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Case Study | PDP Group Vehicle Titling Application

Modernizing Electronic Lien & Title with a Cloud-Native Microservices Platform

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About the client

PDP Group provides specialized Electronic Lien and Title (ELT) services and title administration for auto dealers, finance companies, and lenders. Their solutions digitize lien management, help prevent title fraud, and streamline DMV verifications across a high volume of titling transactions.

 

For PDP’s customers, title processing is time-sensitive and compliance-bound: a lien must be perfected, tracked, and released accurately, and titling activity has to reconcile against authoritative records held in long-standing systems of record. That combination of modern customer expectations on top of decades-old data infrastructure defined the challenge RDA was engaged to solve.

The Challenge

PDP’s titling capability ran on an outdated, poorly architected system that could not deliver the modern user experience their customers increasingly expected. Just as importantly, it could not scale or evolve at the pace the business needed, and time to market for new functionality had become a competitive liability, and PDP wanted to meet customer commitments quickly without being held back by the limitations of the legacy platform.

The modernization effort carried several compounding constraints:

  • A legacy architecture that couldn’t keep pace. The existing system was difficult to change, slow to scale, and expensive to operate, making it hard to onboard new vendors and respond to customer needs on a competitive timeline.
  • Authoritative data locked in mainframe-class systems. Core titling and lien data lived in IBM DB2 on AS/400 (iSeries), a reliable systems of record that nonetheless does not speak the language of modern web and API tooling. Any new platform had to integrate with these systems rather than replace them.
  • A mixed data landscape. Alongside the iSeries data, transactional and application data lived in Microsoft SQL Server. The new platform needed to navigate cleanly across both worlds without forcing a risky, big-bang data migration.
  • Pressure on time to market and cost of ownership. PDP needed a foundation that lowered operating cost while accelerating delivery of new capabilities.

PDP engaged RDA to design a best-practice future-state architecture and modernize the titling application into a scalable, resilient, web-based platform, one that could embrace modern user experiences while continuing to work with the mainframe-class systems that hold PDP’s authoritative data.

The Solution

RDA worked with PDP’s stakeholders to define a roadmap for a future-state architecture and then delivered a cloud-native, web-based titling platform built on Kubernetes and a Dapr-based microservices model. The result is a system designed for scalability, resilience, and low cost of ownership that integrates with PDP’s existing systems of record rather than discarding them.

  • A Dapr-powered microservices architecture. Rather than a single monolith, the platform is decomposed into independently deployable microservices, spanning concerns such as authentication, consent document handling, announcements, and core titling workflows; each defined as a separate, individually scalable application. Dapr (Distributed Application Runtime) provides the connective tissue between these services. Using Dapr service invocation, services call one another through a consistent, runtime-managed channel that adds service discovery, automatic retries, and secure service-to-service communication, so the application code stays focused on titling logic instead of plumbing.
  • Navigating between modern services and mainframe-class data. The platform’s most distinctive engineering challenge is bridging two very different data worlds. RDA built an integration layer that lets the modern microservices read and write authoritative titling and lien data held in IBM DB2 on AS/400 (iSeries) while also working with Microsoft SQL Server for transactional and application data. This lets PDP modernize the experience and delivery model on top of its proven systems of record, without a disruptive rip-and-replace migration of the data that runs the business.
  • A unified API across the services. The microservices are integrated through a GraphQL federation that exposes a single, unified API layer over the distributed architecture. Rather than forcing clients to stitch together calls to many individual services, federation streamlines data querying across the system, simplifying the frontend and giving PDP a clean, consistent contract to build new functionality against.
  • Kubernetes as the orchestration backbone. Kubernetes serves as the orchestration layer for the entire platform, automating deployment, scaling, and management of the microservices. As load on the titling system varies, the infrastructure adapts efficiently, scaling services up under demand and back down to control cost; directly supports PDP’s goals of resilience and low cost of ownership.
  • A modern, web-based user experience. On the front end, RDA delivered a modern web application built with React and Next.js, with FusionAuth providing single sign-on. This replaces the dated interface of the legacy system with a responsive, contemporary experience while reinforcing the platform’s scalability and security posture.
  • Configurable white-label branding. A standout capability of the platform is the ability to “skin” the application with each client’s own logo and color scheme. The same underlying system can be presented under different brands, giving PDP a flexible, white-label experience that adapts the look and feel to the customer without duplicating the codebase.


 

Technical Architecture

The platform is built and deployed as a modern, containerized, cloud-native application:

  • Frontend: A React / Next.js web application delivering the responsive titling experience, with FusionAuth providing single sign-on (SSO) and support for white-label theming of each client’s logo and color scheme.
  • Backend: A set of independently deployable microservices, each encapsulating a distinct domain (authentication, consent documents, announcements, titling workflows, and more) so capabilities can scale and evolve in isolation.
  • Service runtime: Dapr (Distributed Application Runtime) provides service invocation between microservices, adding service discovery, retries, and secure service-to-service communication as a consistent, portable layer beneath the application code.
  • API layer: A GraphQL federation unifies the microservices behind a single API, streamlining data querying across the distributed architecture and simplifying client development.
  • Orchestration: Kubernetes automates deployment, scaling, and management of the containerized services, allowing the platform to adapt to varying load while keeping cost of ownership low.
  • Systems of record: IBM DB2 on AS/400 (iSeries) holds authoritative titling and lien data; the platform integrates with these mainframe-class systems rather than replacing them.
  • Transactional database: Microsoft SQL Server stores transactional and application data, working alongside the iSeries data sources.
  • Data integration: A purpose-built integration layer lets the modern microservices navigate cleanly across both the DB2/AS-400 systems of record and SQL Server, avoiding a high-risk, big-bang data migration.

This architecture keeps the system scalable, resilient, and maintainable; isolates and protects PDP’s authoritative data in its proven systems of record; and gives RDA a clean foundation for delivering new capabilities quickly.

The Results

The modernized platform gives PDP a foundation built for growth, replacing a constraining legacy system with a scalable, resilient, cloud-native architecture.

  • Faster time to market. The microservices model and unified API let PDP deliver and change functionality without reworking a monolith, directly addressing the time-to-market pressure that prompted the project.
  • A modern, brandable user experience. The React / Next.js application with FusionAuth SSO replaces a dated interface with a responsive, contemporary experience and white-label skinning lets the same platform carry each client’s logo and color scheme.
  • Scalability and resilience. Kubernetes orchestration lets the platform scale services with demand and recover gracefully, supporting profitable growth and the ability to onboard new vendors more quickly.
  • Lower cost of ownership. Containerized, independently scalable services running on Kubernetes let PDP match infrastructure to actual load, controlling operating cost.
  • Modernization without disruption. By integrating with IBM DB2 / AS-400 and SQL Server rather than replacing them, PDP gained a modern platform while preserving the authoritative systems of record the business depends on.

Together these improvements strengthen PDP’s competitive position and increase its ability to profitably scale the business. RDA continues to partner with PDP to support and enhance the platform as their titling business evolves.