---
title: "Connected Housing - IoT & Home Automation Platform"
description: "Event-driven microservices platform for smart housing with real-time IoT communication, interactive showroom, and Kubernetes infrastructure within a major French real estate group."
locale: "en"
canonical: "https://portfolio.josedacosta.info/en/achievements/logement-connecte-iot-domotique"
source: "https://portfolio.josedacosta.info/en/achievements/logement-connecte-iot-domotique.md"
html_source: "https://portfolio.josedacosta.info/en/achievements/logement-connecte-iot-domotique"
author: "José DA COSTA"
date: "2019"
type: "achievement"
slug: "logement-connecte-iot-domotique"
tags: ["Mercure Protocol", "Azure AD", "Kubernetes", "Docker", "Centreon", "GitLab CI", "SSE", "IoT"]
generated_at: "2026-04-23T15:47:47.951Z"
---

# Connected Housing - IoT & Home Automation Platform

Event-driven microservices platform for smart housing with real-time IoT communication, interactive showroom, and Kubernetes infrastructure within a major French real estate group.

**Date:** March 2019 - January 2020  
**Duration:** ~11 months  
**Role:** Technical Lead  
**Technologies:** Mercure Protocol, Azure AD, Kubernetes, Docker, Centreon, GitLab CI, SSE, IoT

### Key Metrics

- Environments: **-** - PROD + PREPROD
- Microservices: **-** - Event Arbitrator + POC Mercure
- Infrastructure Tickets: **-** - SRQ resolved
- Team Members: **-** - Cross-functional team

## Presentation

_Project definition and scope_

### Domain

Real Estate / PropTech / Internet of Things (IoT) / Home Automation

### Target Users

New-build homebuyers (B2C) and Groupe Pichet sales teams (showroom demonstrations)

**Content:** The **Connected Housing** program was a strategic initiative by **Groupe Pichet**, one of France's leading property developers, aimed at integrating home automation and IoT (Internet of Things) solutions into the group's new-build residential programs.

The project encompassed both a **technical dimension** (microservices, back-office, interactive showroom) and a **commercial dimension** (prospect demonstrations in a physical showroom). The goal was to offer a differentiating experience to homebuyers: connected lighting, energy management, remote security - all controllable from a centralized application.

As **Technical Lead**, I contributed to the core technical infrastructure: the Event Arbitrator microservice for IoT event routing, the POC Mercure protocol for real-time communication, Azure AD SSO integration for the back-office, Kubernetes deployment, and Centreon monitoring setup.

**Domain:** Domain

**Target Users:** Target Users

**Functional Scope:** Functional Scope

**Scope Event Arbitrator:** IoT Event Arbitrator

**Scope Showroom:** Interactive Showroom (Mercure)

**Scope Back Office:** Back-Office (Azure AD SSO)

**Scope Kubernetes:** Kubernetes Deployments

**Scope Monitoring:** Health Pages (Centreon)

**Scope C I C D:** CI/CD Pipelines (GitLab)

## Objectives, Context, Stakes & Risks

_Strategic vision and constraints_

### Context

The project was born in a context of **digital transformation for the real estate industry**. Groupe Pichet, traditionally focused on property development and management, sought to position itself as an innovative player in the PropTech space. The connected housing program was part of a broader strategy to differentiate Groupe Pichet's offerings in an increasingly competitive new-build market.

The technical infrastructure relied on the group's internal **Kariba** platform (gitlab.kariba.fr, k8s.kariba.fr), a shared Kubernetes cluster hosting multiple applications across the organization. This shared infrastructure introduced both advantages (economies of scale, standardized tooling) and constraints (dependency on platform team for provisioning, shared resource limitations).

### Stake Innovation

Position Groupe Pichet as a pioneer in connected housing among French property developers, creating a differentiating competitive advantage

### Stake Commercial

Offer an immersive connected living experience in the physical showroom to drive buyer interest and accelerate new-build sales

### Stake Architecture

Establish a scalable event-driven architecture capable of handling real-time IoT data streams from thousands of future connected units

- Develop a back-office for connected housing management with Azure AD Single Sign-On authentication
- Prototype an interactive showroom with real-time communication via the Mercure protocol (POC)
- Deploy the full infrastructure to production and pre-production environments on Kubernetes
- Implement comprehensive monitoring through Centreon health pages for system availability tracking
- Design and build the Event Arbitrator microservice for reliable IoT event routing and processing

**Objectives:** Objectives

**Context:** Context

**Stakes:** Business Stakes

**Stake Innovation:** Market Innovation

**Stake Commercial:** Commercial Differentiation

**Stake Architecture:** Technical Architecture

**Risks:** Identified Risks

**Risk1 Title:** IoT Protocol Immaturity

**Risk1 Desc:** The Mercure protocol was relatively new at the time, with limited production references. Using it for real-time showroom communication involved technology risk.

**Risk2 Title:** Shared Infrastructure Dependencies

**Risk2 Desc:** Reliance on the shared Kariba Kubernetes cluster meant provisioning delays and vulnerability to platform-level incidents (e.g., cluster migration causing monitoring loss).

**Risk3 Title:** Cross-Team Coordination

**Risk3 Desc:** The project involved multiple teams (SI Marketing, Kariba platform, Claranet/Oxalide ops) with different priorities and release cycles, creating alignment challenges.

