Locala Unifies Two Adtech Platforms on an Event-Sourced Architecture

Introduction

Locala, previously known as S4M, helps brands drive consumers to stores and measure the results.

In 2017, Locala acquired a mobile display advertising platform and needed to integrate it with its existing Fusio Ad Server product. They wanted to build a platform to help companies drive high-potential consumers into their stores with focused targeting.

The Challenge

Locala’s existing monolithic application was hard to maintain and expensive to run. To integrate the new platform, Locala needed something scalable, maintainable, and able to evolve with the business.

The team first experimented with command sourcing and event sourcing using pure Java code and Kafka. It was a start, but Locala needed a foundation it wouldn’t have to build and maintain itself.

The Solution: An Event-Sourced Ad Server Architecture

In 2020, Locala’s team started a new project on Axon Framework and Axon Server, with Domain-Driven Design (DDD), CQRS, and event sourcing as the architectural patterns. That became the basis of Locala’s new adtech architecture: a distributed system built for maintainability and scale.

Before writing code, the team used event modeling to design each solution. Locala then ran a proof of concept on Axon Server Standard Edition to validate the approach, before going all in on Enterprise Edition.

The Results

Locala built a retail application with the Axon Stack to achieve a distributed environment that featured maintainability and scalability.

Technical benefits

• Locala integrated its main application with multiple microservices in a decoupled way.

• The team plugged straight into Spring Boot, with annotation-based command and event handling.

• Locala got caching and snapshotting out of the box with Axon Framework.

• Locala runs with data protection and high availability on Axon Server Enterprise Edition.

Business benefits

Locala’s team could focus on the business and organizational side of its new digital marketing application, not the technical plumbing.

"Thanks to Axon Framework and Axon Server, we could focus on the business logic and not worry about technicalities."

- Laurent Thoulon, Senior Lead Engineer at Locala

The Role of Axoniq

Locala had the Axoniq team on demand through every phase of the project, including a dedicated Slack channel for confirming answers and validating decisions.

Planning Your Own Proof of Concept?

Locala validated event sourcing on Axon Server before going all in. You can take the same first step: talk to a solution architect about your own architecture and how to get started.