On Friday, 14th December 2007, the platform we know today as ESB first handled a live transaction in the Commercial Waste department of Blackpool Council. From those humble beginnings, the platform has grown exponentially and is now used by local authorities nationwide to process millions of transactions yearly.

During those 16 years, some things have evolved massively. However, the core principles of flexible, adaptable and cost-effective service delivery remain.

The platform started as a .NET framework 2.0 web application using Microsoft SQL Server 2005 as its database, and Internet Explorer 6.0 was the most widely used browser then!

Today, the platform uses .NET framework 4.8 and will transition to .NET core in the coming years. While we still use SQL servers as the database, the underlying architecture is very different, with our cloud customers benefiting from highly resilient clustered servers hosted in multiple geographically separate data centres.

The look and feel of ESB is another area that has evolved over the years, taking advantage of technological advances. The mobile-specific views are replaced by a single responsive design that adapts to varying screen sizes.

We’ve always done our best to maintain backward compatibility with our various APIs, allowing our customers to maximise their return on investment by not having to modify their configurations each time a breaking change occurs.

As another year draws to a close, we’ll be raising a glass to the past 16 years of ESB development and looking ahead to what the next 16 years have in store.