Fixing Slow IoT Reports Without a Rebuild
IoT data management does not always need a rewrite. Ibisa fixed its slowest reporting queries in place, cutting logging tasks from five minutes to 20 seconds.
- Geography
- Bogota, Colombia
- Year
- 2020
- Stage
- 11 to 50 employees
- Team
- Two Shipverra engineers
- Duration
- February 2020 to ongoing
- Engagement size
- $10,000 to $49,999
The situation
Ibisa had spent five years building an IoT platform out of Bogota, Colombia, when its biggest standing user complaint became speed. Database queries behind logging and reporting were slow enough to be a real product problem, the kind that surfaces in every customer conversation.
The team, then 11 to 50 people, needed the queries fast without rebuilding the platform around them. The ask was to fix the two slowest features, not to start over on the whole system.
What we built
Two Shipverra engineers joined the engagement and worked directly inside Ibisa's existing software architecture and the query paths behind logging and reporting. Rather than adding hardware to mask the slowdown, the team restructured how the database handled the reads and writes those two features depended on, tracing the slowness back to how the queries themselves were built.
The engagement ran on Jira and standard scrum ceremonies alongside Ibisa's in-house team, which kept the database query optimization work integrated with the platform's existing roadmap instead of treated as a separate track. The scope stayed in the $10,000 to $49,999 range, in line with a focused fix rather than a platform-wide project. That scope is itself part of the proof: fixing an IoT platform's data management bottleneck does not have to mean paying for a rewrite.
Outcome
Database logging tasks that took five minutes came down to 20 seconds. Report speed, the platform's largest standing complaint, improved to the point that Ibisa came back to scope additional projects rather than start over with a different team.
Ibisa's own review of the engagement credits the team with focusing on what users were actually facing rather than the technology for its own sake, and rates the work highly across every category. For a team that fixed the problem without rebuilding the platform, that return engagement is itself the clearest evidence the fix held.
"Shipverra’s work has impacted us in a positive way."
Engagement FAQ
Can slow IoT platform reports be fixed without rebuilding the platform?
Yes, at least in Ibisa's case. The team restructured the database architecture and query paths behind logging and reporting, cutting logging tasks from five minutes to 20 seconds, with no platform rebuild involved.
What is the difference between fixing IoT data management and rebuilding the platform?
For Ibisa, fixing data management meant restructuring how the database handled queries for logging and reporting, the two slowest features, rather than adding hardware or rebuilding the platform around them.
How much faster can IoT logging get without a rebuild?
In Ibisa's case, logging tasks that took five minutes came down to 20 seconds after the team restructured the database architecture and query paths, with no platform rebuild involved.
How big a team do you need to fix an IoT platform's slowest queries?
Ibisa's engagement ran with two Shipverra engineers working inside the existing platform and team, using Jira and standard scrum ceremonies alongside Ibisa's own engineers. A small, focused team was enough to resolve the platform's biggest standing complaint.
What happens after fixing a platform's biggest performance complaint?
For Ibisa, resolving the report speed complaint led the client to return and scope additional projects with the same team instead of looking elsewhere. The engagement, which began in February 2020, has continued since.