InfoBeans case study for a web application product

An automotive parts catalog Case Study Outsourced product development and IT consultancy by an offshore technical team with cutting edge technologies and seemingly hard to overcome challenges

Agenda
Highlights
Business need
Business criticality
Business solution
Technology need
Technology challenges
Technology solution
Distributed team model
Results
InfoBeans as consultant and comprehensive IT vendor

Highlights
The product is an e-Commerce extension to a legacy business system in aftermarket automotive parts business in North America
Frequent feature additions and version releases
Centralized maintenance & administration of all installations using product control panel
Umbrella of technologies like .NET, J2EE, AJAX & MS SQL Server
Active consulting with client on features, technology, service provider integration & win-win business collaboration
Hybrid billing with distributed team model
Responsibility resting on InfoBeans for high quality and on time releases of incremental versions

Business need
Our client wanted to build and market a web product that would act as an ecommerce extension to legacy business systems in aftermarket automotive parts business space in North America
Client wanted a technology consultant who would take over technical and project management responsibilities entirely
Installation, technical support, release deployments & server maintenance were required
Regular inputs from the technical team needed on release planning and feature additions
The client wanted a flexible billing methodology enabling fixed team and additional team/resources on demand

Business criticality
Should work on end client’s choice of service providers
Integration possibilities should be open for future service providers. Service providers include:
Business system provider
Catalog solutions provider
Logistics services provider
Payment solutions provider
Fast turn around on new implementations
Low maintenance and installation cost
On time release of major and minor releases
Solution need to be up 24X7

Business solution
InfoBeans provided distributed team model involving
Development team
Production & post production technical support team
Tools like Projectpath, Helpserve, Quickbase & Google docs are adopted to improve collaboration across the geographically dispersed teams
Phased release approach is recommended and adopted
Processes for functions like development, installation, support, deployment , release planning were designed and adopted
Biweekly status calls and weekly status reporting adopted
InfoBeans offered hybrid billing methodology for fixed and variable team sizes and structures

Technology need
Browser based. Accessible from any machine
Easy customization for individual clients was desired
Template based UI was needed for faster reproduction with different themes
Real-time interaction with catalog and inventory systems without dragging the performance
RBAC model for security management
Multi lingual support on command and menu names needed

Technology challenges
The application needs to be integrated with various services provider seamlessly
The number of servers involved in one particular use case is more due to dependency of various services providers for a single transaction. The code needs to be robust enough to handle this
The error tracking mechanism needs to be efficient as there are more parties involved. Error isolation is important to improve troubleshooting efficiency
APIs for popular/leading inventory and catalog service providers were available only Java
Frequent deployment (of releases) needed centralized code management for version integrity

Technology solution
.NET platform is used as technology choice to help rapid application development
Multi-tenant architecture was adopted to centrally control all the installations
Plug-in architecture was designed
This helps various plug-ins (of various service provider of same service) connect with Webware interchangeably.
Interfaces were published for plug-ins
Middleware code is kept unaware of underlying implementation of interfaces for a service
This kept Webware code independent of service provider
InfoBeans wrote the code for plug-ins for popular service providers

Technology solution contd…
JSP bridge was designed to communicate between .NET and Java APIs via XML based http communication
UI customization layer was designed using CSS and XML to facilitate customization after compilation/build
AJAX is widely used for better user experience
XML based functionality customization layer is designed
Visual Sourcesafe is used to effectively manage the code using branching for version and release management
Product Control Panel is hosted to centrally administer all the installations and the licensed modules for each instances

Distributed team model Role Responsibilities Experience and skills Location Client Representative Vision of the product Business knowledge US West coast Account Managers Interacting with end clients and offshore technology teams Account management US East coast Architect & Project Manager Architecture design, leading the offshore teams, providing priorities and communicating with the client 8+ years in designing high end web applications and project management in J2EE and .NET India Development Lead Leading the development efforts 4 years - .NET, SQL Server, AJAX & JSP India Developers Developing for version releases 2-3 years - .NET, SQL Server, AJAX India Production & Post Production Support Lead Leading the production & post production support efforts 4 years - .NET, SQL Server, Windows & IIS India Production Engineers Release deployment, instance installation, configuration, customization, licensing of Webware for end clients. Server and application maintenance 2-3 years - .NET, SQL Server, Windows & IIS India Support Engineer Responding & resolving end client’s technical tickets 2 years - .NET, SQL Server & AJAX India QA Team Black box, white box , system and functional testing 2-3 years with various QA testing tools (primarily in .NET tools) India

Results
InfoBeans’ user interface consultant helped creating multiple themes for UI and library of themes was created
Adopted communication and status update plans helped smoother project progress tracking
Processes at various functions helped smoother functioning
80+ live end clients use the product across north America(US, Canada & Mexico)
One major release and more than 25 minor releases were done on live production clients with absolutely no downtime on business
Popular gateways like Amador, DST adopted our interfaces and joined the array of compatible service providers of Webware

InfoBeans as a consultant
InfoBeans provides consulting with client on choosing and evaluating service providers for various services that Webware may extend to
InfoBeans provides technical consultancy to various plug-in authors (on implementing Webware ‘s published interfaces)
InfoBeans manages the server architecture of Web Link via direct interaction with Hardware providers
InfoBeans represents Web Link’s technical face during initiatives on win-win business collaboration with competitors
InfoBeans provides consultancy to Web Link on feasibility evaluation of various other channels of business in automotive domain

Contact us for more information
Siddharth Sethi
InfoBeans Inc
www.infobeans.com
[email_address]
Bishop Ranch Corporate Park
2410 Camino Ramon, Suite 288
San Ramon, CA 94582
USA
+1 888 4 INFOBEANS

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InfoBeans case study for a web application product

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