CLIENT PORTFOLIO

New requirements into BT Wholesale were being manually processed into the organisation via customer emails, conversations with account managers and group discussions at industry forums. This made it difficult to track and report on these requirements and even worse, it meant that Ofcom-stipulated SLAs might not be met.

Challenges:

• Step change in the way new and existing requirements are managed into the organisation
• Provide a front door for all new requirements and a facility to load existing requirements at different stages of the requirements lifecycle
• Find a way to manage delivery gates, enforce process deadlines and make users accountable
• Dynamic configuration of processes
• Automate as much as possible
• Provide full auditing and reporting

i-Associates used their workflow management and business rules engine to build a requirements management platform for BT Wholesale. The system can manage thousands of long-running complex requirements, providing jeopardy management, process enforcement and various levels of automated reporting.

Within a space of 3 months the system brought the old existing requirements into the correct phase of the requirements lifecycle. All new requirements are correctly managed from the start resulting in all requirements meeting Ofcom-mandateded SLAs.

• ASP.NET
• J2EE
• Microsoft SQL Server

Following the success of the BT Wholesale requirements system, Openreach had a similar need to manage their own customer requirements. Additionally, Openreach required facilities for the industry to collaborate on requirements and submit and manage joint requirements.

Like the BT Wholesale requirements platform, we made use of our existing workflow and business rules engine to build the Openreach system. We provided additional functionality that allowed a collaborative approach, employing techniques like sharing SORs, putting them into draft for comment, voting and advanced multi-company and multi-user permissions.

• ASP.NET
• J2EE
• Microsoft SQL Server

BT: one of the world's leading providers of communications solutions.

BT Wholesale needed to find a way to automate PPC (partial private circuit) pricing and cut down on time consuming and error prone manual pricing. i-Associates were invited to build a proof of concept pricing tool that could be used to test the viability and accuracy of automated pricing.

Challenges:

• Ability to model complex telecommunication products
• Provide internal management of network assets, pricing, cpe
• Integrate with various internal systems, line characteristics, addressing services, etc.
• Architect and publish external APIs for b2b quote integration

i-Associates quickly got to work and delivered a working proof of concept within three months. During trialling the system was an instant success, resolving disputed circuit bills worth more than £500k.

Further development brought additional telecommunications products and platform features. Today the system provides quotes for a host of services to most UK and global telecommunication companies.

• Microsoft .NET
• MSMQ
• SQL Server
• Oracle
• SOAP Web Services
• HTML
• Javascript

Mobile Network Operator

The client had numerous spreadsheets holding network availability information for different parts of the network. It was a challenge to keep the various versions in sync with each other, keep them up to date and manage the security of who had access to the information. Downstream functions that depended on the data were also constantly out of date and sales presentation material was also constantly having to be updated.

Challenges:

• Provide a way to keep disparate network information up to date
• Provide version control and security auditing
• Investigate rich display options for the data

i-Associates built a real-time web-based network management repository system that allowed different groups to update different elements of the network data. All data was version controlled at an atomic level and audited for security purposes.

A rich user interface was provided to display and query the network data in a variety of ways. For example, users could see network asset by type, status or any other network attribute. All the data was geo-coded to allow for spatial querying and the data was made available as both a map and a table. Anytime any data changed it would update in real time to all views.

The system provided the versioning, security and presentation requirements that could not otherwise be accomplished.

• HTML5
• Javascript
• Node.js
• MongoDB

Cable & Wireless: is a leading international telecommunications company with customers in 80 countries.

Cable & Wireless were looking to build a reporting portal - ‘CustomerLink’ - that would present live ‘dynamic’ statistics, reports and graphs to authenticated users over secure connections across the internet.

Challenges:

• Integration of multiple disparate back-end data feeds
• Integration with external business services
• Real-time reporting
• Multiple view technology: roles based
• Ability to monitor users
• Ability to dynamically add new services
• Ability to brand portal

i-Associates engaged in an initial evaluation phase, the result of which was the choice of tools, technologies and frameworks that were to be used for the project.

