A Fortune 500 Healthcare company observes dramatic improvements in feature velocity and dev productivity using Hasura
The technology team at a Fortune 500 Healthcare Company (HC), headed by their Principal Architect and Head of Engineering and Design decided to adopt GraphQL as they felt GraphQL would significantly advance their chosen business KPIs. They considered several GraphQL solutions before eventually settling on Hasura.
Highlights
App development time has gone down from “months and years to weeks”.
Simultaneously, team size for an app development project has reduced from 15 to 7-8.
Skill set requirements have changed drastically. The need for backend devs and database experts has reduced, and now they hire full-stack developers with significant React experience.
Going forward, they will be implementing Hasura for apps across business lines.
Adopting GraphQL
HC had to keep certain key business priorities in mind when deciding on the architecture for their future applications:
Reduce total time from concept to delivery.
Enable external developers to build applications on top of their offerings easily.
Increase their ability to adapt to changes as they go to market. For example,
HC felt that GraphQL was an ideal solution across these three strategic aspects. They validated this by running two pilots, one for a new prototype and another for an existing product.
Evaluating GraphQL Tools
HC initially considered developing their GraphQL APIs from scratch. However, they decided against this since they did not have enough developers with relevant experience. They also felt that there were enough tools available in the market for setting up GraphQL servers, and that they could leverage one of these solutions.
HC tested several tools before eventually deciding to go with Hasura because:
Hasura has extensive support for Postgres and allowed HC to leverage all of the Postgres features.
Hasura worked in a plug-n-play fashion with their existing on-prem database, and was extremely easy to get started with, requiring minimal boilerplate.
Hasura offered extremely high performance.
Hasura did not require writing and maintaining backend code for most use-cases
Using Hasura
Hasura is currently being considered for use in multiple products. The most important consideration is performance, and being able to offer a single box solution. In the past, HC offered enterprise box solutions which made getting into clients a large barrier, requiring CapEx approval. With a single box solution, customer buy-in was easier to obtain. Hasura’s high performance and low footprint enabled HC to offer a single box solution.
HC also had some initial questions around the security and access control model. These were resolved over discussions with the Hasura team on the Hasura discord and the Hasura team is working closely with them to add more advanced enterprise-ready capabilities
Results from using Hasura
Through building the beta version of the product using Hasura, HC has observed several dramatic benefits.
By using Hasura, HC was able to significantly improve dev team efficiency. Application development time reduced to weeks from months and years - in the past, this app would have taken a year or more. Similarly, team size reduced from 15 developers to 7 or 8. The team doesn’t need to worry about middleware or API changes and can avoid writing a lot of backend boilerplate.
The skill sets required for application development has also changed. HC did not require any backend or DB specialists to build the app. Going forward, HC is looking mainly at full-stack React developers to fill out any vacancies.
The high performance Hasura affords, and the consequent ability to offer a single box solution, has reduced sales cycles, and will directly impact sales revenue.
Roadmap going forward
The products are expected to go into production later this year. Going forward, HC plans to use Hasura across their business lines, as they try to significantly improve dev team productivity and feature velocity.
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This case study was prepared basis a discussion with the Principal Architect & Head of Engineering and Design of the corresponding business division of the Fortune 500 Healthcare company.
