The Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA), an executive agency of the UK government, was facing challenges in its digital transformation journey. The agency was transitioning away from long-term contracts, minimizing vendor lock-in, and moving to open source and cloud where possible. However, the agency was connecting to the cloud via virtual private networks (VPNs), and their VPN firewall ran out of capacity. This situation necessitated a new solution that could provide fast, reliable connectivity. The goal was to improve efficiency, add flexibility, and gain value for money, while bringing services and controls closer to customers, employees, partners, and ecosystems worldwide.

Chef, a leading automation software company, was facing a significant challenge in securing their DevOps practices and business operations. The engineering and operations teams at Chef were seeking a security solution that could provide greater visibility into the changing vulnerabilities and attack vectors across their applications. They needed a security solution that could enable them to identify and solve security issues in the same way they were already able to respond to operational issues, without negatively impacting performance. The challenge was to find a security solution that could scale with their DevOps practices and business needs, and help their customers be more secure.

Meopta offers a full range of in-house optics and photonics services. Many of Meopta’s customers are in the fast-moving semiconductor market, where precision is crucial. However, volume is also a key priority, as a feasible mass production means keeping costs low and performance high. For the designs Meopta delivers to these customers, its engineers must find the most efficient methods for optimizing product features without impacting customer profitability.

MadeiraMadeira, an online marketplace specializing in home products and furniture, faced the challenge of improving online access for shoppers and providing reliable uptime. The company needed to expand its capacity to handle surges in website usage, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic when online traffic volume increased significantly. The company also faced difficulties in handling large volumes of images for its 2.3 million products. The process of compressing, resizing, and editing multiple images was time-consuming and inefficient. Additionally, MadeiraMadeira was looking to implement a multiple cloud strategy and tackle the offline market with a digital mindset.

LeanTaaS, a provider of software solutions for healthcare systems, faced a significant challenge in securing their cloud-based APIs and web services. As a company serving leading hospitals and healthcare providers across the country, LeanTaaS needed a security solution that could provide real-time visibility and defense. Their lean approach, coupled with data analytics, aimed to create more efficient medical facilities, but the security of their cloud-based services was paramount. Additionally, they needed to meet the stringent HIPAA compliance requirements, which further complicated the situation. The challenge was to find a solution that could not only secure their web services and APIs but also ensure compliance with healthcare regulations.

JW Player, a leading platform for video delivery and intelligence, was facing a significant challenge in managing its rapidly increasing traffic. The company, which serves some of the biggest names in media, has seen its traffic grow exponentially as video strategy becomes central to business strategy. The company was dealing with a 900% increase in requests per second, scaling from 4,000 requests per second in 2019 to 40,000 requests per second in 2021. This growth was driven by both market expansion and pandemic-driven demand. The challenge was to maintain high availability and fast time-to-first-frame (TTFF), which are critical metrics for end-user engagement. Additionally, JW Player was grappling with rising origin costs and the need to simplify their tech stack.

Hoodoo Digital, an agency specializing in delivering customer experiences using the Adobe Experience Cloud, faced a challenge in providing its clients with both content security and performance at scale. One of Hoodoo's clients, Pacific Dental Services, which manages 1,200 websites for dental offices, was not delivering all of its websites through HTTPS. The sites were hosted on an Apache server, and a few dozen certificates were causing performance issues. Furthermore, Google was about to change its algorithm to downgrade insecure sites. Pacific Dental Services needed to add TLS certificates across its portfolio as soon as possible, and also automatically generate certificates for every new website going forward. It was crucial that all sites maintained a high standard of performance.

OpenStreetMap (OSM), an open-source global map built by 6.4 million volunteers, faced significant challenges with their content delivery. Their data, used worldwide for various applications, is updated frequently, sometimes every minute, and a new complete export of their data is published weekly. However, their initial solution of building their own content delivery network (CDN) with donated resources was fraught with difficulties. They struggled to obtain servers in certain regions, and map editors often complained about slow loading times. Their ability to detect and correct server issues was minimal. In 2019, a traffic spike caused by the London Marathon's new app led to the meltdown of OSM's custom-built CDN, forcing them to reroute traffic and seek a different solution.

GIPHY, a platform that serves billions of stickers, clips, and GIFs daily to its global user base, faced the challenge of delivering content seamlessly, reliably, and cost-effectively. The platform's content enhances conversations across various social media and communication tools, including iMessage, Facebook, Snapchat, and TikTok. The challenge was to ensure a speedy, lag-free search experience for GIPHY end users. Additionally, GIPHY needed to protect its platform from malicious traffic and reduce traffic to origins for cost savings. The company also required data logs to drive analytics and future content development, and needed to maintain agility in the development of platform enhancements.

api.video, a European-based company that provides video encoding, delivery, and hosting services, faced significant challenges in scaling its video delivery via its Content Delivery Network (CDN). The company was using a niche CDN provider, CDNetworks, for its two data centers in Canada and Europe. However, the provider was unable to meet the growing demands of api.video. The company faced issues with poor cache performance under full load, especially during live streaming events. This issue was so severe that it restricted product access and hindered the company's scaling efforts. Additionally, the CDN provider only made logs accessible once per day, which made quick mitigation of any abuse impossible. The company also faced issues with opaque routing within its old CDN, which was suboptimal and offered no control. Furthermore, api.video wanted to leverage future features that the previous CDN provider would not allow due to lacking features or mandated policies. These features included supporting custom domains, domain referrer restrictions, the ability to control request log data, and support for the Cloud Data Management Capabilities (CDMC) framework and built-in optimizations for video use cases.

