Case Studies
Thompson Automotive Labs
We created a program that when used with an oscillioscope detects inefficient combustion.
"Not only did Rolemodel create this software, but through RoleModel Community, was also able to work with a business consultant, graphic and web designer. It was very nice to have all these options at one place!"
The following projects demonstrate some of solutions we have worked with our clients to deliver.
- CipherOptics, Inc.
- Multinational Pharmaceutical Company
- Paragon Application Systems
- BioMerieux
- Multinational Energy Company
- Bonita Software, Inc.
CipherOptics, Inc.
CipherOptics, Inc. (CipherOptics) is a leading innovator of high-speed Gigabit performance network security solutions. They design, develop and manufacture data encryption products that offer high IPSec security at optical network speeds. Their Security Gateway product provides up to ten times the performance of comparably-priced security appliances.
Customer Challenge
CipherOptics needed a desktop application that would enable customers to configure settings on many Security Gateways concurrently. The application ultimately will have to pass muster with some of the most demanding customers in the world, including DoD. Among other things, the application was to allow customers to:
- Change the configuration of many Security Gateways at the same time.
- Upgrade the software running on each Gateway through an automated process.
- View the status of each Gateway (unit is down, unit needs a reboot, etc).
- Backup and restore configuration settings locally.
RoleModel Deliverable
The challenges presented by the project included (1) the short time frame involved, and (2) creation of the interface between the desktop application and the software running on each Security Gateway. In addition, a decision was made halfway through development to make the phase one product into an initial release product. By February 7th, a little over one month after the project start on January 6th, the product was ready for shipment to large customers running 100+ Gateways and multiple operating systems (Linux, Windows, Solaris, etc). The six-plus member RoleModel team developed the application over 5 iterations within the 5-week time period, growing it using Extreme Programming (XP), and furnishing CipherOptics with complete and fully automated tests that verify its functionality.
Technology
The Java-based desktop application was a cutting-edge implementation of IBM’s Standard Widget Toolkit (SWT) and the JFace extension, and used XML-RPC to communicate with and configure Security Gateways. DOM4J, a flexible XML framework for Java, was used to create the XML configuration documents that were sent to each Gateway, and the MinML XML parser was used to parse Gateway settings. The testing framework was written in Ruby, and the project team extended it to support scripting of SWT/JFace applications.
Net Results
The software that RoleModel created gave CipherOptics the following:
- A robust working system. The deadline before the team shipped the first application was tight, but the work that was done produced a functioning application that was easily expandable later.
- Ability to change direction. Halfway through the project, the focus of development shifted significantly when management decided to shoot for making the phase one product an initial release product. The team worked with CipherOptics to ensure that the application met their needs by the end of the project's timeline and had it ready to put in customers' hands.
Multinational Pharmaceutical Company
A Global 500 pharmaceuticals company had a need for innovation in their Business Operations area.
Customer Challenge
They needed a fully-functional prototype of a completely new system to facilitate quantifying the potential risk and reward for a proposed drug development project. And they needed it very quickly. The solution had to be browser-based and extremely simple to use, not requiring too much data input to support the underlying calculations. It also had to interface with an existing MS Excel-based application used for the rather complicated "decision science" mathematics of risk/reward.
RoleModel Deliverable
The company approached RoleModel in September of 2001 to create the browser-based system.
Technology
RoleModel worked with the customer to deliver a browser-based application (IE only for the prototype) with 100-percent-pure custom Java on the back end. RoleModel used its custom-designed reusable "persistence layer" to develop the prototype quickly, but allow an easy switch to an Oracle database later. The application provides a data feed to the existing MS Excel calculation engine.
Net Results
The software platform that RoleModel created gave the customer a working prototype, rather than a smoke-and-mirrors demo. The prototype allowed the customer to demonstrate something real (and growable) to stakeholders and prospective users. When the time comes to build a more comprehensive system, the customer already has a foundation to build upon.