Our consultants were responsible for the design of the overall system in terms of a framework that ‘services’ or ‘applications’ could be plugged into. CustomerLink consisted of core elements - the framework, administration, security, plus individual ‘applications’ that each business unit required - e.g. frame relay reporting, switchless resale reporting and call management. i-Associates undertook the coding of all the systems modules, created all the web pages, reports and graphics.

The CustomerLink platform was delivered to spec and budget and helped Cable & Wireless win numerous provisioning contracts on the strength of this reporting platform alone.

• Oracle
• Oracle Application Server
• PL/SQL
• HTML
• J2SE
• J2EE
• BEA Weblogic

Cable & Wireless: is a leading international telecommunications company with customers in 80 countries.

As a result of our successes on the CustomerLink project, we were re-engaged by Cable & Wireless to build a rich client desktop application that would become their de-facto client for service delivery to premium customers.

Challenges:

• Client had to be desktop-based: rich functionality
• Ability to add and remove services remotely
• Real-time updates/synchronisation of data and software - zero configuration
• Ability to work in connected and not-connected mode
• Pull & push technology

i-Associates architected the server side infrastructure based on J2EE, and utilising the BEA weblogic application server for business logic encapsulated in EJB and integration to various legacy systems including Oracle databases.

Standardised data / system interoperability using XML to create a SOAP-like contract language (this was before SOAP was a specification!)

Designed and implemented a rich client which harnessed the Marimba Castanet suite of products to provide a true client-server ‘desktop’ over the internet! - the client was a swing based Java framework used to host various ‘services’ such as reporting and graphing tools and individual applications created by other departments.

• Oracle
• J2SE
• J2EE
• Java Swing
• BEA Weblogic
• XML
• Marimba Castanet

G2 Speech, the organiser in speech technology, is the leading expert in the field of speech recognition, digital dictation and workflow management.

G2 Speech's brand lead product Medispeech is a PC-based dictation, transcription and review engine for the medical industry. Its functions allow medical personnel to dictate documents via a headset. The recording is then available to transcribers to access and transfer to paper copy. G2 required the desktop functionality of their product to be transferred to telephony, whereby remote users would be able to dictate, transcribe and review documents via a telephone.

Challenges:

• Authenticated access to audio documents
• The user had to be able to do everything he could do at his desktop via the telephony solution
• Audio manipulation, forward, rewind, insert, delete
• Environmental considerations e.g. if the end device was a mobile phone used from a car, noise reduction techniques had to be applied
• Ability to handle dropped calls, continue dictation from any point
• Integration with G2 speech server

Our software consultants designed a flexible platform based on Java technologies. Components included:

• A telephony server, a Java interface between software and the telecommunication network
• A workflow engine to control user interaction with the telephony server via scripting
• An audio server - a streaming audio server utilising the Java Sound API
• A connector architecture framework for interfacing with the COM+ based G2 server

Our engineers built a hardware platform consisting of telephony cards and running a Linux kernal for the software. Base units supporting from 4 to 10 telephony ports were shipped. The units were plug-and-play and had the capacity to be administered and updated remotely via http.

• J2SE
• J2EE
• JINI
• Java Sound API
• Java Communications API
• Linux

Compuware Corporation: is a recognised industry leader in enterprise software and IT services.

Compuware had engaged with the All Wales Consortium to deliver a J2EE based social services system to be deployed across several Welsh government authorities. At the time, Compuware were new to the J2EE arena and needed a helping hand in getting up to speed in J2EE best practice.

Challenges:

• Evaluate the existing platform and re-evaluate the development team structure
• To mentor an in-house team of, although experienced developers, J2EE novices
• Convey overall design, direction and implementation of the platform
• Use best practice J2EE design patterns
• Build a first release of the web application for Compuware's client

Through daily workshops and hands-on tuition - the Compuware team was fast-tracked through the principles of J2EE. i-Associates consultants were responsible for the design of the overall system and conveyed their knowledge through extensive use of UML.

i-Associates architects were responsible for > 80% of the initial codebase that formed the ‘foundation classes’ of the platform and led to the platform being extremely flexible and extendable. An initial release of the platform went live with the customer on time and to budget.

