The Challenge
At a leading automotive manufacturer, the existing off-the-shelf solution for remote updates had reached its limits. Connected vehicles are highly complex IoT devices — mobile, diverse across generations, and deployed in the millions. The previous solution could neither provide the required scalability nor the flexibility to reliably serve different vehicle generations, gateway types, and update protocols.
Our Approach
We built a custom, cloud-native platform that fully replaces the previous solution. The modular microservices architecture decouples device protocols from the workflow engine, enabling support for various vehicle generations through a unified platform.
Architecture Highlights
- Rule Engine: Flexible vehicle targeting through complex rules with conditions and actions — cross-gateway and across all vehicle types
- Vehicle Data Store: Centralized data layer with complete vehicle inventory from multiple sources
- Staging System: Pre-computation of vehicle actions for consistently low retrieval times upon vehicle connection
- Modular Design: Extensible core architecture with over 40 microservices and self-contained modules for different protocols
- Campaign Management: End-to-end process from definition through orchestration, monitoring, and reporting of update campaigns
Key Features
- Orchestration of software updates for millions of vehicles across different generations
- Efficient inter-service communication via gRPC with Protocol Buffers
- Horizontal scaling through pre-computation and asynchronous message processing
- Administrative and diagnostic dashboards for end-to-end visibility
- Infrastructure-as-code with Pulumi for multi-region deployments
- End-to-end monitoring across all services
Results
- Successful replacement of the previous off-the-shelf solution with a custom-built platform
- Platform manages OTA updates for a fleet of millions of vehicles
- Consistently low retrieval times through pre-computation — regardless of fleet size
- Significant cost reduction compared to the previous licensed solution
- Support for multiple vehicle generations through a unified platform
- Project running for over 5 years in international collaboration with the customer