INRAE
Transforming INRAE's data challenges through open source
The Context
A cutting-edge environment in transition
The National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and the Environment was created through the merger of the National Institute for Agricultural Research and the National Research Institute of Science and Technology for Environment and Agriculture. INRAE specializes in three scientific fields: agriculture, food, and the environment.
The Goal
A long-standing collaboration across various areas of expertise
INRAE has been a long-standing client of SMILE, with a collaboration that began over 20 years ago (in 2004). SMILE has supported INRAE across several core business areas and areas of expertise.
This includes an initial involvement in:
- Managing a portfolio of applications and data flows using Talend
- Redesigning INRAE’s business repositories through custom JAVA development, supporting no fewer than 225 publications per year and used by 2,000 INRAE researchers
- Overhauling a significant part of the information system since 2023
This information system supports both research activities and support functions (finance, HR, etc.)
Our Approach
A tailor-made and scalable system that has evolved over the years
To meet INRAE's expectations and ambitions, SMILE has implemented a tailor-made and scalable system over the years:
- A distributed agile service center operating across France
- Expertise in Talend / Symfony / React / Java
- 20 full-time equivalents from Smile & Alter Way (including Java Spring Boot, Data, DevOps, PHP, Talend, testers, Scrum Master, and ECM specialists)
The Result
Supporting all of INRAE's data-related challenges since 2019
Smile has been supporting INRAE with its data-related challenges since 2019, particularly on issues related to data ingestion and integration across parts of its operations.
- AMUE (Agency for the Shared Services of Universities and Institutions) & INRAE: As part of the new organization of university information systems, INRAE uses several AMUE tools, such as SINAPS for managing reference data. Smile’s Data Engineering teams collaborate with AMUE to tailor these solutions to INRAE’s needs—most notably through Talend flows that feed and query these tools.
- Financial Information System Redesign: Continuing the collaboration between INRAE and AMUE, Smile leads the migration to the SIFAC suite, developing critical Talend flows for the Financial Information System, including payroll, HR data, and IAM.
- Automation of Talend pipelines and jobs: As part of a continuous improvement and automation approach, a robot framework is used to automate integration tests for Talend flows—ensuring functionality, result consistency, and compliance with business rules.
To support INRAE across all its scopes, Smile’s Data Engineers initially managed the run of 40 Talend DI jobs. Today, the teams have built several dozen flows, with around 80 Talend DI jobs running daily.
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