Modernization of Information Management System on React & Node.js
Industry
Online Information Services
Platforms
Web Application
Services Provided
UI/UX Design, Custom Web App Development, Quality Assurance
React-Powered Legacy System Modernization
Overview
The client, a leading online information service provider, sought to enhance its analytics platform to better serve administrators and analysts with real-time data and interactive dashboards. The existing system had multiple limitations, including slow dashboard performance, prolonged data export times, and developer bottlenecks, particularly when filtering or generating reports. These limitations affected the platform’s efficiency and its ability to deliver timely insights.
Zerozilla was tasked with upgrading the client’s system to address performance issues and improve user experience. The challenge was to achieve this upgrade while ensuring minimal disruption to ongoing operations. The solution focused on modernizing the backend, optimizing data pipelines, and enhancing the front-end user interface for more interactive and responsive analytics.
Problem
The platform’s outdated backend, relying on an old version of Mongoose and a monolithic architecture, led to slow load times and significant delays when handling large datasets. The analytics and reporting functions, especially real-time dashboards and Excel exports, suffered from severe performance bottlenecks. Pages were slow to load, and generating large reports took several minutes, often leading to timeouts.
Additionally, the process of adding new filters or report types was cumbersome and required developers to write custom scripts, which created bottlenecks in operational workflows. This limited the ability of platform administrators to perform ad-hoc analyses and required significant manual intervention from developers.
Mongoose Upgrade & Refactor: Bumped to the latest stable version and refactored minimal schema and connection code to preserve business logic.
Optimized Aggregation Pipelines: Replaced in-memory calculations with MongoDB’s aggregation framework, enhanced by compound indexes.
Dynamic Dashboard Module: Utilized React and ApexCharts for interactive charts and data tables with server-side pagination.
Real-Time Updates: Integrated WebSocket for live chart updates, eliminating the need for manual reloads.
Streaming Excel Export Engine: Integrated ExcelJS for on-the-fly Excel generation without memory spikes.
Features
Dynamic Dashboard:
Real-time logins, access, and download stats in charts/tables
Rapid Exports:
Excel export for large datasets in under 30 seconds.
Live Metrics:
WebSocket-powered charts with instant updates.
Top Resources:
Real-time leaderboard of most accessed/downloaded items.
The Dev Lab
Where We Began
We began with updating the platform, which had an outdated backend infrastructure and performance bottlenecks.
Choosing the Technology
The solution was crafted using the latest versions of React and Node.js for scalability and performance.
Technology Stack
React for frontend, Node.js for backend development, and MongoDB for efficient data handling. Other tech used includes Goober, Lenis (1.1.18), Framer Motion, core-js (2.6.12), and Tailwind CSS.
Tools Used
Apache HTTP Server (2.4.58), ExcelJS (for streaming Excel exports) and WebSocket (for real-time updates)
Methodologies Involved
Agile methodology, with daily huddles and weekly demos to ensure smooth collaboration and iterative development.
