City of Helsinki Land Lease System.
Unifying codebase, modernising and moving to cloud
- Unified experience –
One coherent application and codebase merging 3 divergent streams
- Cloud modernisation –
Migration to Platta (the City’s Azure + OpenShift platform) for automation, faster release and continuous delivery
- Velocity with confidence –
Combining development + maintenance to accelerate delivery and cut time‑to‑fix
Project Summary.
The client.
The City of Helsinki manages land leases across the city. The land lease system (Maanvuokrausjärjestelmä in Finnish) supports internal officers – lawyers, accountants and decision‑makers – in managing contracts, calculating and sending invoices, applying price indices, and maintaining accurate customer and land‑area data. It integrates with contract storage and mapping services and exchanges data with the City’s enterprise systems (e.g., invoicing).
Challenges.
When Nordcloud joined, the programme had momentum but also friction:
Multi‑vendor fragmentation
Three teams had created three different code branches (production, public site – plot applications and new multi‑unit functionality). They evolved in silos, making it hard to know what worked together.
Not cloud‑native
The application ran on traditional servers and relied on manual operations. Monitoring and modern tooling were limited.
Complex domain
Land leasing is nuanced. Policies, indices and workflows vary by unit, demanding tight collaboration with product owners and users.
User feedback loops
Internal users were busy; it was hard to secure testing time. The public application existed but wasn’t released, so real‑world feedback was missing.
Outdated components
Parts of the stack were no longer supported, increasing maintenance effort and risk.
The City of Helsinki wanted clear ownership, one party for both development and support of the service and the ability to develop features. They wanted to expand user base and bring the public experience to life.
When Nordcloud stepped in, they brought together all the separate codebases; we got better documentation and improved tools for maintenance. It was crucial for us to keep development and support under one provider. With such a complex system it wouldn’t be feasible to have some team working on development and some others on support. Having all-in-one is the optimal solution. It was a huge step forward allowing us to move on with the modernisation of the service and migration to Platta. With Nordcloud support, we have already broadened the internal user base, expanding over several City units.
Priorities.
One accountable team, one codebase.
With support from the City of Helsinki, Nordcloud took responsibility for the whole application, merged the 3 branches and established a single, coherent codebase and delivery flow. That cleared the path for consistent quality, faster releases and maintainability.
Development + maintenance, side by side.
Maintaining a project when it is in an active development stage was an optimal solution. With a complex system like the land lease service, it required in-depth codebase knowledge to be able to discover and understand the issues. Working actively on the feature pipeline allowed the team not only to detect issues early, but to better understand the root-cause and provide accurate fixes. As a result, we acquired deep system knowledge, faster issues discovery and improved quality of the working service.
Cloud‑first operations.
Nordcloud advocated moving to Platta – Helsinki’s Azure‑based platform with Red Hat OpenShift – to gain modern deployment, scaling and platform services. Together with the City of Helsinki we planned, prepared and began executing the migration, validating integrations as we went.
User‑centric and collaborative.
The Nordcloud team led city officers, the product owner and UI designer in hands‑on sessions to expose friction points early and sharpen the UX. This included live walkthroughs of public site plot application features such as a new mapping service with a land area drawing. The workshop results were excellent, revealing what didn’t work or wasn’t easy to use – and gave us ideas for improvements.
Where possible, we promoted an iterative process with early releases over perfecting the final product. And the users are already happy, giving the service 4.7/5 score in the recent satisfaction survey.
Security and observability uplift.
Nordcloud integrated platform services such as file antivirus scanning for all attachments to enhance the service’s security. Also, we adopted tools like Sentry for improved error visibility – a vital aspect in application maintenance – laying groundwork for broader monitoring post‑migration.
The team has been very adaptable to requests and feature changes, which is part of such long-term projects. Communication is smooth, and we have established a good rhythm of development sprints and support meetings. It is a pleasure to work with professionals. The team is very meticulous about the system’s security, privacy and reliability. They can see beyond our needs and bring new ideas to the table.
Solution.
Platform & Architecture.
- Target platform: Platta on Microsoft Azure with Red Hat OpenShift for containerised deployment, managed scaling and standardised operations.
- Data & integrations:
- Outbound/inbound invoicing integration with the City’s enterprise finance system (SAP).
- Contract storage and mapping service integrations for land‑area visualisation, drawing and export.
- Antivirus scanning API (Platta service) for all uploaded files.
Application Enhancements.
- Codebase unification: Merged production, public app and multi‑unit features into a single trunk with a clear release process.
- Feature evolution: Continuous improvements across contract management, pricing indices, customer/ownership data, statistics (e.g., unpaid invoices), and UX refinements.
- Open-source: The codebase is public/open-source, so Nordcloud follows strict practices to avoid exposing any personal data or sensitive configuration while benefiting from easier tool integrations.
Results.
When you unify ownership, modernise the platform and keep dev + maintenance together, you get momentum. You learn faster. And you make confident changes in a complex domain without slowing down the day‑to‑day work civil servants rely on.
A single, coherent system
No more parallel, incompatible branches. One codebase and one accountable team improved quality, predictability and time‑to‑change.
Modernisation in motion
The internal site of the application now runs on Platta, the City’s Azure + OpenShift platform, unlocking easier scaling, streamlined deployments and access to managed services.
Faster fixes, fewer surprises
Combining development and maintenance means issues are triaged and solved by people who build the features every day. That reduces hand‑offs and accelerates resolution.
Stronger security and reliability
Every uploaded document is virus‑scanned via the platform service. Error visibility with tools like Sentry helps catch problems earlier and tighten feedback loops.
A clearer path to public launch
With the public site ready for iterative release, the City of Helsinki can learn from real usage and adjust quickly, turning long planning cycles into short, evidence‑based iterations.
In such complex service as the land lease system, especially with the billing system, things must work around the clock. Any breakage or delay costs money, so we must react fast to find the problem, provide a fix and repair the damage. The Nordcloud team has been very successful in reacting quickly in such critical situations.
You may also like.
Let’s discuss how we can help with your cloud journey.
Our experts are standing by to talk about your migration, modernisation, development and skills challenges.
