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About CBB


Canadian Black Book is a division of the Hearst Business Media Corporation, which boasts 360 corporations is a renowned automotive data provider in Canada, offering accurate vehicle valuations, residual value forecasts, and market insights. With a rich history since 1961, they have become a trusted resource for consumers, dealers, and industry professionals. Their comprehensive suite of products and services helps facilitate fair transactions, inform decision-making, and promote transparency in the automotive market.
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canadianblackbook
In this era of significant transformation in the automotive industry, technological advancements and changing consumer preferences are reshaping the landscape. Innovations like electric vehicles, connectivity features, and autonomous driving are revolutionizing the way cars are bought and sold. As part of this transformation, online vehicle valuations provided by Canadian Black Book (CBB) are playing a crucial role. Dealers and consumers alike can leverage CBB’s accurate and reliable data to make informed decisions in the dynamic automotive market. By staying abreast of the latest trends and collaborating with key industry stakeholders, businesses can navigate this evolving landscape successfully and capitalize on the opportunities it presents.

About CBB

https://www.translucentcomputing.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/CBB-Psd-1-2.png

Canadian Black Book is a division of the Hearst Business Media Corporation, which boasts 360 corporations is a renowned automotive data provider in Canada, offering accurate vehicle valuations, residual value forecasts, and market insights. With a rich history since 1961, they have become a trusted resource for consumers, dealers, and industry professionals. Their comprehensive suite of products and services helps facilitate fair transactions, inform decision-making, and promote transparency in the automotive market.
canadianblackbook
In this era of significant transformation in the automotive industry, technological advancements and changing consumer preferences are reshaping the landscape. Innovations like electric vehicles, connectivity features, and autonomous driving are revolutionizing the way cars are bought and sold. As part of this transformation, online vehicle valuations provided by Canadian Black Book (CBB) are playing a crucial role. Dealers and consumers alike can leverage CBB’s accurate and reliable data to make informed decisions in the dynamic automotive market. By staying abreast of the latest trends and collaborating with key industry stakeholders, businesses can navigate this evolving landscape successfully and capitalize on the opportunities it presents.

Overview

Industry-2

Industry

Automotive Industry
Companysize

Company size

50 to 500
Location

Location

Toronto – Ontario
Keystats

Key stats

  • • CBB Connect: 219,000 users yearly
  • • CBB Connect: 30,000 Vehicle searches a day
  • • CBB Connect: 10,950,000 Vehicle searches yearly
ProjectAreas

Project Areas

Full Digital Transformation
  • • Microservices
  • • DevOps
  • • Machine Learning

Combine process and cloud native development

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The Challenge

Before the transformation, CBB printed and distributed paper books to their users. There was no mobile app, and the system was running on-premises.

The question was: How can we best get the vehicle information to our users with the most current data while they are either at auction or at a dealership working with a customer?

The app needed to be fast, accessed on the web and mobile and ready for high demand.

As a leader in the automotive data collection and distribution industry it was crucial that they were able to internally and externally communicate at the current pace of business.
Through our partnership model, Translucent has worked with the various moving parts of the complex CBB applications, backend, middle tier, front end, mobile (iOS & Android), security and monitoring to be a significant partner from architecture throughout implementation.
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The Solution

Total Digital Transformation
MICROSERVICES | DEVOPS | MONITORING
Microservices DevOps Monitoring
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Built distributed systems tailored to CBB’s operations and product offerings to transform their old legacy applications.

Microservices allow for pivot and scalability while minimally affecting day-to-day operations and consistently upgrading based on user feedback to keep CBB an industry leader in today’s competitive landscape of a digitally transformed world.

Maximizes effectiveness and efficiency to help your technology mimic your business operations.

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TEKStack™: Translucent has years of experience in the build pipeline and has created multiple tools under the TEKStackTM umbrella for CI / CD. Kubernetes cluster (EKS -AWS) running Dockerized containers designed in multiple languages and tools: Java, Spring, Angular, Node JS, databases MySql & ElasticSearch, HazelCast (cache solution), RabbitMQ (messaging bus), Nginx (API Gateway & reverse Proxy)

Prometheus is used to collect metrics data from the Kubernetes cluster and the Microservices, as well as APM Application Performance Metrics.

