Most companies look into software architecture consulting services when their products are two steps away from requiring intensive care. Huge infrastructure costs, compliance and security threats, poor performance, and scalability are common symptoms of a faulty architecture.
As a CTO at MindK, I recently talked to the founders of a Big Data startup who found it impossible to serve new customers among clinics. The product would freeze or become unresponsive, seemingly at random. These problems often lasted for days or even weeks. Frustrated users asked for refunds; the company was bleeding thousands of dollars.
As usual, the issue went all the way back to the architecture.
The application consisted of two parts. The first was an ETL (Extract-Transform-Load) process that gathered massive amounts of data from the nation’s top clinics. It then prepared the data to visualize it on the front end. Users could view all sorts of graphs to track and compare the industry KPIs.
The problem was that the ETL process also served as an API for the client-facing web portal. When the application gobbled up a new batch of data, the front-end went straight into a diabetic coma. The existing architecture could no longer support the business ambitions.
In these situations, an outside voice can help you correctly diagnose the condition and find an optimal treatment.
What is software architecture consulting?
Like any other type of consulting, this is typically a short-term engagement aimed at analyzing various aspects of your product — starting with the architecture —to find the optimal way to reach your business goals. After the initial software audit, you can pass all the info to the in-house team or hire a third-party contractor to implement necessary fixes.
Another option is to look for software architecture services at an early stage of a startup. For smaller businesses, this allows making smart choices without hiring expensive full-time resources. For larger enterprises, an independent consultant offers a fresh perspective that can fix organizational deadlocks and complex software issues.
Whether you need a custom solution from the ground up or want to improve your current system, a software architect can advise you on the optimal strategy. Companies like MindK help build a scalable product, move your software to the cloud, improve performance, simplify compliance with HIPAA/GDPR, and reduce the total cost of ownership.
What problems can IT architecture consulting help you with?
If your software gets a fever when more than two users open a dashboard, if nobody knows how to add new features without costly regressions, if compliance is giving you nightmares, it’s time to consider professional help. Here are some of the most common reasons for contacting a software architecture consultant.
Outdated technology
Legacy software is more prone to issues such as crashes, decreased productivity, and security risks. At the same time, support becomes harder and costlier. Not many programmers are happy to work with legacy systems, so hiring might be a challenge. To cut a long story short, the earlier you implement changes to existing software, the better.
Two scenarios are possible in this case. You can either build a transitional platform to add new functionality to outdated software or rewrite the application from scratch.
An architecture consultant will weigh the pros and cons of each approach, calculate the costs, and propose the best software modernization strategy.
Poor scalability and performance
Various non-functional requirements like scalability and performance are the primary symptoms for software architecture consultants.
If your self-hosted software faces constant errors and slow performance or lacks storage space for required operations, this is likely a sign that it needs a cloud migration. With a serverless or Kubernetes-based autoscaling, your system would adjust capacity to match the current usage. Apart from performance enhancements, it will improve the system maintainability and security.
The trick is to make your cloud transition cost-efficient. An enterprise architecture consulting firm can advise on all aspects of this procedure, helping you plan and implement a budget-friendly cloud migration strategy.
For slow and unresponsive applications, it’s also important to look for inefficient database design, blocking and synch processing, spaghetti code, improper caching, CDN usage, and other technical issues. These are all a standard part of software performance testing.
Compliance and security issues
Regulatory requirements are complex and ever-evolving. Malicious actors never sleep. That’s why enterprises and scale-ups often choose independent audits and penetration testing.
For example, we recently assessed the GDPR compliance of a major European automotive marketplace. Surprisingly, the application had more NON_COMPLIANT rules than COMPLIANT and a poor AWS Security Hub score.
Solving these issues required a major redesign implemented by the in-house team. Our DevOps crew, meanwhile, lent a hand to adopt infrastructure as code and reengineer the CI/CD pipelines.
A similar approach has also improved HIPAA compliance for a medical startup eager to enter the US market.
Technical debt
Working on a project, developers strive to release code that meets business requirements. However, to deliver a successful solution, they should also think of how the product will be scaled and maintained in the future.
Product owners will otherwise have to deal with technical debt — a situation where the current software architecture can’t support new functionalities. Enterprise architecture consulting services allow you to reduce technical debt with a future-proof software design.
How to select the right software architect consultant?
The best consultants are not just experts in technology but are also strong problem-solvers. They know that technology decisions are business decisions. They need to quickly understand your current challenges, propose actionable solutions, and pivot if necessary.
1. Look for domain-specific expertise.
Consultants with the industry familiarity will also understand its less obvious nuances. Besides checking the consultant’s portfolio, ask how they handled challenges unique to your business domain.
2. Evaluate their technical depth
Ask about specific tools, technologies, and methodologies they’ve worked with. For example, if you rely heavily on cloud infrastructure, make sure they have strong cloud architecture experience (AWS, Azure, GCP).
Request examples of complex problems they’ve solved and the recommended solutions.
3. Gauge communication skills during initial discussions
Strong communication is key. A consultant needs to explain complex technical issues in a way that both business and tech minds can understand. Truly effective software architecture consultants ask the right questions instead of rushing to sell their services or promoting solutions.
4. Evaluate track record and references
Past successes are a strong indicator of future performance. So, request references from past clients, especially those with similar needs to yours. If possible, contact them directly to get candid insights into their experiences.