RoleModel developed the application prototype in nine weeks, ramping up from a team of two to a team of four in the last three weeks. The customer was amazed, not just satisfied.
Paragon Application Systems
Paragon Application Systems (Paragon) provides ATM, POS, and Electronic Banking software solutions to the financial services industry. Paragon had no Java experience, and had developed applications almost exclusively on mainframes. The company approached RoleModel in June of 2001 to create their new smaller-platform product offering.
Customer Challenge
Paragon had an existing product that enabled check transaction processing on customer (mainly financial institutions) mainframes. They were trying to expand their market presence to include smaller customers who needed to minimize costly errors in their data feeds to financial institutions on the back end. Paragon wanted to create a product that would sit in between the merchant handling checks (e.g., a retail outlet) and the "switch" that passes data to financial institutions on the back end. Having this intermediate component in place could reduce the error rate in the data sent from the switch to the financial institutions.
Technology
RoleModel worked with the customer to deliver a custom Java application that can run on multiple customer platforms. The application had the following characteristics:
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An XML data communication mechanism that supported the ISO-8583 message standard
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An abstracted Java Sockets implementation that maintained "always up" connectivity between the merchant and the switch
Net Results
The application RoleModel created gave Paragon a product to demonstrate to potential customers. Paragon prides itself on adapting their products to meet the needs of each customer. The application RoleModel delivered gives Paragon a foundation for future customized products.
A RoleModel team of two developed the application prototype in three months with no prior domain experience.
BioMerieux
Organon Teknika Corporation (OTC), since acquired by BioMerieux is a major international player in the research, manufacturing and marketing of health care products and equipment for use in hospitals, laboratories and blood banks. Their products are sold in over 60 countries worldwide.
Customer Challenge
OTC sells several products to laboratories and hospitals worldwide that analyze specimen samples (for medical patients, food, etc.). One of them includes a physical device to capture data about specimens and software to manage those data. Their challenge was simple (but not easy):
- Upgrade their existing product to run on any platform, rather than tying them to a particular target. The existing product ran on a Windows 3.11 platform. When Microsoft moved to Windows 95, the product needed to be rewritten. OTC wanted to avoid that pain in the future.
- Increase flexibility within their market space by providing a product with extreme data management flexibility and querying power.
- Expand into new markets by creating a produce with the flexibility to handle a similar problem space in other markets (such as the food processing industry).
They had the added challenge of meeting FDA approval for any device and related software that they produce.
RoleModel Deliverable
OTC approached RoleModel in October 1998 to help the company create the highly flexible software they needed, while maintaining FDA compliance.
Technology
RoleModel worked with OTC to deliver a 100-percent-pure custom Java solution. Users interface with a Windows desktop application to configure and enter specimen data. Data is persisted in a Poet OODBMS. The entire platform can run on a workstation connected to the specimen repository. Construction of the user interface was extremely complex, because it had to be completely dynamic. New data elements can be added at any time and must be queryable immediately. This flexibility was essential to allow OTC to offer a single product that could meet an almost infinite number of possible customer configurations.
Net Results
The software platform that RoleModel created gave OTC the following:
- Extreme data management flexibility. The new product supports dynamic addition of data fields and powerful querying capabilities on those fields.
- Platform independence. As a 100-percent pure Java solution, the new product can be deployed on any target platform.
- Extreme specimen tracking flexibility. The new product facilitates tracking of specimens through the complex management path during analysis.
- Advanced Testing Framework. The testing framework developed for them has not only revolutionized the way they meet FDA validation requirements for this product, but also become the accepted approach for all of their future product development.
The resulting product is in production and gives BioMerieux the required flexibility in all of their target market spaces, and will let them grow their market to include industries with complementary analysis processes. It meets all FDA regulations for features, performance, and documentation.
Multinational Energy Company
An industrial producer of products for electric utilities contracted RoleModel to enhance one of its core software products. Their object-oriented system was designed to take advantage of large-scale distribution for recording millions of telemetry events daily. This product is used by electric utilities to monitor remote devices using a suite of wired and wireless communications schemes.