• J2EE
• JBoss Application Server
• Tapestry web framework
• Java Communications API
• Optimal J
• XML
• Oracle

Intellivoice: A startup company operating in the exciting new world of voiceXML and voice portals.

i-Associates was approached by the board at Intellivoice. They had a vision of where they wanted their business to go and had heard that we had the expertise to help them get there.

Challenges:

• To build various loosely coupled server components for the SmartVoice™ platform
• To advise on best of breed software/hardware in this emerging space and form partnerships
• To leverage the power of the internet and expose it via telephony

Our consultants helped shape the design & direction of the SmartVoice™ platform. This included full life cycle involvement on:

• Workflow engine - a configurable Java/XML based workflow co-ordinator
• Business rules engine - a JBoss based business objects container
• Personalisation engine - written in Java and utilising Oracle
• Security - utilising JAAS and Nuance Verifier
• Integration - with legacy web pages and portals via Nuance V-Builder
• VoiceXML server

i-Associates also aided in the development and deployment of the first applications on the platform. These included:

• Automated directory-enquiry services
• Automated retail-ordering systems
• Real-time radio on-demand

• J2EE
• JBoss Application Server
• JINI
• JAAS
• voiceXML
• XML
• Nuance Speech Servers

Flintshire County Council

The Social Care Department were upgrading their assessment tool. Social Services assessments are by nature extremely complex, storing and updating large amounts of data per individual. Environmental, Social and Legislative changes mean that the system is extremely dynamic.

Challenges:

• Migrate existing functionality to a web-based interface
• Fluid architecture to facilitate legislative changes
• Needed to be easy to update assessment criteria
• Security based around department, user and location
• User interface had to be dynamic in structure
• The Council stipulated no heavyweight application server architectures

Consultants from i-Associates spent considerable time with the Council to ascertain exact requirements. Architecting a web application was straightforward, however, it was clear from initial discussions that we had to think-outside-the-box to provide the flexibility that the application demanded.

The design phase of the project resulted in i-Associates creating a component-based web-application more in line with desktop client development, however this proved to be the right approach for this project.

A Question Engine Web Framework was implemented that would allow the pages to be built up by configuring and auto-wiring components. These components included:

• Documents
• Forms
• Categories
• Questions and Answers

Through configuration it become very easy to quickly deploy new and complex assessment documents. Deployment was an administration task performed via a web interface. The whole web application was hosted on Tomcat and used the MySQL database for storage. The lightweight Spring container was utilised.

• J2EE
• Tomcat Servlet Container
• Spring
• Hibernate
• Tapestry web framework
• XML
• MySQL

Cap Gemini, Ernst & Young: Implementation-focused Management Consulting and Information Technology services group

CGE&Y had developed a hardware solution for RFID tagging for the Walmart group in the USA. The group required a client piece of software, to demonstrate the capabilities of the platform.

Challenges:

• Integration to RFID infrastructure
• Real-time application
• Multi monitor capable

Our consultants designed and implemented a Java Swing client that met all the client's requirements in less than one week.

• J2SE
• Java Swing
• XML

BT: one of the world's leading providers of communications solutions.

BT Wholesale required complex fault reporting and analysis to monitor and enhance the service of a new product launch.

Challenges:

• Multiple disparate back-end data feeds
• High volume of data feeds
• Automation of manual processes
• Reduce reporting and analysis time cycle
• Facilitate root cause analysis
• Produce normalised data and reports

Development of a fault analysis and reporting system. This involved analysing complex data relationships between heterogeneous legacy platforms. Creating a solution to integrate the high volumes of data, perform complex analysis and provide user reporting.

This saved the business 2/3 days of manual analysis every week and provided business analysts with timely, transparent access to crucial product information.

• Microsoft SQL Server
• Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services
• Microsoft .NET
• Microsoft Office VBA

Cable & Wireless: is a leading international telecommunications company with customers in 80 countries.

Cable & Wireless management required detailed time management reporting for their professional services resources. The ability to allocate and track the time of these high value individuals against customers and projects was paramount to understanding where resources were actually being deployed and the real value of customer engagements.

