Case studies / Eesti Looduse Infosüsteem
A monolith-to-microservices rebuild for Estonia’s nature data system
EELIS is Estonia’s central information system for biodiversity and nature protection data, used by conservation specialists, monitoring teams, and field workers.
- AI
- Backend
- Java
- Public
- UX
Challenge
EELIS was built as a monolithic, workstation-based application — the legacy architecture limited scalability, was painful to use in the field, and didn’t integrate with modern digital workflows.
Solution
- Microservices migration. Complete platform rebuild on a microservices architecture for modularity and scale.
- PostgreSQL geo-databases. Backed by interactive map applications and automated CI/CD deployment pipelines.
- Mobile field tools. Restructured for seamless data exchange with external registries and support for mobile use in the field.
- AI-ready data foundation. Reworked data models enable pattern recognition, decision support, and geospatial analytics.
- Open data publishing. Opens the door to training ML models for environmental research and forecasting.
Result
- An intelligent, scalable, data-rich platform for nature management across Estonia.
- Specialists have meaningfully better tools for fieldwork and daily operations.
- Manual data flows largely replaced by automated processes.
- EELIS is now a strategic decision-support system, not just a static registry.
Key takeaway
Environmental and scientific registries gain disproportionately from microservices — the real win is unlocking AI and automation that the old architecture made impossible.
