Bespoke .NET Development on Azure
Bespoke .NET Development hosted in Azure
Introduction
DCTR, formerly Doctor Photo, specialises in professional retouching, CGI, and design services for estate agents, property developers, retirement home providers, and housing associations. Their work helps property businesses create high-impact marketing materials through visually compelling imagery that enhances listings, developments, and promotional campaigns.
At the heart of DCTR’s operations is a bespoke platform designed to streamline image uploads, project management, client communication, and service delivery. As demand for high-quality visual property marketing continued to grow, maintaining a fast, scalable, and reliable digital platform became increasingly critical to supporting both customer experience and business growth.
Challenges
The original Doctor Photo platform was developed by a third-party provider in 2012 and served as a central hub for image uploads, workflow management, client and partner communications, and monthly invoice reporting.
Several years later, Dolphin IT Solutions took ownership of the platform and began enhancing its capabilities. Over time, the system was integrated with DCTR’s finance platform, additional services were introduced, and a range of functional and design improvements were delivered to support the company’s expanding operations.
However, by 2020 the application had begun to show significant performance limitations. The legacy architecture, while effective during earlier stages of growth, was increasingly unable to cope with rising user demand, larger image libraries, and substantially increased volumes of data.
Users experienced slower response times and reduced platform efficiency, while the ageing technology stack made introducing new features increasingly difficult. DCTR required a long-term solution that would not only resolve performance issues but also provide the flexibility, scalability, and resilience needed to support future innovation and business expansion.
Our Solution
Following a detailed review of the platform, the development team at Dolphin IT Solutions recommended a complete rebuild using the latest .NET technologies.
The proposed solution focused on modernising the underlying architecture, significantly improving performance, and creating a scalable platform capable of supporting DCTR’s growing customer base and evolving service offering. The rebuild also provided an opportunity to redesign and enhance both the customer-facing experience and the internal administration systems.
Working closely with DCTR and following the client’s updated design requirements, our experienced .NET developers rebuilt the platform from the ground up. While the core functionality remained familiar to users, the new system introduced a cleaner interface, improved usability, and a more modern application framework designed for long-term maintainability and growth.
Alongside the redesign, several major functional improvements were delivered. A dedicated messaging system enhanced communication between clients, partners, and internal teams, helping streamline project coordination and reduce delays.
One of the most significant innovations introduced during the rebuild was Bob the AI Bot — an intelligent automation feature designed to instantly enhance uploaded property photos. By automating image enhancement processes, Bob enables edited images to become available for download almost immediately, dramatically improving turnaround times and enhancing the customer experience.
To support this functionality, Dolphin IT Solutions implemented Azure Functions to process AI-driven enhancements in the background. This serverless approach reduced waiting times considerably while ensuring resources could scale dynamically based on workload and demand.
Cloud Infrastructure and Azure Architecture
To meet both flexibility and cost-efficiency requirements, Dolphin IT Solutions designed and deployed the entire platform within Microsoft Azure using a cloud-native architecture.
The DCTR platform is hosted on Azure App Service, providing a scalable and highly available hosting environment capable of supporting growing user demand. Data is managed using Azure SQL Database alongside Azure Blob Storage, enabling secure and efficient handling of both structured business data and large image assets.
Background processing is managed through Azure Functions, while Azure Event Grid is used to trigger AI workflows and automate image processing events. This event-driven architecture ensures seamless communication between platform components and supports rapid, reliable processing without impacting front-end performance.
By leveraging a fully managed Azure ecosystem, the new platform delivers improved scalability, reduced infrastructure overhead, and greater operational resilience.
Results
The rebuilt DCTR platform transformed a slowing legacy application into a modern, cloud-based solution built for performance and growth.
By adopting the latest .NET technologies and Microsoft Azure services, DCTR gained a faster, more responsive platform capable of handling increased data volumes and expanding user demand. The introduction of AI-powered image enhancement and automated background processing significantly improved service speed and efficiency, while the redesigned user experience positioned the business to continue evolving its digital services with confidence.
Today, the platform provides DCTR with a scalable foundation for innovation, supporting both operational efficiency and the delivery of high-quality property marketing services across the UK.
Client Testimonial
Dolphin has powered a large part of our business for the last 8 years. The app they build for us is business critical, so it's good to have such a strong relationship with the team at Dolphin. I can rest at night, knowing our app is in good hands. Dolphin are quick to act, friendly and technical but speak in plain English. I would highly recommend Dolphin!
