AtoZ & Nomentia in collaboration

Collaboration began through networks

The collaboration between Nomentia and AtoZ started through a mutual acquaintance, says Nomentia's Head of DevOps, Ari Mäntyniemi.

"AtoZ's CEO Mikko Leinonen is an old colleague of mine and our CEO Jukka Sallinen. We came across a project through Mikko on LinkedIn, where AtoZ was building a service to measure the energy efficiency of software.

Jukka and I thought this sounded very sensible, and we should also take a look at our own systems from a more sustainable and cost-saving perspective. Could we also reduce the emissions caused by IT and, through that, reduce our own costs?

This was the basis of our thinking, and we ended up discussing it with AtoZ last November. After the discussions and signing the agreement, our collaboration quickly got underway," Mäntyniemi explains.

Key modules of the extensive treasury system under inspection

Unnecessary energy consumption and cost inefficiency are visible in IT systems, for example, when software reserves capacity and uses resources unnecessarily. Resource usage can be optimized in cloud platforms today by automatically scaling resources according to load, thereby reducing the amount of waste power consumed by the system.

Mäntyniemi explains that Nomentia's system is large enough that the audit project focused only on selected parts of the system.

"Our treasury system operates between the different payment software and banks of our client companies, meaning companies send their payments to the bank through us and can also retrieve information such as account transactions and statements in the opposite direction. This Nomentia Cash Management service is at the core of our operations, but we also have products for liquidity and managing financial instruments and their reporting.

Because our main product is so extensive, we determined that an audit covering the entire system would be quite a massive operation. Therefore, AtoZ's audit focused on two critical and central modules of our system: Accounts and Payments."

Comprehensive analysis of product development from an energy efficiency perspective

During the audit, AtoZ experts interviewed Nomentia's application developers and delved deeper into the architecture of the treasury system as well as energy-consuming application solutions.

"After drafting the agreement, we held a joint kickoff meeting with our project team to discuss the scope of the audit in practical terms. We agreed on who would be interviewed and who would be involved from our side to assist with the project. Then, we rolled up our sleeves and got to work.

AtoZ interviewed our employees, for example, regarding the product development process of the modules. The scope of the audit was even broader than just measuring energy efficiency and carbon emissions; AtoZ was able to dive into the architecture of our systems and cloud platform to review the cloud resources we use. This allowed them to determine how our products are built and how product development is organized in terms of energy efficiency and quality.

We also installed tools in our system to measure emissions in the environment. Using the findings from these tools, AtoZ performed the actual analysis, and afterward, we reviewed the identified pain points together with our steering group. Additionally, the work also looked into data security and monitoring from the perspective of energy efficiency."

Clear task list for supporting saving actions

At the end of the three-month audit project, Nomentia received a report on the results of the work.

"Overall, the goal of the audit was to analyze the energy efficiency of parts of our treasury system, which provided a comprehensive snapshot of our actions and processes across different categories. In the end, we received a summary report from AtoZ, which will help us start taking actions toward a greener future for our system.

We received an energy efficiency rating for the modules that were the subject of the audit, based on which some parts could be developed to be more energy-saving technologically. The report also includes a clear to-do list, which will guide us step-by-step in making our work more energy-efficient.

Changing the structure of such systems doesn't happen with a snap of the fingers, so we will be redesigning parts of the modules and testing them over the next few months before transferring them to production. This will allow us to reduce our emissions and costs going forward."

Thorough understanding of the software development process and its saving dimensions

Mäntyniemi is pleased with the audit and AtoZ's expertise throughout the project.

"Our system's energy efficiency audit went very well. We got expert individuals from AtoZ who had a deep understanding of the processes and ways of working at a software company. The discussions were smooth because we spoke the same language from the start – we didn't need to explain the practical aspects of the project separately, as AtoZ already understood them.

It was great that we were also able to focus our attention deeper into the system, beyond just the evaluation of energy efficiency. AtoZ’s team knew what the software development process consists of and how to handle its various components in the most profitable way.

From the customer's perspective, it's eye-opening to get external and expert insights on things. A new perspective generally always helps in software development, and it often strengthens existing doubts or brings up entirely new aspects to consider in processes. Thanks to AtoZ's audit and guidance, we can now easily start developing our treasury system in a greener direction."

AtoZ's service to Nomentia includes:

• Pilot audit of the energy efficiency of the treasury system to reduce emissions and costs.
• In-depth analysis of the software architecture to gain a broader view of Nomentia's software development processes.
• A final report that scores the system's components from an energy efficiency perspective and includes a list of optimization actions to be taken.