Customer Challenge
This customer's system relies on the smooth operation of many interoperating distributed processes spread across multiple CPUs. Tools exist to monitor the status of hardware and operating system processes, but no tool existed for monitoring and examining the life cycle of dozens of simultaneous business objects across the system. The challenge was this:
- Develop a monitor that would interact seamlessly with this large distributed system
- Ensure that the monitor will not negatively affect performance
The customer engaged RoleModel based on its expertise in mission-critical distributed systems.
RoleModel Deliverable
RoleModel developed a monitoring solution in two parts:
- A monitoring service running passively within the larger distributed system. This service gathered near real-time information on the distributed business objects and made the information available to remote clients.
- A remote-client application that was used by customer support personnel. Customer support staff could use the monitoring applications to monitor the system remotely and investigate customer issues.
Technology
The customer's distributed system was written primarily in C++, making use of middlewares from vendors such as IBM and Oracle. The monitoring service was written to operate within this transactional distributed environment. The remote monitor applications used by customer support were written in Java so that they could run either on PC laptops or Unix workstations.
Net Results
The tools developed by RoleModel gave the client the following:
- A more stable system. The existing system had evolved over time to be rather unmanageable. The new system is as clean as possible.
- An more adaptable system. The new system benefits from a cohesive design based on pure object oriented principles and patterns.
- Improved customer satisfaction. The new system allows the client to resolve telemetry difficulties much more quickly than with the old system. It also allows engineers to catch and correct problems preemptively.
Bonita Software, Inc.
Bonita Software, Inc. (Bonita) was an innovator in the exploding wireless solutions market. They provided a framework that allows for the deployment of user and corporate workforce applications to mobile devices, such as the Palm, RIM Blackberry, next generation Motorola iDEN phones, and we even prototyped an in-car solution with BMW. The company's ToGo® Platform enabled secure access to and execution of applications and information from the broadest set of wireless Internet devices regardless of network connectivity issues. Users could administer updates and deploy entirely new applications to the devices through the wireless network, with full interoperability among devices. Bonita had established a number of key partnerships with companies, including Sun Microsystems and Motorola, to advance their respective technologies.
Customer Challenge
Bonita first approached RoleModel to develop a stable, flexible framework for Personal Java to support their initial product line. After Sun released Java 2 MicroEdition, it became obvious that this was the direction the small devices market was heading. At that point, Bonita faced a challenge:
- They needed a drastically smaller framework that would meet the needs of their target market.
- They needed it fast, to avoid being leapfrogged by competitors.
RoleModel Deliverable
Initially, Bonita needed a software framework based on Personal Java for use in their product line. RoleModel exceeded expectations by delivering a framework that supported a rich user experience in a small space. For the second project, RoleModel delivered the following:
- A very small kernel
- Extensions to that kernel to support the Motorola iDEN phone platform
- Testing tools pioneered by RoleModel for testing in small spaces
- Some sample applications written to exploit the capabilities of the kernel
Technology
The goal of the Bonita Togo® Platform is to support just-in-time delivery of new capabilities to small devices. RoleModel created a 100-percent pure Java kernel based on the CLDC configuration of Sun's J2ME. The Motorola iDEN J2ME SDK is an implementation of Sun's Mobile Information Device Profile (MIDP) that runs on top of CLDC. The Bonita kernel created by RoleModel is device-independent, with a specific extension for the Motorola iDEN platform. RoleModel's initial effort in constructing the framework gave Bonita extensions for the Palm OS, which could be ported to the new kernel very quickly.
Net Results
The software that RoleModel created gave Bonita Software the following:
- An extensible platform. The new kernel is device-independent, but supports the addition of new target devices seamlessly. RoleModel's initial effort in constructing the framework gave Bonita extensions for the Palm OS, which could be ported to the new kernel very quickly.
- A testing framework for small spaces. The testing framework developed by RoleModel (based on JUnit) gives Bonita the ability to test their solutions more comprehensively than before.
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