Success Stories

Problem

• The company needed reliable intranet and server operations for test and production, including deployments and day-to-day upkeep.
• TLS certificates had to be inventoried, renewed, and deployed consistently across servers and corporate websites. Industry guidance recommends a centralized inventory for full visibility.
• The business required custom web applications to support projects and operations, plus front-end integration of designer deliverables with back-end code, followed by functional and safety checks.
• A payment workflow was needed using Authorize.Net, with attention to PCI DSS responsibilities. Authorize.Net’s Accept solutions are designed to simplify merchant SAQ alignment, while PCI DSS remains the baseline for protecting payment account data.

Objectives

• Operate and maintain the company intranet and servers for test and production.
• Manage the certificate lifecycle – inventory, renewal, and deployment – across all properties.
• Build applications needed by projects and operations, and integrate the design team’s UI with robust back-end logic.
• Implement an Authorize.Net-based payment gateway with basic refund flow, and analytics to guide marketing decisions.

Solution Applied

• Operations: centralized routines for deployments, housekeeping tasks, access controls, and operational checks on intranet, test, and production servers.
• Certificates: certificate lifecycle handled end-to-end – inventory, renewal scheduling, and deployment – following widely recommended practices for visibility and control.
• Development: full-stack delivery of the required applications with HTML, JavaScript, PHP, and MySQL, including integration of designer assets and post-integration testing.
• Payment gateway: Authorize.Net integration focused on one-time payments and refunds, aligning with PCI DSS guidance for merchants. Authorize.Net’s Accept family provides hosted options that reduce PCI scope for the merchant environment.
• Analytics: internal visit tracking to optimize marketing strategies, implemented with privacy in mind and without storing unnecessary PII.

Executed Projects

1. Payment gateway (Authorize.Net): one-time payment and refund flows, with attention to merchant PCI responsibilities.
2. User visits tracking: internal analytics to guide marketing optimization.
3. Project dashboard: management, control, monitoring, and storage for project data.
4. Mass mailing list application: bulk mail capability with anti-spam compliance noted at a high level.

Technologies Applied

• Database: MySQL
• Web Stack: LAMP / WAMP (Front-end: HTML, JavaScript – Back-end: PHP, MySQL). LAMP/WAMP are standard AMP stacks used to build and host web apps.
• Services: SFTP, SSH, Remote Desktop
• Software: Microsoft Office, Adobe Creative Suite

Results and Achievements

• Streamlined design-to-code workflow – predictable handoff from design to components.
• Hardened web app practices – inputs, sessions, and baseline security headers verified during integration.
• Operational readiness – certificate renewals on time, orderly deployments, and routine backups.

Compliance and Security

• PCI DSS considered for the parts in scope for the merchant environment, referencing PCI SSC resources.
• Certificate lifecycle managed per recommended practices with centralized inventory and renewals scheduling.

Legal notice

• Authorize.Net is a registered trademark of its respective owner. Deeper Technology LLC is an independent software development company and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Authorize.Net. References to third-party products are for identification purposes only.

1. Design & Development of Custom Management Applications
2. Travel Management Platform
3. Work Hours & Cost Control for European Commission Projects
4. Systems Integrations (School of Engineering, HR, Accounting, and the University’s Central IT Department)
5. Virtualization Platform – Migration from Solaris to VMware ESXi
6. Hosting Service Implementation
7. GitLab Version Repository Implementation
8. Monitoring Implementation with Nagios

1) Design & Development of Custom Management Applications

• Scope: multi-year engagement designing, developing, and administering custom applications for the institute’s day-to-day operations (e.g., expenses, documentation, organizational chart, and website management).
• Roles performed: Full-stack · DevOps · DBA.
• Practices: refactoring of legacy code to improve maintainability and performance; structured backlog and change control with scripted deployments.

2) Travel Management Platform

• Functions: travel requests and approvals, reporting of days abroad for tax agency, and expense settlements for each trip.
• Data handling: daily ETLs from CSV/SFTP/APIs into MySQL, with reconciliation/validation to ensure data consistency across modules.
• Outcome: streamlined submissions and auditability across travel lifecycle.

3) Work Hours & Cost Control for European Commission Projects

• Functions: timesheets and timesheet reporting for EU projects, enabling cost attribution and exportable summaries for compliance workflows.
• Data: scheduled and on-demand reports in CSV/Excel.

