial changes to the online shop infrastructure during the year were not backed up by significant experience of running the system for resilience in its new configuration. To assess and fortify the webshop in preparation for the peak season, a task force was formed out of members of development and operations teams, and here TNG played a leading role.

Working alongside other departments and external contractors, developers subjected the production setup to nightly cloud-based load tests that allowed a thorough assessment of the health of the system. Realistic test scenarios were reproduced in the form of JMeter test plans, simulating customer journeys through the shop, while the system could be monitored using both Elastic Stack, Promtheus, and Grafana, as well as in-house analysis tools. All relevant performance problems could be iteratively identified and fixed.

That this was a success could be seen on Black Friday weekend, when technical problems and performance disruptions were not only so minimal as to go unnoticed by customers, but were avoided entirely. The 2021 diet of load tests also afforded many insights into the webshop's performance and let to a round of suggested measures by way of preparation for yet further growth in the ensuing year.

More than 2000 years ago, the carpenter Joseph travelled with his pregnant wife Mary from Nazareth to Bethlehem for the census. In order to spare today's population this experience in the 2022 census, TNG is working together with our client AKDB on digitising the registration system. In the future we might not even have to make the tiresome journey to the registration office when moving to a new address.

The heterogeneous landscape in the German registration system, caused among other things by federal structures, poses great challenges for the municipalities when it comes to digitalisation. Technical structures must be built that include the citizens as well as the various authorities. At the same time data reconciliation must take place, rulings of the Constitutional Court must be taken into account, and data protection must be guaranteed by encrypted transmission of information and a validated system login.

In their Big Techday talk, Dr Ulrike Schröder from TNG and Franz-Xaver Salat from AKDB describe how they are facing these challenges and which technical solutions will make the lives of German citizens easier in the future. You can find this and other talks from the last Big Techday in the Big Techday Playlist or directly here.

Especially during the pandemic, it is a good idea to keep visits to pharmacies to a minimum. Together with Sanacorp Pharmahandel GmbH, one of the largest German pharmaceutical wholesalers, we have developed the meineapotheke.de app to make visits more efficient. Customers can use the application to fill prescriptions online, request medication, chat with their local pharmacy or even find the nearest pharmacy. This saves time and unnecessary journeys while enabling a quick and discreet pick-up.
Data protection is particularly important with these sensitive topics. Therefore, the chats between the customer and the pharmacy are completely encrypted end-to-end, and all data remain in Germany.
In a Scrum team, TNG implemented the app together with the client using the Ionic Framework which enables development of iOS and Android versions of an app with a single code base.
Further useful functionality is planned for the app, such as the ability to get e-prescriptions filled.

"Anything that can go wrong will go wrong." If you believe Murphy's Law, you understand the need to prepare for a crisis situation. TNG has done this together with our client Elli, a provider of electric mobility solutions in the Volkswagen Group, through "Game Days", held most recently in July 2021 for over 50 people.

These training days introduce a fun, collaborative way to upskill engineers on incident handling and find holes in infrastructure and processes. Engineers face real incidents, prepared on production-like systems, and have the chance to practice analyzing and fixing a variety of issues in a realistic, hands-on setting.

In their exciting and entertaining talk, Katja Ried (TNG) and Dimitris Kirtsios (Elli) present the project, explain why they find incidents so exciting, and show how Game Days might continue in the future. You can find this and other talks from our last Big Techday in the Big Techday Playlist or directly here.

Do you use Confluence Cloud? Are you looking for the possibility to let people vote directly in Confluence? Check out the brand new Cloud version of our popular app Multivote & Enterprise Survey for Confluence, which can be found in the Atlassian Marketplace as of November 22nd, 2021.

It has been the most used voting app in the Atlassian Marketplace for almost ten years. With the release of the Cloud version, which is now available in addition to the Server and Data Center version, we complete our portfolio in the Atlassian Marketplace. We now offer customers migrating to the Atlassian Cloud, as well as customers already using the Atlassian Cloud, the ability to let people vote directly in Confluence. You can try out the app for free here.

Apache Flink allows fast, fault-tolerant and distributed processing of data streams. But is your system lacking a suitable Flink connector?
Together with colleagues from Ververica we have written a tutorial on the implementation of such customized source connectors for the Table API and SQL in one of our client projects. Using an IMAP server as an example, we explain the process here step by step.