Aidon

Mallow’s attitude: spot-on work and a wider perspective – Nordic Leader in smart grid metering technology developing services to be put onto Azure cloud.

Data management is no small feat when almost four million electricity meters in Finland, Sweden and Norway are sending data several times an hour. Aidon is the Nordics’ market leader in smart grid metering technology and the provision of related services. Its customers are electricity distribution companies.

“Our meters can collect information on electricity consumption behaviour and predict, for example, when and where consumption spikes or demand responses will occur,” says Aidon’s Project Manager Pasi Jakonen.

“The power grid is becoming more bidirectional, that is, consumers are now also producing electricity. Our meters can also measure produced electricity. What’s more, they enable us to remotely connect and disconnect customers,” says Jakonen.

Refining and converting collected data into business values is at the core of Aidon’s business operations. The company makes wide use of Microsoft software and technologies and has developed a new “Metering as a Service” (MaaS) concept, which has led to having to build some services in the cloud. Aidon began building the Azure cloud environment itself and in collaboration with different partners. Although Aidon has extensive experience of Microsoft technologies, being one of Microsoft’s Gold Partners, Azure technologies still require special skills. After a long search, for this Aidon found help in the form of Mallow.

“Many companies know how to use Azure in Finland, but Mallow’s toolkit, for a service provider of Azure alone, is extremely comprehensive. We’ve also noticed that although we ourselves are a Microsoft Gold Partner, Mallow’s excellent networks with Microsoft have brought us extended added value.”

Mallow’s recipe:

Chief Technology Officer Teemu Tapanila was the first Mallownian to put his head inside the Azure cloud built by Aidon. And how did it look?

“When the cloud is unstable, it’s usually due to a combination of factors, and in this case too, the patient’s ailments were both big and small,” says Tapanila.

We’ve come across a lot of projects like these and have seen many similar ones through to the end, so we could say to the customer – hey, don’t worry, we’ve got this. We know what things need to be fixed so that we can avoid the pitfalls. We can’t do everything at once, but we know what steps need to be taken and in what order.”

According to Tapanila, the work can be approached in many ways. Sometimes it takes long, detailed planning, and sometimes we just jump straight in. How familiar customers already are with Azure plays a huge role when defining their mindset and what they want.

“In this case, Aidon’s message to us was, hey, we trust you, just get stuck in. So we started eliminating the problems one by one. We automated the environment-specific systems and settings.

This took a lot of time, but the result was stability and speed, which will serve as the basis for all future changes.”

Tapanila sees Mallow’s substantive and process-related expertise as its strengths, but he also emphasizes communication.

“We must make what we do as visible as possible and keep the customer in the loop at all times. In this way the customer constantly learns more about Azure, is able to solve problems independently, and at the same time better understands the decisions we make.”

The collaboration born from the meter reading service system has grown so that, in addition to Tapanila, three more Mallownians now work at Aidon, and the role of the Azure cloud environment in Aidon’s business is growing from one product to the level of the entire company. Jakonen confirms that Mallow’s efforts to stabilize the cloud environment and improve its usability has enabled Aidon’s vision to become a concrete strategy and created a business for developing cloud service-based products.

“I have to say they are an experienced bunch, who know how to look at things from a wider angle. And Teemu really has a ‘let’s get the job done’ attitude, which always comes with a smile,” says Jakonen.