5. Review pricing models
Ask for a detailed breakdown of a consultant’s pricing. What engagement models do they offer? How can changes to the project (scope, timeline) affect the costs?
6. Look for long-term partnership potential
The initial project might be short-term. However, architectural decisions often need ongoing attention. A good consultant can evolve into a long-term, helping your system grow and adapt. Even before contacting an architecture consultant, explore the services they offer. Do they provide software development, long-term maintenance, and monitoring?
Observe how they interact with your team. Their personality and work style should complement, not clash with, your company’s culture.
What does a typical architecture consultation look like?
Here’s a process you might expect to see when looking for software architecture consulting services.
#1 Introductory meeting
Duration: 2 hours
The first meeting typically focuses on the problems you want to solve. A good specialist should ask a lot of questions about your business goals and expectations before suggesting any solutions. At the end of a meeting, software architecture consultants will request all the necessary permissions and access rights to conduct an audit.
- Non-disclosure agreement (NDA)
- Needs and future goals
- Key stakeholders
- Expectations & success metrics
- Tech stack and architecture
Schedule a software architecture consultation→
#2 Basic audit
Duration: 1-2 weeks
Depending on its complexity, a software audit can take anywhere from a couple of weeks to several months. The consulting team will first look at the project documentation, inspect the architecture, and codebase. They might also invite DevOps and QA engineers to assess your infrastructure and CI/CD process.
- Documentation review
- Architecture audit
- Database investigation
- Performance and scalability
- Compliance & security assessment
- Infrastructure audit
The team will then come back with the findings and recommended fixes.
#3 Follow-up investigation (optional)
Duration: 2-3 weeks
Some projects might require more work than others. One such example is the HIPAA compliance assessment, where potential fixes often create new NON_COMPLIANT resources. That’s why maintaining full compliance requires an iterative approach.
- Code quality, version control, and software development practices
- In-depth performance and scalability checks
- Database & resource management
- Penetration testing
- Advanced compliance checks, etc.
#4 Solution proposal
Software architecture consultant presents the audit findings and shares detailed recommendation documents.
- Extensive documentation & guides
- Rough roadmap and cost estimate
- Staff training recommendations
#5 Implementation (optional)
Consulting ends with a choice. You can either implement the fixes yourself or hire a company like MindK to assist with the implementation.
Software architecture consulting services at MindK
MindK offers IT architecture services tailored to your project. From a detailed architecture audit to the choice of the third-party tools required for your purposes, our team will build an optimization plan to minimize costs and reduce time to market.
- Software architecture audit
We conduct a software architecture audit and review your system quality. Based on the results, MindK provides recommendations on changes to make, such as rewriting code from scratch, redesigning the architecture, or upgrading your system.
- Choosing a technology stack
Depending on your business requirements and the chosen strategy, we’ll recommend the optimal technologies for achieving your goals. Our experts propose frameworks, programming languages, and third-party tools for scalable and efficient software.
- Planning and implementing changes
Need refactoring, reengineering, or software optimization? MindK can address the weaknesses of your existing system by augmenting your in-house team. Our engineers will help you modernize software without disrupting business operations.
- Developing a cloud strategy
A software architect consultant assesses the current capabilities of your system and defines what should be achieved for a successful cloud shift. We evaluate the operational readiness and architecture of the software and define system gaps. Based on the results, we seamlessly move your system to the cloud.
- Cloud-native architecture optimization
MindK will help you pick the right tools and technologies required for developing, deploying, reengineering, and maintaining cloud software. We create cost-efficient and easy-to-maintain systems optimized for unique cloud capabilities.
Case study: cloud solution for smart energy management
CEMAsys, a Norway-based sustainability consultancy, turned to MindK to reengineer a web platform for managing and reporting environmental information. The system gathers, manages, and analyzes ESG data of Forbes Global 2000 companies for improving overall sustainability performance and complying with the Global Reporting Initiative.
Over time, the monolithic system got expensive to maintain. Larger customers requested new features. The team struggled to build them in time due to regressions and legacy tech. For example, PHP failed to process the required data for a new CO2 footprint report before a timeout.
Faced with these challenges, CEMAsys used our custom solution architecture services to rework the system. MindK helped the client migrate to a cloud-based platform powered by a service-based architecture.
The new tech stack includes Microsoft Azure as a secure cloud provider, Angular for the front-end, NestJS for the backend, as well as AdonisJS for planning and reporting. Our engineers worked side by side with the in-house team to incrementally add new features to the platform and optimize the existing functionality.
 | “The level of detail and thoughtfulness of what they deliver is so good, that a simple explanation of the next idea serves as the basis for them to take it and turn into reality.” Per Otto Larsen, Head of CSR Services, CEMAsys.com, Norway |
As a result, CEMAsys acquired more than 800 new customers across the EU and the USA. The team continues to expand the application at a speed that was simply impossible before.
Conclusion
Architecture consulting is one of the best ways to diagnose and treat major issues with your software. It allows you to build a scalable and flexible product or redesign existing software to achieve your business goals.
MindK provides software architecture consulting services to advise you on the fastest and most cost-effective transformation strategy. With us, you will improve your product performance, optimize resource use, and ensure better system scalability.
So don’t hesitate to contact us today for a free introductory consultation.
