AWS-powered Development Platform for Clinical Trials Management

Business Overview

The client is a pivotal figure in the realm of clinical trials and health research and champions patient-centric eClinical solutions. These encompass an array of tools such as Electronic Clinical Outcome Assessments (eCOA), eConsent, patient engagement initiatives, Interactive Response Technology (IRT), and clinical supply management. With a commitment to refining and enhancing the data collection and management processes within clinical trials, the company aims to streamline patient experiences and ensure data accuracy and integrity.

Driven by its mission to transform the management of health data, the client seamlessly integrates technology and clinical expertise. This synergy enhances the experience of trial participants and empowers research sponsors, leading to more efficient, transparent, and dependable clinical results. Through its advanced solutions, the client is poised at the forefront of driving innovation and ensuring excellence in the sphere of clinical trials.

Scope

In an effort to foster innovation and streamline the development of holistic and client-focused solutions, the client is gearing up to launch its own internal development platform (IDP). The platform, developed in collaboration with NIX, is primed to integrate effortlessly with a myriad of SaaS systems, boost developer productivity, and improve experience, grounding its foundations in the robust and scalable AWS infrastructure.

This platform, designed with meticulous precision, will be a cornerstone in supporting an extensive range of client applications. Its architecture is tailored not only to optimize the operational efficiencies of these applications but also to ensure they adhere strictly to industry regulations and compliance standards.

With the platform in place, developers will be empowered to channel their energies and focus on innovation, customization, and enhancing the user experience, all while being confident in the platform’s ability to manage routine infrastructure tasks. Such an approach accelerates the development cycle, all without compromising the integrity, security, or quality of the solutions.

For this ambitious endeavor, the client has chosen to collaborate with NIX, given our sterling reputation in software development, particularly with an emphasis on security. The objective is to bring to life an SaaS cloud-based capability that serves as a testament to state-of-the-art technological progress and adherence to regulatory standards.

Crafting a Robust Cloud Solution

With a deep understanding of the intricate requirements of the project, the collaboration between the client and NIX’s engineering teams paved the way for a sophisticated, highly available cloud solution. This solution, underpinned by a multi-tiered microservice architecture, is equipped to effortlessly manage many global requests, ensuring resilience and fluidity in operation.

01 Infrastructure as Code (IaC)
02 Platform Engineering
03 Scalability and Cost Efficiency with EKS
04 AWS Peering Connection with Transit Gateway
05 RDS for Higher Availability
06 Secrets Manager for Secure Data Management

01
Infrastructure as Code (IaC)

Leveraging proven IaaC methodologies, the teams engineered an approach that enhances infrastructure consistency. This strategy not only offers full traceability of infrastructural changes but also streamlines the entire software development life cycle, ushering in greater efficiency and transparency.
02
Platform Engineering

To ensure scalability and flexibility, we integrated the solution with AWS, leveraging its wide array of services. This integration ensured a robust platform foundation, capitalizing on AWS’s reliability and extensive service offerings.
03
Scalability and Cost Efficiency with EKS

The adoption of Amazon’s Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS) on spot instances ensured scalability and cost efficiency of containerized applications. EKS’s seamless integration with AWS services provided a robust, fault-tolerant platform for the project’s microservices.
04
AWS Peering Connection with Transit Gateway

Leveraging AWS’s transit gateway and private link, the solution facilitates seamless and secure integrations with SaaS platforms outside of AWS. This setup ensures a fortified, private bridge between various virtual private clouds (VPCs) and external SaaS environments. The result is optimized data transfer, enhancing the efficiency and security of integrations beyond the AWS ecosystem.
05
RDS for Higher Availability

The Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) is pivotal in simplifying the process of setting up, operating, and scaling the project’s relational database. It ensured high availability and performance while offering automated backups, database upgrades, and patching.
06
Secrets Manager for Secure Data Management

The integration of AWS’s Secrets Manager is crucial for the management of sensitive data, such as API keys and database credentials. This ensures the secure rotation, management, and retrieval of these secrets, thereby enhancing the overall integrity of the platform.

Outcome

In culmination, this intricately designed solution serves as a testament to the fruitful alliance between the client and NIX, a synergy that combines cutting-edge technology with a bold vision.

Together, NIX and the client are actively shaping an AWS cloud-based solution that marries cost-effectiveness with flexibility and modern technological advancements. This combined endeavor, rooted in the vast capabilities of AWS, promises a platform that’s not only attuned to current business requisites but also primed for future scalability and integrations.

As the project unfolds, it becomes increasingly clear that this collaboration is setting a benchmark in AWS cloud solutions. The resulting infrastructure, once fully deployed, will leverage the cloud’s power for unparalleled efficiency and adaptability.