4) Systems Integrations

• Targets: School of Engineering, HR, Accounting, and the University’s Central IT Department, plus multimedia services.
• Approach: APIs for synchronous exchange where available; SFTP/CSV interchanges for batched updates; keep endpoints/topologies private by design.
• Result: shared data flows with clear responsibilities and fewer manual handoffs.

5) Virtualization Platform – Migration from Solaris to VMware ESXi

• Scope: migration of services from Solaris to VMware ESXi.
• Result: consolidation and flexibility to provision VPS instances for institute services.
• Note: the section remains high-level by design.

6) Hosting Service Implementation

• Scope: setup and administration of hosting services for institute sites and internal applications (provisioning, backups policies, and operational routines).
• Outcome: consistent environments for web properties and back-office tools.

7) GitLab Version Repository Implementation

• Scope: implementation of GitLab as the institute’s version repository (on a VPS), without disclosing versions or internal topology.
• Practices: Git workflows, access discipline, and scripted operations.

8) Monitoring Implementation with Nagios

• Scope: Nagios installed on a dedicated VPS to monitor the rest of services.
• Coverage: host/service checks and thresholds appropriate for institute systems (kept generic for security).

Technologies Used

• Operating Systems: Windows 7/10, Linux (Debian/Ubuntu), Solaris
• Software: WordPress, NetBeans, Notepad++, Microsoft Excel/Word
• Frontend: Javascript, jQuery, Bootstrap, Handsontable
• Scripting / Server: PHP, Bash, Apache (web server)
• Databases: MySQL
• Automation: Bash scripts

Data & Reporting

• ETLs: multiple daily ETLs per process/module, ingesting from CSV/SFTP/APIs to MySQL, with reconciliation and validation as part of each run.
• Reports: CSV/Excel outputs; some scheduled, others on demand.

Compliance & Security

• Aligned with ISO 27001 and GDPR practices for university environments.

Problem

• The client operates a multi-campaign collections platform. Over time, the custom management system needed continuous maintenance and enhancements to keep up with campaign volume and operational needs.
• Each campaign required its own ETL into SQL Server, plus reliable reconciliation and validation to prevent data drifts and reporting inconsistencies.
• Operations depended on several external integrations (dialers, payment gateways, service desk, email/SMS), which required coordinated changes and robust release practices.

Project Objectives

• Provide ongoing maintenance and iterative improvements to the custom management system without disrupting active collections campaigns.
• Ensure each campaign’s daily ETL remains consistent and validated, with clean reconciliation across sources (CSV/SFTP/APIs).
• Maintain a steady collaboration rhythm with the client while prioritizing and delivering changes via Scrum/Kanban practices.

Solution Applied

• Delivery & governance: 1 Tech Lead and 4 Senior Developers coordinating with the client, organizing backlog, grooming, and sprint planning across recurring releases.
• ETL per campaign: built/maintained campaign-specific pipelines (CSV/SFTP/API sources) loading into SQL Server, with daily runs, automated validations and reconciliation steps, and clear error handling.
• Reporting support: produced ad-hoc and scheduled views focused on recovery performance and dialer/campaign effectiveness (kept high-level by design).
• Integrations: connected with phone dialers, payment gateways, service desk, and email/SMS platforms; changes are planned and communicated to keep services available.
• Practices: tracked work in Confluence/Jira, versioned in Git/GitHub, and used TeamCity for CI; environments deployed on Docker with a Linux/Apache/PHP/MySQL stack and SQL Server for campaign data.

Technologies Applied

Tools: Atlassian Confluence · Jira · Git · GitHub · TeamCity
Stack: Linux · Apache · PHP · MySQL · SQL Server · Docker · Integrations: Phone Dialers · Payment Gateways · Service Desk Platform · Email/SMS Platforms

Results & Benefits

• The platform was kept in stable operation for all active campaigns throughout the engagement, with validated daily loads and coordinated releases across integrations.

Timeline & Team

• Ongoing maintenance with recurring iterations (onboarding → stabilization → improvements/ETL/reporting).
• Team: Tech Lead · 4 Senior Developers.

Compliance & Security

• Aligned with ISO 27001 and PCI practices at a high level (least-privilege roles, change control, encrypted transport, logging discipline), with specifics withheld for security.

Problem

• The client’s pricing system relied on Tridion CMS artifacts to define and publish product pricing content across multiple insurance lines (life, health, P&C). The setup created vendor lock‑in, higher license/TCO, and friction for authors.
• Editorial workflows were split across tools, and the front‑end layer needed a unified model to render pricing calculators consistently.
• The group sought to retire Tridion and adopt a custom WordPress/Divi‑based CMS that would still interpret the same documents that previously lived in Tridion without disrupting pricing logic or publication cadence.

