FirmsData is an India-based virtual data room platform by Gophers Lab, built entirely in-house with no third-party integrations. We were looking to enhance the application’s features by introducing support for multiple applications, improving scalability, and adding more robust security & disaster recovery measures.
Gophers Lab implemented a solution to help FirmsData build support for multiple file formats, improved application scalability, performance & security, and enhanced data backup & recovery, among other changes. The implementation helped FirmsData achieve consistent response time for all APIs, considerably improved system uptime, and optimized file processing & retrieval to enhance user experience.

FirmsData is a Virtual Data Room platform used in M&A, IPO, or any due diligence process. Maintaining the security of documents can be challenging as they are sensitive and confidential. Designed and built by Gophers Lab, FirmsData is an innovative and customized product developed to make life easier for all involved.

Gophers Lab was looking to build a virtual data room with the following features:

• Support for multiple file formats, including PDF, Docx, PPT, Excel, CSV, & 15 others, and convert them to PDF with real-time dynamic watermark and secure viewing on custom PDF and Excel viewers
• The application’s architecture and setup needed to be designed to handle increasing workloads and avoid resulting performance bottlenecks that could impact the document processing efficiency
• The infrastructure required proper security measures to protect the application from vulnerabilities like threats and compromising data integrity
• Safeguarding the application against the risk of data loss or corruption necessitated the implementation of comprehensive backup and recovery mechanisms
• Built with manual vertical scaling in its MVP stage, the application could not efficiently handle concurrent requests for multiple files; horizontal scaling capabilities were required to distribute the workload across numerous servers
• Automation of the deployment process to eliminate efficiencies and error-proneness in manual deployment
  Enhance user experience and meet modern design standards with the user interface (UI)

Gophers Lab understood that to ensure complete safety and prevent data leaks, the product FirmsData required full in-house development and no third-party integrations. With an MVP in place, Gophers Lab implemented the following solution to meet the feature requirements:

• The file processing functionality was migrated to a standalone Golang application deployed on ECS, reducing reliance on a single server, leading to the effective usage of resources and improved scalability
• Introduced separate pre-processing to improve performance and reduce processing time while separately storing optimized files added an extra layer of security
• Implemented optimized file storage to reduce server crashes and allow for handling multiple requests simultaneously
• Long wait times for large file downloads were addressed by implementing an asynchronous request-response pattern using HTTP polling
• AWS CodeCommit and AWS CodePipeline were utilized to establish an automated CI/CD pipeline, enabling streamlined and error-free deployments
• Direct developer access to the servers was removed, ensuring better security and stability of the infrastructure
• The infrastructure was improved by migrating the application to a more scalable platform, adopting managed services such as Amazon RDS for the database and Amazon ElastiCache for caching, enhancing performance, and scalability
• Enhanced security measures were implemented, including restricted SSH access, role-based access control for developers, and integration of Single Sign-On (SSO) for secure access management
• Comprehensive backup policies were established to ensure data protection and facilitate efficient backup and recovery procedures

The above implementations helped Gophers Lab achieve the below results with FirmsData:

• Achieved consistent response time for all APIs, regardless of file size, improving user experience and productivity
• Significantly improved the infrastructure security, reducing the risk of unauthorized access and data breaches
• Introduced robust backup policies to ensure improved disaster readiness, providing a safety net for data recovery and minimizing the impact of potential data loss or corruption
• Made a considerable improvement in system uptime, exceeding 98%, enhancing the availability and reliability of the FirmsData application
• The combination of optimized file processing, streamlined file retrieval, and a refreshed user interface resulted in improved user experience, increasing satisfaction and usability of the application