Building a Secure Client Portal for Choice Logistics

Client

Choice Logistics is a leading provider of customized logistics and global trade solutions, offering services such as inventory management, transportation management, warehouse management, reverse logistics, and global end-to-end supply chain management. With a robust infrastructure and advanced technology, Choice Logistics ensures seamless operations and real-time visibility for businesses worldwide.

Challenge

The Client Portal serves as the pivotal interface between Choice Logistics and its clients, enabling critical functions like order management, order tracking, reporting, among others. However, the existing system, built on outdated SharePoint technology, faced multiple challenges:

Cumbersome User Experience: Complicated login and security model hindered accessibility.
Lack of Data Transparency: Limited visibility into data modifications or user actions.
Outdated UI: An inconsistent and inefficient interface affected usability.
Maintenance Difficulties: A 25-year-old codebase with numerous client-specific customizations made updated and new features implementation slow and resource-intensive.

These challenges highlighted the urgent need for the Client Portal modernization and improvement to address critical issues and enhance overall functionality and security for both clients and employees.

Goals

The primary aim of the project was to modernize the Client Portal by transitioning to a unified .NET-based platform away from the legacy application, completely redesigning the user experience, and revamping the data interaction, while ensuring efficiency, data accuracy, and integrity. Key initiatives included: Developing a new Client Portal with modern Ul/UX, integrating advanced user management models including administrative self-service, migrating existing reports, and transitioning infrastructure to AWS managed services for improved stability and scalability.

Company Name

Choice Logistics

Location

Global

Industry

CPG & Retail Software Development

Services

UI & UX Design Services

DevOps

Legacy Modernization Services

Cloud Application Development Services

Solution

The solution involved developing a new Client Portal application integrated into the existing. NET platform, covering core functionalities such as account administration, order management, inventory management, dashboards, and reporting.

The Client Portal solution comprises two main components:

Client Portal Ul
Client Portal Backend

Solution Details – Client Portal UI

The Client Portal Ul is a web application developed using modern front-end technologies such as React, with TypeScript enhancing the development experience. Hosted on AWS S3 and distributed via the CloudFront Content Delivery Network, it ensures fast access for end users while being protected by AWS Web Access Firewall against common web exploits and attacks. Following the atomic design methodology, the Ul is structured to create complex views by combining reusable sets of components and patterns.

Integration with the Dundas Bl platform enables the display of embedded and standalone dashboards and reports within the Client Portal Ul.

Authentication functionality is delegated to the Identity Service, ensuring secure access for users.

Ul Technology Stack

HTML5

SASS and LESS

React + Redux

NPM / Yarn

TypeScript / ES6+(Babel transpile)

CRA (create-react-app)

Jest

Ant Design

AWS S3

AWS CloudFront

AWS WAF

Solution Details – Client Portal Backend

The Client Portal backend orchestrates business workflows and acts as a data and processing layer for the Client Portal Ul. Built on a service-oriented architecture using modern NET technologies and frameworks (such as NET 6+), it extensively leverages AWS capabilities for services orchestration and deployment.

The backend improvements extend the core operational database with additional fields, tables, and schemas as needed. To optimize performance, a secondary read-only replica is employed for read-intensive workloads, reducing the load on the primary instance.

Integration with the existing. NET platform and leveraging public Choice APls allow the backend to implement main business workflows such as order management, inventory management, and order tracking seamlessly. This integration ensures that the Client Portal consumes the same set of API endpoints as Choice clients, eliminating the need for re-implementation of critical business processes for the Ul-based application.

Backend Technology Stack

NET 6

ASP.NET Core 6

Entity Framework Core 6

MS SQL Server

MediatR

Docker

AWS ECS

AWS ElastiCache

AWS S3

AWS WAF

Monitoring and logging were enhanced using tools like Grafana, Prometheus, and Loki for transparency and minimization of infrastructure-related issues.

Outcomes

Enhanced Client Portal Experience

Clients now have access to a modern, consolidated web-based Ul/UX, providing a seamless interface for managing day-to-day operations such as order management, live order tracking, and reporting. This streamlined experience eliminates the need for utilizing multiple systems or tools.

Comprehensive Workspace

Choice clients benefit from a unified platform within the Client Portal that simplifies operations and improves productivity by consolidating key functionalities in one place.

Advanced User Management

A modern role-based access control with self-registration capabilities empowers clients with better control over user permissions and access levels, enhancing security and simplifying user administration processes.

Improved Reporting Solution

The refinement and update of existing reporting solutions provides clients with more relevant and sophisticated reporting capabilities within the Client Portal, enabling better decision-making through enhanced data visualization and analysis.

Enhanced Data Accuracy and Integrity

By increasing the stability and performance of data replication and ETL processes, the project improves data accuracy and integrity. Clients can rely on the Client Portal for accurate and up-to-date information, contributing to better decision-making and operational efficiency.

Enhanced Operational Efficiency

Utilization of existing APls for implementing main business workflows such as order management, inventory management, and order tracking ensures interoperability and seamless integration with other systems.

Evolving Business Requirements Flexibility and Scalability

The extension and evolution of public APls provided by Choice introduce new functionality that can be utilized by both the Client Portal and integrated clients.

Improved Performance, Reliability, and Responsiveness

The migration of existing infrastructure to AWS managed services, including ECS, RDS, ALB, CloudFront, and Route53, enhances system stability, scalability, and fault tolerance, ensuring uninterrupted access to critical business functions. Additionally, infrastructure improvements allow for easier and more efficient maintenance and feature development in the future.

AWS Services

The solution utilizes a range of AWS services to bolster the functionality, scalability, and security of the Client Portal.

Multi-AZ Deployment: Ensures high availability and taut tolerance by replicating the Client Portal across multiple Availability Zones.
Docker: Facilitates containerization, streamlining the deployment and management of application components.
Amazon ECR: Houses Docker images for deployment, providing a secure and scalable repository.
Amazon ECS: Orchestrates containerized services, facilitating deployment, scaling, and management.
Application Load Balancer / F5: Distributes incoming traffic across multiple instances for optimal performance and reliability.
Amazon Cognito / Duende Identity Server: Provides robust authentication and authorization mechanisms, ensuring secure access.
Amazon Route53 / In-house DNS: Manages domain names and directs traffic to the Client Portal, ensuring seamless routing.
Amazon Managed Grafana / Amazon OpenSearch: Offers insights into performance and health, facilitating proactive monitoring and troubleshooting.
AWS WAF (Web Application Firewall): Protects against web exploits and attacks, fortifying security.
Amazon Cloudfront: Accelerates content delivery by caching assets closer to users, enhancing performance.
Amazon S3: Acts as the primary storage solution for hosting the user interface and storing resources.
AWS Systems Manager: Manages configuration and secrets, ensuring secure and efficient operation.
Amazon ElastiCache: Provides in-memory caching for improved performance and scalability.
Amazon RDS / EC2-based installation: Offers managed database service or EC2-based installations for data storage needs.

High-Level Architecture

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