Modernizing a Telegram Marketing Platform

By performing a thorough analysis and implementing a step-by-step plan, our team turned the outdated system into a reliable, cutting-edge platform. This case study explores the identified issues, the proposed technological change, and the results we delivered to enable the client to expand.

The Client

Our client is a social media marketing and management tool that assists businesses and influencers in promoting their blogs and content through advertising in selected Telegram channels. The platform uses intelligent bots that help place ads and interact with potential users in real time, making it helpful in increasing the number of subscribers.

From a business perspective, the platform has been highly efficient in driving traffic to the Telegram channels and making a profit. However, the platform's core technology had not been updated in several years. This led to performance issues, security concerns, and increased maintenance costs.

The Challenge

When the client, a service for advertising business in Telegram channels, approached us, their goal was to assess the state of the platform’s technology and make it competitive once again. The investors had just acquired the company and were eager to evaluate what they had purchased. They quickly realized the platform operated on outdated technologies that hindered its growth potential.

Several critical challenges emerged:

• Outdated Technology Stack: The platform was based on an obsolete version of Ruby (2. 3.1), which was no longer supported. The outdated Ruby and Rails versions posed risks, making the platform vulnerable to security threats and complicating any new development.

• Broken Test Suite: The test suite built by the development team had not been maintained for the past few years and could have been more useful. Consequently, new features were developed and released into the market without proper testing, making the application prone to bugs.

• Client’s Growing Expectations: The platform was beneficial to its users, but the increasing number of customers needed new functionalities and more reliability. The investors had to make sure that the technology evolved to meet these needs.

Our Approach

The first step in the project was to audit the platform to determine its risks and possible areas for improvement. From there, our SMM software development company defined a strategic approach to upgrading the technology, improving the development process, and ensuring the platform's scalability.

• Platform Audit:

The audit was a significant initial action. To find out the cause of the platform’s issues, our specialists analyzed the codebase, system architecture, and current approach to development.

• Upgrading the Core Technology Stack:

We moved the Rails framework from 5.2 to a more current version. This process required careful coordination to avoid breaking any existing functionality.

These enhancements improved the platform's stability, security, and overall performance. They also opened up new possibilities and functionalities that were impossible to implement with an outdated stack.

• Rebuilding the Test Suite:

Testing is crucial in the development life cycle to avoid introducing new code changes that can bring new bugs or reduce application performance. Our team spent a lot of time and effort fixing the test suite and making sure that most of the platform was covered. We also incorporated CI/CD, which enabled developers to run tests as soon as they made changes to the code. This strategy also meant that every new update that was to be introduced in the production process was thoroughly checked to minimize the chances of making mistakes.

• Dependency Management:

Another critical issue was the platform's reliance on outdated libraries. We updated the dependency management system to make sure that the platform could reliably incorporate modern libraries, allowing it to stay relevant and avoid security vulnerabilities.

• Legacy Code Refactoring:

Our team actively works with legacy code and reviews outdated solutions. We conduct refactoring to ensure smoother performance while maintaining core functionalities. Addressing the technical debt accumulated over previous years will significantly speed up the platform's performance and simplify future updates.

DevOps Approach

The client has decided to delay migrating to Kubernetes until next year due to insufficient resources for the transition at this time. As a result, our DevOps specialist is currently focused on optimizing the project and preparing it for future migration. He is setting up monitoring systems (Grafana, Prometheus, alerting) and describing the infrastructure as code using Terraform (Terragrunt). 

In the future, we plan to containerize the project using Docker and develop new pipelines to support this infrastructure. Overall, we are utilizing a DevOps approach on this project to optimize resource management.

Future Plans

Looking forward, we are continuing to work with the client to:

• Complete the migration to Ruby 3.2 and the latest stable version of Rails.

• Fully restore and expand the test suite to make sure that every aspect of the platform is covered by automated testing.

• Modernize the database architecture to reduce the dependency on custom PostgreSQL and provide future flexibility.

Our goal is to continue supporting the platform's evolution, enabling it to meet the growing demands of its user base while maintaining top-tier performance and reliability.

Conclusion

This project highlights the importance of maintaining an up-to-date, scalable technology stack in digital marketing. By transforming an aging platform into a future-ready solution, we helped our client unlock new potential and continue driving growth for Telegram ad exchange.

If your business is struggling with legacy systems or you're looking to future-proof your digital platform, contact us. We're here to help you achieve your next growth stage through cutting-edge technology and expert consultations!