Elasticsearch: To aggregate the logs from the cluster and the Microservices. Grafana: To create dashboards to visualize and display from Prometheus. Kabana: To develop dashboards and visualizations for Elasticsearch. Sentry: Error tracking software to find exceptions in Microservices and Alert. Machine Learning : The applications and systems have been optimized for machine learning. The ability to implement automated DevOps pipeline, Security, Monitoring and Alerts to true AIOps is available.
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  • https://www.translucentcomputing.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/icon-Microservices.png

    Microservices

    Microservices allow for pivot and scalability while minimally affecting day-to-day operations and consistently upgrading based on user feedback to keep CBB an industry leader in today’s competitive landscape of a digitally transformed world.
  • https://www.translucentcomputing.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/icon-DevOps.png

    DevOps

    TEKStack™: Translucent has years of experience in the build pipeline and has created multiple tools under the TEKStackTM umbrella for CI / CD. Kubernetes cluster (EKS -AWS) running Dockerized containers designed in multiple languages and tools: Java, Spring, Angular, Node JS, databases MySql & ElasticSearch, HazelCast (cache solution), RabbitMQ (messaging bus), Nginx (API Gateway & reverse Proxy)
  • https://www.translucentcomputing.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/icon-Monitoring.png

    Monitoring

    Elasticsearch: To aggregate the logs from the cluster and the Microservices. Grafana: To create dashboards to visualize and display from Prometheus. Kabana: To develop dashboards and visualizations for Elasticsearch. Sentry: Error tracking software to find exceptions in Microservices and Alert. Machine Learning : The applications and systems have been optimized for machine learning. The ability to implement automated DevOps pipeline, Security, Monitoring and Alerts to true AIOps is available.
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CBB Connect

V.I.N Barcode Scanner
WEB APP | MOBILE APP IOS & ANDROID

What is CBB Connect?

CBB connect is a cloud platfrom for vehicles valuations that can be access through the web or mobile applications. The application allows the user to search the vehicles by scanning a VIN or enter it manually. Specialized bar code scanner allows for scanning VIN numbers. CBB app returns vehicle valuation for purchase, leases and provides market insights.

Three ways to enter V.I.N.:

  • • Specialized keyboard
  • • Scanner
  • • Drop down menu

CBB Valuation is based on parameters such as mileage, year, model, make, and other key indicators.

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CBBEstimator

CBB Estimator

Vehicle trade in valuation tool
WEB APPLICATION

What is CBB Estimator?

CBB Estimator application is a web app integrated right into dealers websites that allows consumers to enter their current vehicle year, make, model, mileage and the new car they would want from the dealer in order to get a trade in value when they purchase their new car.

This is a good tool for the consumer and an excellent tool for the company to drive business and close on very qualified leads.

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https://www.translucentcomputing.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/obb-consume-mobile.png
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TheResults

The Results

Translucent fully transformed a paper-based business with new digital assets. Users carried and looked up information in outdated books to get the right insights about their cars. Now, they get live information from web or mobile applications within seconds.

With a new cloud-native architecture, the application can scale on demand.

Users can scan a VIN code with a new mobile app and get up-to-date insights.

With new observability tools CBB has complete insights into what is happening with the app at all times.

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Letter of Reference

Mike Compton

CTO Canadian Black Book

Letter of Reference | Mike Compton, CTO Canadian Black Book

When I arrived at Canadian Black Book as the new CTO one of my priorities was to come up-to-speed on all the projects that were underway and learn more about the third-party technology companies being leveraged. On the product development front, I learned that a company named Translucent Computing was under contract to provide their software development services in redeveloping the core mobile and web-based products.

The more I learned the more I realized that we had been fortunate to find a technology of their caliber. The architectures and technologies that I was brought in to implement were already being integrated and deployed by Translucent. Specifically, all the new products were built on a strong foundation using the AWS cloud, terraform for infrastructure deployment, Kubernetes for cluster monitoring and scaling, app containerization using Docker, and a strong dose of DevOps to ensure the pipeline was automated.

A lot of technology vendors claim to have expertise with these technologies, but those boasts aren’t always a reality. You need to hire great engineers that work well with clients and that, in a nutshell, is what Translucent Computing has brought to Canadian Black Book.   Mike Compton, CTO, Canadian Black Book A division of the Hearst Business Media Corporation
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