Appearition and its Omni platform for Immersive Technology

About Appearition

Appearition is an Australian technology company focused on creating immersive technologies that serve multiple industry verticals via a flexible API led interface.

Appearition was created with the purpose of providing cutting edge technology and also to be the agent of change by reducing the barriers to entry into immersive technologies for all sizes of enterprises. It is a group of passionate, purpose-driven individuals who are experts in immersive technology, agile software development, and product delivery.

They built the world’s first headless content management platform for immersive technologies that can serve multiple industry verticals via a flexible API led interface. 

About Appearition and its Omni platform for Immersive Technology

The Appearition team created a modular platform solution in blocks that can be configured independently, client-by-client. The immersive experience management and deployment platform supports a variety of output types including wearable 3D headsets. They called it the Experience Management System (EMS).

The platform can be accessed through a portal, mobile applications, desktop applications, and/or development environments such as Unity. This allows clients to distribute the immersive experience through web, mobile, wearables, and embedded platforms.

The Business Challenge

The immersive technology platform was developed using .Net Framework in a very modular way. This has enabled Appearition to serve different verticals along the way. The solution follows an impressive modularisation strategy that encompasses source code, library, and state management as well.

Now, Appearition has decided to modernise the underlying platform, which to now was based on the .Net Framework. DNX Solutions was brought in to help Appearition design and plan a comprehensive rewrite to a new modern tech stack.

The main business driver is to base the platform on a sustainable architecture ready to support all business activities for the coming 5 to 10 years, giving the company a sustainable edge and allowing it to stay agile and competitive in the market. The following needs were identified when setting the requirements for the platform technology’s imminent evolution :

• Reduce time to market by automating as many steps in the release process as possible.
• Independence from any one platform. Make sure the solution is not coupled for example only to Windows, thereby avoiding Windows license costs just to execute the application. 
• Leverage modern cloud technology to further reduce the Total Cost of Ownership for the solution.
• Reduce the man-hours necessary to maintain the solution by leveraging managed service as much as possible. So that Appearition talent can focus on creating more innovation in the immersive experience space.

Appearition has engaged DNX to assist in the analysis and planning on how to modernise their immersive application platform. DNX has executed a discovery project to co-create ways to achieve the desired goals.

The Discovery Solution

The Windows Discovery project took six weeks. DNX looked into Appearition’s needs through three lenses: business goals, technical feasibility, and team knowledge.

With well facilitated visual workshops, a team of cloud specialists from DNX together with technical and product SME from Apperarition have mapped the business necessities, the strengths of the current architecture, and defined the best ways to move from the current situation to a newer modern cloud architecture. The discovery has generated a modernisation technological roadmap that includes:

• a strategy to modernise the source code  from .NET framework to .NET5
• a path to keep using the current and Long-Term Support version of .NET technologies
• training and guidance for Appearition technical team on modern cloud-native solutions
• the design of an application platform that is cloud independent; and
• a cost view on the modernisation effort as a project.

The Outcome

After the  Windows Discovery project, Appearition now has a technology roadmap, a bounded context map, and an execution plan for their endeavour. What before was just a dream for the Appearition technical team is now an executable plan. And because DNX is an advanced AWS partner, the discovery project has demonstrated to Appearition the AWS funding that they could access to help accelerate their modernisation journey. The outcomes for a discovery project can vary a lot from one customer to another. For Appearition, the outcomes included a clearly defined and executable pathway towards:

• decoupling EMS application from windows servers
• upgrading the code base from .Net 4.6.1 to .Net 5 (targeting Docker® conternaisation)
• reducing the execution cost for the whole solution
• moving EMS architecture towards the next architecture that can handle the next 5-10 years of incoming requests from business areas
• Helping to communicate the  Appearition architecture modernisation opportunity for investor funding; and
• upskilling Appearition technical team into the new tech stack.

Now, Appearition has a clear understanding of what success looks like; different modernisation scenarios to execute the project, better certainty in decision-making, and understanding of investment and AWS funding, enabling the customer to make better decisions aligned with its business strategy.