When Lippes Mathias Wexler Friedman LLP (Lippes Mathias) was referred to ETG, they knew we had experience in one of their areas of need. The need for a robust application that simplified their auction processes for the annual Erie County Foreclosure Auction had been discussed within their organization for years. From handling the registration of hundreds of prospective bidders, making sure the property auction list was up to date, managing the selling process and deed recording – this was not a small undertaking.
Each of the steps involved in the auction process needed to be seamlessly integrated with each other to ensure proper recording from a bidder registering to receive the sale document after the successful completion of a sale. With ETG’s experience building and supporting platforms to manage property foreclosure auctions, we knew just what was needed to create a custom solution that streamlined processes and made pre-, day-of, and post-auction workflows faster and more efficient.
If you’re reading this post, you likely know that building software comes with an investment – both in time and dollars. In addition to the investment to build a custom solution, there are recurring costs to consider as well – monthly hosting as an example. Lippes Mathias didn’t have an existing environment to host the custom application and they also didn’t want to set-up or manage these environments themselves. Adding costs for internal infrastructure and resources would cause the project to require a greater investment than was practical. It also wouldn’t be economical to create the environment that was needed for auction day (fast, low-latency, and redundant), and have it sit idle the rest of the year.
This is a picture of the Bidder Registration screen where information is recorded about potential bidders
That’s where Amazon Web Services (AWS) serverless technologies came in! ETG used several of AWS serverless technologies including API Gateway, Lambda, and an Aurora Serverless MySQL Database instance to provide a cost friendly solution that was billed on actual usage of the application. What does that mean? It means Lippes Mathias paid a fee for actual services used during the month of the auction but has minimal hosting costs the rest of the year. In addition, there are no servers to manage, no additional IT staff needed, plus greater flexibility to expand the AWS services going forward. AWS resources that need to be preserved beyond application use can be easily scaled down when not used for the auction. With AWS’ flexible pay-as-you-go plans, this was a perfect solution for this project.
In addition to the cost efficiencies gained by the AWS pay-as-you-go model, the AWS infrastructure setup was quick and easy as well. Since Lippes Mathias was a new AWS client, we helped them set up their account and get them started. Once this was done, the ETG team, on behalf of Lippes Mathias, spun up and secured the appropriate resources.
In the end, ETG was able to help Lippes Mathias capitalize on AWS to build a solution that is scalable, efficient, and cost effective. With a product that is now easily maintained, we have already had conversations about enhancements and new features as their business needs grow. AWS cloud technology will allow us to seamlessly expand the solution to meet these needs.
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