Smart Buildings Firm Unifi.id Sees 30% Performance Boost with transACT and AWS

Unifi.id, a technology provider of occupancy systems, sensors, and software for smart buildings, engaged AWS Partner transACT Technology Solutions to conduct an AWS Well-Architected Review that has ultimately delivered time-savings, cost reductions, and performance improvements. Using Amazon Web Services (AWS), transACT has deployed its own cloud management tool to deliver a range of benefits for Unifi.id and build a cloud platform to support future growth.

Unifi.id is a technology provider supplying smart building occupancy and facilities management solutions, such as multi-tech ID card systems. Its products and services, which range from sensor hardware to monitoring software and end-to-end solutions, help its clients improve building safety and support their net-zero carbon reduction goals. Unifi.id's sensors and software detect if a building, floor, or room is occupied or vacant. Through predictive analysis, lighting and HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air conditioning) can then be optimized, especially with recent hybrid working practices, to save energy costs and reduce the client's carbon footprint.

The company was already using AWS to deliver its cloud-based tools (both internal-facing business tools and external client-facing systems). The client-facing system is especially critical: it’s a management dashboard showing vital data about the client’s estate, such as total occupancy and status of emergency exits.

Unifi.id didn’t have the in-house technical skills to maintain, expand, and fine-tune its AWS infrastructure so it looked for a technical consultancy to help it refocus on its core business tasks and become more efficient. Unifi.id approached AWS Partner transACT Technology Solutions to get the maximum benefit from its AWS services.

Unifi.id had several planned outcomes from the project. First, it wanted to lay the groundwork for future growth. “We’re set to grow 500 percent in coming years,” says Paul Sheedy, founder and chief executive officer (CEO) of Unifi.id. “We needed a reliable, rock-solid cloud platform that we can rely on and improve over time.”

Second, it wanted to improve database performance for internal users and clients. “Rapid access to data in an emergency, such as allowing fire services to observe the entire movement of employees during an evacuation, will make the difference between life and death,” says Sheedy. “Responsive, real-time access to data was a priority. We’d always need to wait just a little too long to pull up crucial numbers during a client presentation. It sounds relatively trivial, but it was representative of a wider problem: we needed to rethink our data collection processes to improve performance.”

Third, Unifi.id wanted to save time and reduce costs related to technical troubleshooting. Previously, its technical specialists had been moving from urgent request to urgent request, without the resources to correct the root causes of the problems.

As a rapidly growing technology company, Unifi.id wants to focus on servicing clients and finessing its client-facing platforms, not spend time on technical cloud maintenance. The company had limited in-house AWS knowledge and had struggled to find full-time employees with the necessary technical skills. transACT’s deep expertise in AWS and cloud technologies made it the perfect choice.

transACT worked with the team at Unifi.id to conduct an AWS Well-Architected review. “The Well-Architected framework gives organizations an in-depth review of their workload,” says Emma Harvey-Pugh, Strategic Partner Manager at transACT. “It compares what they have against the latest AWS architectural best practices. We also used our own transACT Cloud Management Platform (TCMP) tool to help carry out the review and suggest improvements to help Unifi.id use AWS more efficiently.”

transACT’s team of specialists helped Unifi.id implement recommendations produced from the reviews, covering areas such as operational excellence, security, reliability, performance efficiency, cost optimization, and sustainability.

The most significant benefit for Unifi.id is that it can now see precisely where issues are affecting its business. There’s no longer a need to spend time trying to identify issues because the AWS Well-Architected Framework has helped Unifi.id transform hours of work into just minutes, cutting the average time to identify problems by 40 percent.

Unifi.id now has a traffic light system to triage infrastructure issues. As a result, it’s no longer fighting fires and is instead able to take a measured approach to fixing problems. The Well-Architected review also brought benefits to security by proposing the addition of access control to the backend.

The company has also seen an improvement in performance. Client demonstrations could sometimes be slow to load, but not anymore. “It’s phenomenally faster—we estimate that it’s at least 30 percent faster than before,” says Sheedy. “Complex reports take just minutes to produce. transACT showed us where the performance issues were, highlighting which queries have issues and how we can make changes to improve performance.”

Unifi.id can now give its customers a responsive user experience. Instead of loading entire databases for a single specific look-up, it can select which sections of the database to load into memory, meaning performance is significantly faster.

Increasing speed and responsiveness of the database was a critical outcome of the project. Speed is vital in an emergency. If a fire alarm is activated, building managers need to know how many people were in the building to pass that information to emergency services. Any improvement in Unifi.id’s data processing speed could help save lives. Today, the data is processed in near-real time—a significant improvement over the previous benchmarks. “We pull in vast amounts of data,” says Sheedy. “We needed to cut down on the noise. Sometimes a person would be detected 100 times a second, and we simply don’t need that granularity of information. transACT helped us rethink our data collection processes.”

transACT helped Unifi.id optimize costs, saving the company 20 percent as it had been using more resources than it needed for specific workloads. The AWS Well-Architected review identified where it could scale back usage and which workloads could be right-sized.

transACT deployed Amazon CloudWatch to help Unifi.id identify problems and take preventative action sooner. transACT also established key performance indicators (KPIs) for AWS system performance to help Unifi.id monitor its AWS performance and usage.

The money saved can be reinvested into product development and innovation, such as developing new building sensors and software to rapidly decarbonize buildings. This investment underpins the future growth of Unifi.id’s business, explains Sheedy.

Unifi.id’s solutions are critical life-and-death systems for its clients. Tracking building occupancy can save lives—as long as the systems are fully operational and reliable. The data the system generates also provides the basis for predictive analysis the company runs using artificial intelligence tools. This analysis can result in large carbon reductions and a quick return on investment for clients.

To do that, Unifi.id’s infrastructure needs constant monitoring. With transACT providing 24/7 ongoing managed service support, Unifi.id can be confident its infrastructure is solid, stable, and reliable.

Sheedy is clear about transACT’s abilities and the value its partner brings. “transACT have been incredibly supportive,” he says. “They have their finger on the pulse. If an issue occurs, they jump on it immediately. With AWS, we know we have a world-leading cloud service behind us that has the features we need to grow in the future.”