Project Objectives

• Replace Tridion with a WordPress + Divi application tailored to the pricing system.
• Build and deploy approximately 140 custom WordPress plugins and Divi modules to interpret Tridion documents and drive pricing components across products.
• Preserve author experience while improving maintainability and reducing vendor lock‑in.

Solution Applied

• Custom WordPress/Divi application: we engineered a set of ~140 custom plugins and Divi modules that parse and interpret Tridion authored documents, mapping their structures to WordPress content entities and Divi renderers.
• Pricing documents coverage: every pricing document used by the group (calculators for all implemented insurance types) was supported, ensuring continuity for internal users and downstream consumers.
• Authoring & rendering: bespoke Divi components (e.g., pricing tables, rating inputs, product cards/forms) provided consistent UI/UX, device responsiveness, and accessibility practices (WCAG 2.1 AA minded).
• Operations: Dockerized LAMP stack (Linux, Apache, PHP, MySQL) with staged environments. Version control evolved from Plastic SCM (initial phases) to Bitbucket for ongoing development. CI/CD and issue tracking used the client’s standard tooling (Confluence, Jira, Bitbucket; Git/GitHub used where appropriate; VS Code; Trello).
• Search/SEO & redirects: where applicable, content redirects and URL hygiene were handled to protect discoverability and bookmarks (kept generic as internal/public split varies by portal).

Technologies Applied

Tools: Atlassian Confluence · Jira · Bitbucket · Git/GitHub · Plastic SCM (early) · VS Code · Trello
Stack: Docker · Linux · Apache · PHP · MySQL · WordPress · Divi Theme & Divi Modules · (generic) CDN/cache · Internal pricing services

Results & Benefits (qualitative)

• Tridion license & lock‑in eliminated, consolidating publishing on a widely adopted open platform.
• Authoring flow simplified, with consistent components and faster iterations.
• Single CMS/UI model for rendering pricing calculators across life, health, and P&C product lines.
• Improved maintainability and extensibility via modular plugins and Divi modules.

Timeline & Team

• Phased delivery with discovery → migration/build → UAT → go‑live.
• Roles: Tech Lead · WordPress/Divi Engineers · Integrations Engineer · DevOps · QA · Content Migration.

Compliance & Security

• High‑level alignment with the client’s corporate baseline (roles/permissions hygiene, audit trails for content edits).

Legal Notice

• WordPress is a trademark of the WordPress Foundation. Divi is a trademark of Elegant Themes, Inc. Tridion is a trademark of SDL/RWS Group. Deeper Technology LLC is an independent software development company and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by these vendors.

Problem

• The group operated several employee portals in the U.S. division, each with separate access paths, producing login friction and mis‑routed sessions.
• The corporate IdP was Microsoft Office 365 SSO, but WordPress (the entry site) needed to honor the tenant SSO and then route users to the appropriate internal portal without exposing routing rules on the public edge.

Project Objectives

• Enable Microsoft Office 365 SSO on WordPress for U.S. employees.
• After successful sign‑in, determine destination portal through internal APIs using employee profile signals (e.g., region/address, BU).
• Keep the flow fast and transparent to end users.

Solution Applied

• We built a custom WordPress plugin that initiates Microsoft Office 365 SSO and, after token validation, calls internal APIs to request a routing decision based on the employee profile (e.g., address/region obtained from corporate directories).
• The plugin then performs a secure redirect to the target portal (or a safe default if no match). The internal policy and routing logic remain off‑site (centralized), minimizing configuration at the edge.
• The plugin is configuration‑light (tenant endpoints, internal API base URL, defaults) and designed for low maintenance.

Technologies Applied

WordPress · PHP · Microsoft Office 365 SSO · Internal REST APIs · Reverse proxy/CDN (existing client stack)

Results & Benefits

• Seamless access to the right portal post‑login with no manual selection.
• Consolidated entry point through WordPress with consistent SSO experience.
• One‑month implementation from build to adoption (development, testing, deployment, and roll‑out).

Timeline & Team

• 1 month total: development → QA/UAT → deployment → adoption.
• Roles involved: WordPress/PHP engineer, integrations engineer, project lead.

Compliance & Security

• Details are confidential and excluded by design; routing and identity protections follow the client’s corporate baseline.

Legal Notice

• Microsoft Office 365 is trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. Deeper Technology LLC is an independent software development company and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Microsoft.