NASCAR engaged CapTech to build a proof of concept, cloud-based approach for competition data management. CapTech utilized AWS native services to deliver a centralized relational data store, serverless microservices, and a containerized user interface to ingest, govern, and publish a master set of competition data to internal and external partners. The capability provided NASCAR with a process to consistently manage and store competition data that ensures data quality and integrity. This solution was designed to lay the foundation for the organization to productize and monetize its data, including future sports gaming opportunities.
Approach
NASCAR engaged CapTech to design and develop a solution that stores, governs, and publishes competition data. The objective was to increase the reliability and trust in its published competition data set.
CapTech provided the data management and cloud expertise to help NASCAR create a consolidated, modern, cloud-based architecture that leverages cloud native services designed to minimize and streamline operational support requirements for its lean technical team. This solution provided the organization with the framework to rapidly prototype new products and to enable real-time gaming opportunities. From this foundation, NASCAR aims to expand the variety of digital and gaming-related products to levels that exist in other sports today to capture new fans and increase fan engagement in racing.
Solution
CapTech delivered a solution designed for event-driven publication of competition data by applying a microservices approach using AWS Lambdas as Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) to interact with a central competition data store hosted in AWS RDS.
The design incorporated a user interface hosted on Docker containers orchestrated by AWS Fargate that allowed data stewards with non-technical backgrounds at the organization to review new or updated competition data for publication. End users could then consume the competition data from either an API or AWS Kinesis stream based on timeliness requirements. CapTech focused on using serverless and AWS managed services to leverage the benefits of a cloud-native solution, reducing operational maintenance of the system. The relational data model and business rules engine were designed to be flexible and easily scalable to handle all competition data domains as the organization expands.
Results
The proof of concept:
Provided a scalable technical approach to handle the publication of competition data
Increased trust in the accuracy of competition data
Delivered a modern architecture and technology stack that would minimize operational demands from the team
Provided a technical roadmap to establish this solution in production
Increased subject matter knowledge of cloud services and master data management