Right Team, Real Results

Rail Europe is responsible for the booking of over 80% of all rail travel in Europe. Over the past 2 decades they have created a vast network of more than 2000 travel agents. A client/server application was originally designed to allow travel agents to check seating availability, book tickets, etc.

Replacement of a legacy Client/Server system with a fault-tolerant, 3-tier web architecture utilizing open source technologies such as Apache, Tomcat mixed with proprietary products like Borland Application Server and Oracle.

Design of fault-tolerant network architecture utilizing Cisco Routers, Firewalls, and Content Switches.

Recommendations in the procurement of necessary Unix hardware to meet the business requirements for a highly-available environment.

Installation and configuration of Unix hardware in existing REG data centers.

Design and implementation of core architecture to enable fault-tolerance at the web and application tiers to be used as a foundation for the software development division.

Design and implementation of security mechanisms to protect internal resources from outside entities connecting to the network via the internet.

Design of web services architecture.

Established suite of tools to be used by system administrators to manage the newly implemented 3-tier architecture.

Development of performance benchmarking and automated regression testing suites.

Code reviews and recommendations to increase overall performance of the application.

Ongoing support for newly created environments.

Migration of existing systems to new production equipment.

Upgrade of required, third-party products including operating system, database server and web server software.

Addition of new survey data collection processes based on paper equivalents collected at various clinics throughout the country.

Resolution of known defects with the existing system

Documentation of shortcomings of existing system architecture with corrective recommendations

Selected by NYS Department of Health to enhance an existing web application designed to collect data for Parkinson’s Disease research.

Performed a thorough analysis of the existing systems and conducted numerous design sessions with NYS Department of Health technical team members to better understand the project goals. As a result of the analysis and design sessions, we rapidly completed the enhancements to the existing system.

Leveraged our extensive background in software design, project planning, systems architecture and web based technologies to make the appropriate enhancements to the legacy application. The entire process from vendor selection to project completion spanned approximately 8 weeks. Due to the overall success and acceptance of the new website, we were asked to provide continuing support for the application.

Provide technical direction and leadership for a B2B application eco system. Bootstrap the existing development team into the new eco system and put the software development life cycles on track.

Selected to develop a web-based environment that would allow for the consolidation of nearly a dozen legacy web applications. High demands from the business unit and an overall lack of time to correctly design and develop new features led to a series of poor decisions that ultimately made the management of these web applications impossible. Besides developing an environment to consolidate existing web applications, the client desired recommendations for a standardized core set of technologies as well as introduce documentation, testing, best practices and coding standards to the development team.

Performed a thorough analysis of the legacy applications and conducted numerous rapid design sessions with end users, business unit members, support staff, and development staff to ensure all needs were documented before implementing the new development environment. As a result of the analysis and design sessions, we recommended building a Java-based web environment utilizing standard technologies such as Apache/Tomcat, Struts/Tiles, JSP, Spring, and JSF. We also recommended a standardized set of development tools such as Eclipse IDE for project development, ANT for project building, JUnit for testing, JMeter for performance benchmarking, and tools such as JDepend and PMD to enforce coding conventions throughout the development team.

Utilizing our extensive background in software design, project planning, systems architecture and web based technologies, we generated a new development environment which enabled the clients development team to begin the consolidation process. We produced a proof of concept to demonstrate the proper use of all of the recommended tools and best practices. Due to the overall success and acceptance of the pilot application, we were asked to plan and lead the implementation of the Web application and target environments.

Design a user-friendly and well organized site that adheres to industry standards for website principles of design and the NY Sire Stakes style guide.

Design a user-friendly, easy to navigate site that addresses the needs of both horse- men and race track personnel.

Create three user-friendly, searchable databases within the website for racing statistics such as eligible horses, points, and mares bred.

Utilize a user-friendly content management system that enables NY Sire Stakes administrator(s) to easily and quickly update the site’s web and database content.

Make www.nysirestakes.com the top-rated website for information and news regard- ing standardbred breeding in NYS and the New York Sire Stakes racing program.

Increase traffic to the site.

Adhering to the New York State Office for Technology rules, regulations, and guidelines for state entities.

Utilize search engine optimization to ensure a highly visible and visited site.

Provide secure web hosting and ongoing maintenance.

Selected by NY Sire Stakes to develop and host a web-based content management system.We performed a thorough analysis of the legacy systems and conducted numerous design sessions with NY Sire Stakes technical team members to better understand the aforementioned project goals. As a result of the analysis and design sessions, we recommended leveraging a COTS PHP-based content management system.

Leveraging our extensive background in software design, project planning, systems architecture and web based technologies to create a website that enabled the NY Sire Stakes technical team to easily update the content presented on www.nysirestakes.com.

Redesign and host www.connect-ability.com, a website dedicated to helping identify and remove barriers to employment faced by people with disabilities.

Selected by the CT Department of Social Services to redesign and host www.connect-ability.com, a website dedicated to helping identify and remove barriers to employment faced by people with disabilities. We utilized our background in web-based development to migrate the site onto a content management solution.

