Dreamix recently partnered with CERN’s Business Computing Group - a group within the European Laboratory for Particle Physics, responsible for managing information systems for the physics institute’s business functions. They wanted to increase IT capacity to modernise the institute’s Roles and Electronic Document Handler software systems. After working with Dreamix, they’ve rebuilt one and created an architectural runway for the other using a newer tech stack, saved manhours, improved the user experience, and boosted employee satisfaction.
Pioneering Research and Innovation
CERN is one of the world's leading physics research centres and home to the largest particle accelerator on Earth. In 2019, the laboratory had 2,660 scientific, technical, and administrative staff members, and hosted about 12,400 users from institutions in more than 70 countries. In a year, CERN and the Large Hadron Collider access (read or write) over 1 exabyte (the equivalent to 1000 petabytes) of data.
CERN's Business Computing Group provides corporate computing services for users across the entire organisation. The types of products under the group's responsibility range from custom-made solutions for a few employees to large and widely integrated systems with 15,000+ users.
The Opportunity
For a long time, CERN’s internal role management and electronic documentation handling systems worked perfectly and met all their needs. As time went on, however, the Business Computing Group identified an opportunity to modernise these applications and significantly improve the institute’s internal process efficiency. In doing so, they could also enable future scaling and implement new features into the system.
The Solution
The Dreamix team was initially tasked with optimising CERN’s Roles Management system. The application manages the physical and electronic access rights of all CERN employees and related personnel - such a crucial system needed to be as responsive as possible.
We worked with CERN stakeholders and used React and Java to rebuild the solution, with a focus on recreating the existing functionalities cleanly and in a scalable manner. The backend engineers migrated most of the code to JAVA creating modern RESTFul APIs. At the same time, we helped design a lean and engaging front-end for the application.
After completing the first project, Dreamix was tasked with modernising our partner’s Electronic Document Handler system. The application manages CERN’s electronic business processes, including procurement, leaves, logistics, safety, and more. Once again, this was a highly complex and critical system where efficiency was paramount.
Dreamix worked with Business Computing Group teams to redesign the layout for the new application and migrate it to React to improve its responsiveness and user experience. Most importantly, we created a framework that would allow future development teams to more easily import CERN’s large documentation stack to the new system, as well as create and manage existing processes securely and efficiently.
The Results
The first application, the Roles Management System, achieved its intended goals. CERN Computing Group has successfully decommissioned the old tool, and all users have been migrated to the new system. It now manages access levels for approximately 15,000+ individuals per year, both in terms of physical and online access. This ensures that everyone at CERN is properly accounted for.
Our work on the Electronic Document Handler application has also been successful. The platform we worked on allows all CERN teams to migrate their documents into the new tech stack for a smooth transition.
Thanks to our work together, CERN’s Business Computing Group has improved internal speed and efficiency and increased employee satisfaction. Furthermore, the modernised system provides a solid foundation for them to develop and implement new features in the future, fulfilling their main modernisation goals.
