WaveMaker → Google Cloud Platform

Newline Financial’s Future-Proof Web App

Client: Newline Financial
Industry: Specialty Finance / Tax Liens
Service: Cloud Migration to GCP|Ruby on Rails Re-platform|Containerization & Kubernetes|Vendor-Agnostic Architecture

Overview

Since 2013, Newline Financial has provided specialty finance and property rehabilitation to property owners and counties. Newline purchases and services tax liens nationwide using a team of professionals, technologies, and backend analytics.

To optimize efficiency, Newline launched an internal web app to collect taxes and repay them to property owners with interest. While in early growth stages, Newline chose to develop the app on the WaveMaker Platform, hosted on Azure cloud, to save time and money. As Newline began to grow, the WaveMaker Platform — which made app creation initially easy — turned restrictive and problematic, blocking new features and functionality. Newline turned to Sphere Software to fix it.

WaveMaker Limits Surfaced

Logic Coupled to the Database

The current app architecture put most of the logic in the database layer (as stored procedures) — making it hard to decouple the logic when migrating.

Hard to Experiment

New functionality experiments were complicated by the platform’s structure — the bar to try anything new was always too high.

Vendor Lock

Newline was unable to alter the database engine without re-engineering core logic — a textbook vendor lock that limited future choices.

Platform-Specific Development Process

WaveMaker affected the development process and locked the team into platform-specific solutions, even when better tools were available.

How We Solved It

After deep discovery and analysis, Sphere recommended migrating Newline from WaveMaker to a more scalable and robust Google Cloud Platform implementation, written in Ruby on Rails. To avoid disrupting the business, the migration was structured as a gradual, experiment-driven rollout.

1. Shadow Apps Sharing the Same Database
Sphere implemented some functionality as a separate app that shadowed the current app parts while using the same database as the main source of data — proving each piece in production before it owned the workflow.
2. Increment, Don’t Big-Bang
Once the experiment proved successful, Sphere transitioned the entire web app in increments to the new platform — keeping risk low and the team confident at each step.
3. Containerized on GCP Kubernetes
The entire app was containerized and moved onto a GCP Kubernetes cluster, which auto-scales in response to demand. Open-source backend (Ruby on Rails) and Kubernetes mean the implementation is fully vendor-agnostic.

Key Outcomes

+20% Performance

Switching from MS Azure SQL Server to GCP SQL added up to 20% more performance, simply by using a standard tier.

5–10% Cost Savings

Compared to Azure, using GCP resulted in a cost savings of 5–10% on the same workload.

Auto-Scaling Scalability

A GCP Kubernetes cluster responds quickly to auto-scale events and meets demand instantly — Newline can roll out new features without re-architecting.

Vendor-Agnostic Stack

Open-source Ruby on Rails plus Kubernetes mean Newline is no longer locked into a single platform — they own their stack.

The Results

Sphere uses an internal framework that helps deliver better and more predictable results in hosting solutions. Receiving the most current technologies and expertise in development and deployment allows Sphere clients like Newline Financial to bring more stability and predictability to their business and customers — and a future-proof platform that scales as the company does.

Organizations around the world trust us

Hear from

our clients

Hear from our clients

Lee Ebreo

VP of Engineering at Credit Ninja

These things would not have been achievable if we did not build our own in-house system and if we did not partner with Sphere to help us achieve our goals.

Selah Ben-Haim

VP of Engineering at Prominence Advisors

Our experience with Sphere and their team has been and continues to be fantastic. We keep throwing new projects at them, and they keep knocking them out of the park (including the rescue of a project that was previously bungled by another vendor).

Ben Crawford

Senior Product Manager at Enova Financial

I would expect to be delighted. It's been a really positive experience, working with Sphere, and I would expect you to have the same.

Mark Friedgan

CEO at CreditNinja

Sphere consistently prioritizes the needs of their clients, demonstrating both agility and teamwork. As an offshore team, they have been an integral part of our organization and we plan to continue growing with them.

René Pfitzner

Co-Founder at Experify

Sphere provided excellent full-stack development manpower to augment our team and help push our product forward. They are easy to work with, tech-savvy and proactive.

Bruce Burdick

Chief Information Officer at Integra Credit

We've been working with Sphere and its excellent consultants since our founding. I've found that they are true partners in the success of our business.

Jemal Swoboda

CEO at Dabble

The resources and developers that Sphere Software provides are skilled and have the required technical expertise, but more importantly, they have helped us build a culture of excellence within our team.

Arthur Tretyak

Founder and CEO at IntegraCredit

With Sphere, we were able to migrate in half the time it would take to train an additional FTE… and for a fraction of the cost. Our experience with Sphere has been exceptional.

Lee Ebreo

VP of Engineering at Credit Ninja

These things would not have been achievable if we did not build our own in-house system and if we did not partner with Sphere to help us achieve our goals.

Selah Ben-Haim

VP of Engineering at Prominence Advisors