We performed a thorough analysis of the legacy website and its content and conducted numerous sessions with DSS team members to ensure all needs were documented before implementing the new production environment. As a result of the analysis and design sessions, we recommended a content management solution that would not only allow DSS team members to manage their own content but meet state accessibility standards. We also made sizing recommendations to ensure the environment could support increasing demand and usage over the next several years.

Utilizing our extensive background in software design, project planning, systems architecture and web based technologies, we enabled the Department of Social Services to adopt a formal content management solution. Due to the overall success of the project, the Department is now working to leverage their infrastructure for several other initiatives.

Redesign a legacy Inmate Grievance Management System.

We were initially selected by the NYS Department of Corrections to redesign a legacy Inmate Grievance Management System. In addition to being web-based, the system leveraged the Department’s recent investments in Microsoft technologies. Utilizing our background in system architecture to design a web-based application capable of supporting key inmate grievance processes including:

Performed a thorough analysis of the legacy database systems and conducted numerous rapid design sessions with end users, support staff, and development staff to ensure all needs were documented before implementing the new production environment. As a result of the analysis and design sessions, we recommended a development strategy that would not only mitigate the transition to the new web-based application for end users but also for development staff team members. Our recommendations included scalability to ensure the environment could support increasing demand and usage over the next several years.

Utilized our extensive background in software design, project planning, systems architecture and web based technologies to create a new Microsoft-based environment that enabled the Department of Corrections to adopt a formal case management solution. Due to the overall success of the project, the Department is now working to leverage their infrastructure for several other initiatives.

Designed, developed and integrated an Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) system which connected the consumer credit organization at a National US Bank to various fulfillment vendors related to home equity loans. This system integrated a 3090 Mainframe using CICS and ACAPS with windows and linux systems over frame relay WAN connections and the Internet.

The application became a turn key service hosted in geographically separated Datacenter Facilities. As part of the service creation, we analyzed performance and utilization needs for the national operations and selected, procured, installed, configured and maintained the required hardware and software. We worked with the financial institutions architecture and security teams to implement the system according to the customers needs and requirements.

The service allowed lenders in response to a consumers home equity loan application to order various property related products from Flood, Title and Appraisal companies through out the United States. The lenders service orders are transmitted electronically through the RVOMS service, over the internet and placed in the service providers order entry systems. When the service provider had completed the work ordered by the lender the resulting property report and associated data elements are then transmitted back through the service and into the lenders credit application decision process.

The lenders orders and the vendor’s reports were stored electronically within the RVOMS data warehouse, visibility to the transactions was provided through the use of a web portal. Lenders and vendors logged into the service and made use of the Vendor Order Management interface for customer service and vendor management metrics. The portal was developed using Java NIO, Apache web servers, Tomcat application containers, Sybase Enterprise server on Linux, JSP pages, and Hibernate for the persistence layer. Lenders gained a layer of security by consolidating the number of potential external connection points to the single hosted application service. Where possible the MISMO xml specifications were utilized for web service transactions.

The service is hosted within private data centers; multiple instances of the service were required for Development, Test, and User Acceptance. The data centers allocate customers environments depending upon the number of systems required, the rack space required, power requirements, and public or private network access required. Ongoing customer support was included with the service.

The service required all data between the lenders mainframe system and the vendors systems be normalized and persisted. In most cases data transmissions will be converted from the lenders systems data format and machine architecture to network form for transmission to the vendors.

The reverse process is then performed between the vendor’s data processing systems and the service or lenders systems.

Implement a robust build and deploy infrastructure within AWS to support the implementation of micro services and associated RESTful API's.

Engaged with our clients architecture and systems team to produce an integrated DevOps pipeline. The target platform was Amazon Web Services. A number of open source tools and products were utilized in conjunction with Amazon services. The end product was a complete API Infrastructure centered on Kong API Gateway. We started with Vagrant, virtualbox and chef to produce VM's capable of running Cassandra and the Kong API Gateway. We then added packer and produced AMI's registered with AWS. Using cloudformation the AMI's were activated within VPC's, complete with Elastic Load Balancers, Autoscaling groups and rolling upgrades.

Design and develop RESTful business services, capable of providing a consistent, concise implementation for multiple front end applications.

The mobile web services project, utilizing agile software development methods in a continuous integration environment, kicked of during 2013. Our team worked with the clients architecture team to expose several existing business services through a common software layer. The software developed was Multi-tenant capable, and could be hosted for clients as a set of services or deployed into a clients existing environment. Each component layer of the software was carefully orchestrated and deploy-able as a set of jar files. The design allowed jars to be integrated easily within existing customer deployments. The services exposed were interesting and followed well established best practices. Authentication, Authorization, User Profile, Branding, and numerous corporate payment services allowed an Iphone application to display multiple site brands and features based upon a customer, the users permissions within the back end applications and the device being used.

While engaged with the team, we were able to implement an HTML5 video component for the kentico cms and vimeo a popular video hosting site. The videos are played within a fancybox implementation.