ABOUT THE PROJECT
OSCAR, a critical cross-government tool operated by His Majesty Treasury (HMT) had remained in its original build configuration for five years, missing opportunities to improve performance and standardise its underlying technology architecture. A deep-dive technical review of the infrastructure revealed significant optimisation opportunities, particularly in the compute infrastructure. It was also discovered that the testing and staging environments weren’t true mirrors of production. This inconsistency limited HMT’s ability to deliver consistent system improvements and hampered user acceptance testing (UAT). The HMT team knew that without changes, these challenges would continue to grow, hindering OSCAR’s efficiency and eroding confidence in the tool.
HMT partnered with Keysource to overhaul OSCAR’s infrastructure and put the system on a path to stable performance. Keysource’s first step was a rightsizing initiative, ensuring that each environment had the appropriate server resources. We standardised the database and application servers across all environments (PRODUCTION, TEST, and STAGING) using uniform Relational Database Service (RDS) instances. This alignment eliminated the configuration disparities that had previously led to unexpected issues during deployments.
By addressing the root causes of inefficiencies and performance bottlenecks, Keysource has effectively future-proofed OSCAR for continued growth and efficiency. What began as a challenge of outdated infrastructure and unreliable testing has now become a success story of optimisation and confidence—a testament to how the right technical solutions can revitalise a mission-critical government tool.
