Cetec ERP — Serverless Tax Managed Services
EFS Networks designed, built, and operates a fully serverless AWS integration between Cetec’s cloud-based ERP platform and Avalara AvaTax, delivering automated sales tax calculations with 99.95% uptime and 45% cost savings through ongoing managed services.
About the Customer
Cetec ERP is a leading provider of cloud-based ERP software for small and mid-sized manufacturers. The platform manages inventory, production scheduling, quoting, purchasing, and financials for hundreds of manufacturing customers across the US.
After EFS Networks built the initial serverless tax integration with Avalara AvaTax, Cetec needed ongoing management and optimization of the production-critical AWS environment.
The Challenge
The serverless integration processes 50,000+ tax calculations per month and is critical to Cetec’s customer operations. Key concerns:
- Reliability: High-availability requirements for production tax processing
- Security: Avalara API credentials and customer tax data require secure handling with automatic rotation
- Operational overhead: Manual credential management created exposure risk
- Deployment risk: Updates needed without disrupting active finance/tax workflows
- Error rate: 2.3% error rate under previous manual processes
Solution Architecture
Serverless Integration Platform
- AWS Lambda — Event-driven tax calculation processing
- Amazon API Gateway — Secure REST endpoints for Cetec ERP integration
- Amazon DynamoDB — Audit trail and transaction logging
Security & Compliance
- AWS Secrets Manager — Automatic credential rotation for Avalara API keys
- AWS KMS — Encryption at rest for all customer data
- IAM — Least-privilege access policies
- Amazon VPC — Private subnets for backend processing
CI/CD & Observability
- AWS CodePipeline + CodeBuild — Zero-downtime deployments with automatic rollback
- Amazon CloudWatch — Logging, metrics, dashboards, and automated alerting
- AWS X-Ray — Distributed tracing for end-to-end request visibility
Managed Services
EFS Networks provides ongoing operational management including:
- 24/7 monitoring with real-time alerting and CloudWatch dashboards
- Incident response with rapid triage and resolution
- Security operations — quarterly access reviews and automated secrets rotation
- Maintenance — Lambda runtime updates, dependency patching, security patches
- Monthly cost optimization reviews for ongoing savings
Results
| Metric | Result |
|---|---|
| Uptime | 99.95% (surpassing 99.9% SLA target) |
| Tax Calculations Processed | 50,000+/month reliably |
| Error Rate | <0.5% (down from 2.3% — 78% improvement) |
| Mean Time to Resolve | 22 minutes |
| Deployment Success Rate | 98% with automatic rollback |
| Cost Savings | 45% via serverless architecture |
| Security Incidents | Zero |
AWS Services
AWS Lambda, Amazon API Gateway, Amazon DynamoDB, AWS Secrets Manager, AWS KMS, IAM, Amazon VPC, AWS CodePipeline, AWS CodeBuild, Amazon CloudWatch, AWS X-Ray.
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