## The Steps - What I Did

_Chronological phases and personal contributions_

- Phase 1 - Environment Setup
- Phase 2 - Event Arbitrator & Infrastructure
- Phase 3 - Back-Office & SSO Integration
- Phase 4 - Presentation & Stabilization

**Phase1 Period:** March 2019

**Phase2 Period:** April 2019

**Phase3 Period:** May - June 2019

**Phase4 Period:** September 2019 - January 2020

## The Actors - Interactions

_Stakeholders and collaboration dynamics_

**Content:** The Connected Housing project was inherently **cross-functional**, bringing together people from marketing, IT, development, and infrastructure operations. This diversity was both a strength and a challenge.

**Remi P.** (SI Marketing Project Manager) was the driving force behind the project, organizing meetings and aligning business requirements with technical capabilities. His role was crucial in translating commercial vision into actionable technical specifications.

**Thomas R.** (Kariba Developer) was a key collaborator on the Mercure POC, bringing expertise in the Kariba platform ecosystem. Our collaboration was hands-on: pair programming sessions, code reviews, and joint debugging of the real-time communication layer.

**Franck C.** (N+1, Technical Coordinator) provided strategic technical guidance and ensured alignment with the broader IT roadmap. His oversight helped prioritize tasks when multiple stakeholders had competing requests.

**Antoine D.** (Claranet/Oxalide) was our infrastructure partner, responsible for setting up and maintaining Centreon monitoring. When monitoring probes were lost after the cluster migration in December 2019, his rapid intervention was essential to restoring system visibility.

The wider team - **Adrien ROCHES**, **Ludwig PICQUART**, **Alexandre GIRAUD**, **Stephane LOUBEYRES** - each brought specific technical expertise to the back-office development, creating a truly collaborative engineering environment.

The main challenge was **coordinating across organizational boundaries**: the SI Marketing team had business-driven timelines, the Kariba platform team managed shared infrastructure with its own priorities, and Claranet/Oxalide operated under service-level agreements with defined response times. Aligning these different rhythms required constant communication and flexible planning.

**Team Size:** Team Size

**Team Size Value:** 8+ people across 3 organizations

**Methodology:** Methodology

**Methodology Value:** Agile iterations with cross-team synchronization meetings

**Tools:** Collaboration Tools

**Tools Value:** GitLab (code + CI), Jira (SRQ tickets), Outlook (coordination)

## The Results

_Personal growth and organizational impact_

## The Aftermath

_What happened next_

**Content:** **Immediately after delivery**, the Connected Housing showroom became an active commercial tool for Groupe Pichet's sales teams. Prospect visits included live demonstrations of the connected features, with real-time interactions powered by the Mercure protocol infrastructure we had built.

**In the medium term**, the project faced the typical challenges of innovative initiatives within large traditional organizations. The real estate market's cyclical nature, combined with the costs of equipping each unit with IoT devices, led to a reassessment of the program's scale and economic model. The question shifted from "can we do it technically?" (which we had proven) to "does the cost-benefit ratio justify systematic deployment?"

**The infrastructure legacy** outlasted the specific connected housing application. The patterns established - event-driven microservices on Kubernetes, health monitoring via Centreon, GitLab CI/CD pipelines - became templates for subsequent projects within the Kariba platform. The Event Arbitrator's architecture influenced how later projects approached asynchronous communication.

**Today**, the connected housing market has evolved significantly. What was innovative in 2019 has become more mainstream, with major players (Legrand, Schneider Electric, Somfy) offering standardized solutions. The early work at Groupe Pichet demonstrated foresight in recognizing this trend, even if the commercial rollout was more cautious than initially envisioned.

## My Critical Reflection

_Honest retrospective and lessons learned_

### What Worked

- **The event-driven architecture choice was sound.** Using a dedicated Event Arbitrator to decouple IoT sensors from consuming applications proved to be the right pattern. It allowed the showroom and back-office to evolve independently while sharing the same event stream.
- **Kubernetes deployment provided the right abstraction level.** Having PROD and PREPROD environments on the same cluster enabled rapid iteration and reliable testing before production releases.
- **Centreon monitoring caught real issues.** When the cluster migration caused probe loss, the monitoring gap was immediately visible - proving the monitoring investment was justified.

### What Could Improve

- **The Mercure POC should have been validated earlier with load testing.** We proved the concept worked but did not rigorously test its behavior under realistic IoT event volumes. This left an open question about scalability.
- **Documentation was insufficient.** The cross-team nature of the project meant knowledge was distributed across people rather than centralized in documentation. When team members changed, onboarding was slower than it should have been.
- **The business model validation should have preceded the technical implementation.** We built a technically sound solution before fully validating the unit economics of equipping apartments with IoT devices at scale.

### Would Do Differently

- Start with a **lean MVP focused on 2-3 key connected features** rather than a broad platform - validate commercial traction before investing in full infrastructure
- Implement **structured ADRs** (Architecture Decision Records) from day one to capture the reasoning behind technical choices for future team members
- Push for **end-to-end integration tests** simulating IoT device events through the full pipeline to the showroom display, rather than relying primarily on manual testing
- Negotiate **dedicated infrastructure** rather than shared Kubernetes cluster to avoid dependency on platform team schedules and reduce blast radius of cluster-level incidents

### Lessons

- Innovation in traditional industries requires patience - technical feasibility is necessary but not sufficient; commercial viability and organizational readiness are equally important
- Event-driven architectures shine in IoT contexts where decoupling producers (sensors) from consumers (applications) is essential for system resilience
- Monitoring is not optional infrastructure - it is a first-class requirement. The cluster migration incident proved that invisible systems are unmanageable systems
- Cross-organizational projects need explicit communication protocols - assumptions about who knows what and who is responsible for what must be documented, not implied

**What Worked:** What Worked Well

**What Could Improve:** What Could Have Been Better

**Would Do Differently:** What I Would Do Differently

**Lessons:** Lessons Learned