Cetec ERP: Serverless Tax Integration with Avalara AvaTax
A Case Study on Managed Services for a Serverless Solution in AWS
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.
About the Customer
Cetec is a leading provider of cloud-based ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) software specifically designed for small and mid-sized manufacturers. Their comprehensive platform helps manufacturing businesses manage operations including inventory, production scheduling, quoting, purchasing, and financials. Cetec serves hundreds of manufacturing customers across the United States who rely on the platform for mission-critical business operations including order processing and invoicing.
Customer Challenge
Cetec required a reliable, secure integration between their ERP platform and Avalara’s AvaTax service to automate sales tax calculations for their manufacturing customers. Tax calculations are critical to the order-to-cash process—any integration downtime or errors directly impact customer operations, potentially causing order processing delays and compliance issues.
Reliability Requirements: Integration needed to handle 50,000+ tax calculations per month with high availability
Security Concerns: Avalara API credentials and customer tax data required secure handling and encryption
Operational Overhead: Manual integration processes created burden and risk of credential exposure
Deployment Risk: Updates needed to be deployed without disrupting active finance and tax workflows
Without addressing these challenges, Cetec faced increasing operational burden, elevated security risk, and potential integration failures that would directly impact their customers’ ability to process orders and generate accurate invoices.
EFS Networks’ Solution: Serverless AWS Architecture
EFS Networks designed and built a fully serverless integration architecture hosted in a dedicated AWS account joined to our AWS Control Tower landing zone, providing consistent security baselines and centralized governance.
1. Serverless Integration Platform
AWS Lambda for event-driven, on-demand processing of tax calculation requests
Amazon API Gateway exposes secure REST endpoints for Cetec ERP callbacks
Amazon DynamoDB maintains complete audit trail for compliance and troubleshooting
2. Security & Compliance
AWS Secrets Manager stores and automatically rotates Avalara API credentials
AWS KMS encryption for all sensitive data at rest
IAM least-privilege policies govern all service interactions
Amazon VPC with private subnets for network isolation
3. CI/CD & Observability
AWS CodePipeline + CodeBuild for automated, zero-downtime deployments with rollback
Amazon CloudWatch for centralized logging, metrics, dashboards, and alerting
AWS X-Ray for distributed tracing and performance analysis
Pre-Implementation Support Services
Prior to deployment, EFS Networks provided comprehensive support:
Requirements gathering and integration design covering AvaTax connectivity, failure modes, and retry logic
Build and deployment pipeline definition using AWS CodePipeline and CodeBuild
Security design including secrets rotation strategy, IAM policies, and encryption requirements
Production readiness review establishing runbooks, on-call procedures, and alert thresholds
Post-Implementation Managed Services
EFS Networks provides ongoing managed services for the integration:
24/7 Monitoring: Real-time alerting on integration health and error rates
Incident Response: Rapid triage and resolution of integration issues
Security Operations: Quarterly access reviews and automated secrets rotation
Maintenance: Lambda runtime updates, dependency patching, and security patches
Cost Optimization: Monthly reviews to ensure cost efficiency
Results and Benefits
The serverless integration has exceeded performance targets since going live:
99.95% Uptime: Surpassing the 99.9% SLA target
50,000+ Tax Calculations/Month: Processed successfully with high reliability
<0.5% Error Rate: Down from 2.3% with previous solution (78% improvement)
22-Minute MTTR: Rapid recovery thanks to comprehensive observability
98% Deployment Success Rate: With automatic rollback capability
3x Faster Deployment Cycles: Compared to manual processes
45% Cost Savings: Serverless pay-per-use vs. EC2-based alternative
Zero Credential Exposure Incidents: Centralized secrets management with automated rotation
The solution provides Cetec with a secure, reliable integration that their manufacturing customers depend on for daily operations, while reducing the operational burden on Cetec’s team through EFS Networks’ managed services.
About EFS Networks
EFS Networks is an AWS Advanced Tier Services Partner and AWS Well-Architected Partner, placing us in the top 1% of AWS partners globally. We specialize in designing, building, and managing cloud infrastructure for organizations across manufacturing, media, healthcare, and technology sectors. Our services include cloud migration, serverless application development, DevOps automation, and 24/7 managed services.
Case study published January 2025.