MTCS provided the middleware for a brand new Enterprise Architecture strategy at the Education & Skills Funding Agency.

In order to help the ESFA/DfE realise a modern Enterprise Architecture strategy, MTCS was asked to design and develop cloud-based middleware to integrate (currently) 3 separate ESFA/DfE solutions in a non-centralised way. These systems are a helpdesk solution (Zendesk), ITSM solution (ServiceNow) and a CRM solution (Microsoft Dynamics CRM).

The pattern chosen, Microservices over API Gateway, is implemented using Azure components, with Azure API Management acting as the gateway, as well as Azure Functions and Azure Service Bus. The implementation is event-driven, utilising webhooks in the various systems and APIs to provide an abstracted and loosely coupled solution.