Vadso Municipality in Norway offers extracurricular activities for its citizens, with parents having the ability to enroll their children and receive a subsidy on the fees. However, the program’s availability and enrollment process was not accessible through any digital means. Parents had to manually search for available activities and contact the responsible agency to enroll their children. To claim the subsidy, parents had to visit different departments and submit various documents and forms. This cumbersome process limited the program’s reach. The client wanted a technology that could digitize the entire process, creating a web application that enables parents to explore the activities and enroll their children. The biggest challenge was to understand the entire process and the existing technology that the Vadso Municipality had employed. Developers had to deal with various complex scenarios like different enrollment requirements and eligibility criteria for subsidies. Language barrier and integration with other systems were additional difficulties.

The DVM Group, a prominent architecture practice in Hungary, was tasked with designing the Szervita Square Building in Budapest. The challenge was to create a structure that would not only fit in with the historic architectural styles of the surrounding area but also meet the stringent requirements for LEED Platinum certification. The design involved hundreds of curved and polished panels to create a gleaming façade, which required meticulous attention to detail. Furthermore, the design had to go through multiple iterations due to the site's prestigious location and the LEED-certification requirement. The complexity of the design and the need for sustainability resulted in an extraordinary amount of data, which needed to be managed effectively.

The Magoda Project was born out of a meeting between a Danish architect and a German doctor, both passionate about combating malaria, a disease that is particularly prevalent in Africa. The World Health Organization reported that in 2015, over 200 million cases of malaria were responsible for more than 400,000 malaria-related deaths. The challenge was to develop malaria-free housing in a local community in Tanzania. Traditional housing in the region often resulted in poor indoor climates due to lack of ventilation, leading to high indoor temperatures. This made it unbearable for residents to use mosquito nets, thus increasing the risk of malaria transmission. The goal was to create a solution that would not only reduce the risk of malaria but also improve the overall living conditions of the residents.

The Yunshan Town Complex, located in the scenic Simian Mountain valley, was a unique project for the Shanghai-based Yuangou design agency. The team, more accustomed to designing urban complexes, was tasked with creating a two-building complex that would serve as the entrance point to a new tourist resort. The challenge was to design a structure that would emulate the surrounding mountains and local architecture, while housing an art gallery, retail stores, a wedding chapel, and holiday residences. The rural location and the need to reflect local architectural practices and natural elements presented a significant challenge. Additionally, the consistent rain typical of the climate necessitated the design of roofs that could effectively deflect rain.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) was faced with the challenge of providing temporary shelters for Syrian refugees. The traditional construction methods were not only expensive but also time-consuming and required skilled labor. Furthermore, the concept of using earth-bag houses as transitional shelters was not widely accepted due to the perceived quality of the end product. The team, mostly comprised of unskilled workers, also needed significant management and training to understand the construction process. The challenge was to design and construct cost-effective, durable, and user-friendly shelters within a short period of time, using mostly unskilled labor.

Regit, formerly known as Motoring.co.uk, is the UK’s leading online service for drivers. The company faced a significant challenge in predicting which of their 2.5 million users were likely to change their vehicle and when. This information was crucial for the company to serve their customers in a more personalized and targeted way. The company operates by generating leads for companies in the automotive industry by providing a platform for people to book test drives, buy and sell cars, and request brochures, among other services. However, they were unable to predict which of their users were likely to change their vehicle, or even know who had changed their vehicle until after it had happened. This lack of predictive capability was a significant barrier to increasing their call center revenues.

The customer, a global multilateral financial advisory firm, was facing a multitude of challenges. They were looking to secure business growth, protect margins, and align operations across countries to rapidly changing market needs. Business agility was critical to increase operational efficiency. However, the performance of their existing hardware and applications, along with a clunky collaboration environment, were major hindrances to employee productivity and end-user experience. The business aimed at reducing the cost of managing incidents, eventually reducing the number of incidents, and minimizing false alarms. Additionally, the customer was operating with geographically distributed localized service desks that were using non-standard processes. This was leading to redundancies, operational inefficiencies, and sub-optimal IT service delivery.

Finn AI, a provider of AI-powered virtual assistance for banks and credit unions, faced a significant challenge in securing their business-critical APIs. The company, which uses natural language processing technology (NLP) to enable conversational AI technology for financial institutions, needed a solution that would provide visibility into API discovery attempts by malicious threat actors and the ability to stop unusual activity against these APIs. Despite having a relatively small attack surface due to the absence of a client-side frontend, Finn AI's APIs still required effective protection. The company sought a solution that would install easily, scale effectively, be light on resources, and provide protection against OWASP Top 10 and zero-day exploit attempts.