Fitch Solutions Revamps FitchConnect Using Micro-Frontend Technology

Fitch Solutions, the software arm of ratings provider Fitch Group, has adopted agile development methodologies and new micro-frontend technologies to solve expensive production issues, reduce development and testing times for new features, and make it easier for the company to modernize its technology stack.

Specifically, over 2020, the vendor has reengineered FitchConnect, its flagship subscription-based web app for accessing market research, from being a single piece of software to a set of micro frontends—the client-facing equivalent of backend microservices—that coexist within a browser.

This has resulted in major improvements to the efficiency of Fitch’s development team, and also for customers awaiting the rollout of new features. Previously, FitchConnect needed to be taken completely offline to roll out new software releases, which could only be done over evenings and weekends. By breaking down the service into a series of micro frontends, specific functions can be upgraded intraday without impacting other components of the system, and the vendor needs only to test each new feature being introduced, rather than re-testing the entire system.

Though the vendor had good testing scripts, it needed to run 20,000 scripts to test the entire system, which would take two days. Now, using micro frontends, it only takes a developer five minutes to test an individual new component, allowing them to ship new features much faster, and resulting in a 25% increase in productivity.

The changes have been driven by Derek Ferguson, who joined the vendor one year ago as head of technology in Fitch Solutions’ IT development solutions division. Prior to Fitch, Ferguson spent 11-and-a-half years at JP Morgan Chase, where he was most recently head of engineering for its commercial banking division, and had previously served as lead order management system developer for the bank’s private client workstation.

Ferguson’s first challenge was to increase Fitch’s use of automation for testing purposes. It already used some automated scripts, but still did plenty of testing manually. Automating those manual processes means developers can introduce features without having to ask developers of other components whether the change would impact any other elements of the system. Even if a developer could remember every other relevant person to ask, that process would take too long compared to an automated testing process, officials say.

And for clients, the use of micro frontends means faster and easier deployments, because instead of a client in Tokyo, for example, having to download the entire application from Fitch’s datacenter in Virginia, they can now simply download the new component.

To support the vendor’s transition to new software development approaches, Fitch followed a technique pioneered by Pivotal Software, whereby external experts work with a firm to guide change then leave the firm’s own staff to continue those efforts.

For example, Ferguson enlisted Joel Denning, an industry expert in micro-frontend development, to spend two days every second week working with its developers. Fitch’s staff then spent the remainder of that two-week sprint finishing, and Denning returns and partners with a new batch of developers.

Officials say this approach means that internal developers make more headway on their own, rather than if the experts were full-time staffers, and has improved the productivity of the development team overall.