Abacus Cooperativa: Modernising its API Infrastructure for an Agile and Competitive Future

Case summary

Abacus’s technological situation presented a series of limitations that affected its capacity for innovation, scalability, and security. The implementation of an API integration platform like Apigee, along with Devoteam’s expertise in Google Cloud, allowed Abacus to overcome these challenges and lay the groundwork for secure and sustainable future growth.

About the client

Abacus Cooperativa is a prominent Spanish company with a long history in the education and culture sector. Founded in 1968, Abacus has established itself as a benchmark in the provision of quality educational and cultural products and content, both for individuals and educational institutions.

Abacus Cooperativa has over 1 million consumer members, more than 900 employees, and is composed of 5 very different businesses: Abacus Original, the Retail business, with 47 stores distributed throughout the region of Catalonia, Valencia, and the Balearic Islands. Abacus Educación, where the businesses most related to the educational sector are grouped, highlighting the production of Steam content. Abacus Media, from where they create and offer the best local journalistic content, thematic magazines, and local media. Abacus Idea, an ambitious audiovisual content project serving families, children, and young people, with the values that define Abacus. And finally Abacus Editorial, where the book imprints that form a reference Editorial model are located.

The Challenge

Abacus operated with an integration architecture based on personalised APIs and VPN connections, without a centralised API management platform. This configuration implied that security and monitoring controls were developed individually for each API, which made their management, scalability, and evolution difficult.

• The integration of Abacus’s different systems and platforms, including SAP (ERP), Salesforce (CRM), and SAP Commerce Cloud (e-commerce), was based on a complex model of APIs and VPNs. This made the management and maintenance of the integrations difficult, as well as the incorporation of new functionalities and services.
• The security of the Abacus infrastructure was based on a traditional perimeter firewall approach, which left internal systems exposed to possible attacks and vulnerabilities. Furthermore, the lack of quota control in accessing internal APIs could generate performance and availability problems.
• Abacus’s architecture lacked a centralised monitoring system that would allow for exhaustive tracking of the performance and availability of the different components. Likewise, the authentication of users and applications was performed individually on each system, which complicated the management of identities and accesses.

Abacus faced a technological panorama limited by the lack of a centralised API management platform. On-premise developments and manual management of integrations hindered its ability to respond to market demands and take advantage of new growth opportunities.

The Goal

To overcome these limitations, Abacus aimed to optimise its API infrastructure. It sought to implement a solution that would allow centralised management of the complete API lifecycle, from design and development to deployment, monitoring, and scaling. This solution needed to provide visibility and control over API performance, security, and usage, facilitating problem identification and resolution. Furthermore, it aspired to standardise common processes in its APIs, such as authentication and authorization, freeing its developers from repetitive tasks and allowing them to focus on developing key business functionalities. This standardisation would also contribute to improving API security and consistency.

The Solution

Apigee, Google Cloud’s API management platform, together with Devoteam’s expertise, was the chosen solution to drive Abacus’s digital transformation.

In short, the Apigee and Google Cloud solution provided Abacus with a modern, scalable, and secure platform to manage its APIs, driving its digital transformation and improving its competitiveness.

The Methodology

Using the AGILE methodology, Devoteam managed the project in 3 stages:

1. A first discovery sprint was conducted with the client, in which their needs in terms of technology and architecture were analyzed. In this stage, aspects such as the deployment type and the policies that were subsequently implemented were defined.
2. In later sprints, the APIs were loaded into the environment and the necessary policies were applied, generating shared flows, and creating the developer portal.
3. Once uploaded to the new Apigee environment at Abacus, it was possible to have more control over the APIs and continue monitoring them. At this time, the need for a WAF (web application firewall) was also detected, and Cloud Armor was implemented.

For the initial deployment, a pay-as-you-go license was used, allowing for better cost control. During the project, the team monitored consumption, and when it became advantageous for Abacus due to the number of environments and API calls, the license was promoted to a subscription.

Throughout the entire process, the Abacus team has been involved in the project, receiving training to achieve its independence. In the current state, collaboration continues, and the Abacus team has gained weight and prominence.