Challenges:

• Integration with existing Siebel CRM system
• Fast, easy to use web-based interface
• Management reporting
• Ability to account by customer, projects, teams and resources
• Administration module

Our consultants were responsible for the overall design and implementation of the TMS (Time Management System). The solution was deployed as an intranet web application that linked to Siebel sales force automation. The application provided an intelligent time entry module for end users, management reporting and administration modules.

Professional Services staff benefited thanks to an innovative AJAX based auto-suggest that allowed them to start typing any details (customer, project or product names) whilst the application automatically suggested the available options from thousands of potential entries.

This helped users find information quickly and removed the entry of invalid free flow data allowing for more accurate reporting.

• Microsoft SQL Server
• Microsoft .NET
• Siebel
• HTML / AJAX

UNIX Limited: A small London-based Consultancy in the UNIX infrastructure space.

The development of a Web-based Consultant Scheduling application

Challenges:

• Multi-date ‘drag and drop’ facility to ease the scheduling of multi-day tasks
• Facility to create/edit/delete consultant details
• Facility to create/edit/delete activities and activity types
• Create/edit/delete client information
• Create and modify colour/client mappings
• The ability to associate brief message text (general notes, etc) with scheduled tasks
• Rich client functionality

Before the days of AJAX - we were required to provide an AJAX style web application.

The actual web page was standard HTML utilising JavaScript for client side manipulation of the UI. Once loaded - the page behaved like a desktop application - no page refreshing.

The solution provided utilised a Java applet that acted as communication gateway to a backend Oracle application server. XML Data was fed bi-directionally through the communicator for a rich user experience.

• HTML
• Javascript
• Java (Applet)
• Application Server

UK Mobile Network Operator

i-Associates were asked to come up with ideas and interactive software to demonstrate various in-building mobile operator coverage solutions. We were provided with a blank canvas to brainstorm different ideas.

Challenges:

• Understand the vast array of MNO and third-party product offerings
• Bring together a unified sales tool strategy
• Create sales tools and interactive software to demonstrate the sales story and product offerings
• Provide administration, security and reporting wrap around the sales tools

After several workshops and brainstorming exercises, we came up with the concept of interactive buildings. We modelled various typical building scenarios (25) and built a 3d viewer that allowed the user to interact with the buildings adding and changing various environmental factors. The user was then able to see how various signal coverage products could be employed to solve specific scenarios.

This was delivered as part of a wider web application that we built to provide management functionality and additional interactive sales presentations.

• HTML5
• Javascript
• WebGL, CSS3D, Canvas, SVG, D3
• Node.js
• Sketchup

BlackBerry (RIM): A global leader in secure mobile communications.

BlackBerry asked i-Associates to help them produce interactive sales tools based on research commissioned on the effective TCO of BlackBerry devices. The challenge was to transform dull research papers into interactive and engaging sales tools that could be used by MNO channel partners in EMEA.

Challenges:

• No server-side infrastructure allowed for project
• It had to be a standalone tool and was not allowed to be installed on client machines
• It needed to be easy to use and could be left with clients (MNO corporate sales teams)

This was an unusual project and i-Associates spent a considerable amount of time researching the market to find a suitable technology that would meet the client stipulations. Our first step was to distil the market research papers into a number of Excel TCO models that provided a concrete implementation of the research findings and allowed for what-if analysis based on customer inputs and MNO variables.

The next step was to convert these models into graphical dashboards that could be embedded into PowerPoint presentations. This allowed MNO corporate sales channels to interactively demonstrate BlackBerry ROI based on customer input variables and MNO defined pricepoints. BlackBerry were extremely pleased with the result.

• Xcelsius Dashboards
• Microsoft PowerPoint
• Microsoft Excel
• Microsoft VBA

Cable & Wireless: is a leading international telecommunications company with customers in 80 countries.

Cable & Wireless required a tool to help map complex customer network QoS requirements. The tool would be used to aid pre-sales in IP VPN (QoS) bid situations.

Challenges:

• The tool had to be standalone and based on Microsoft Excel
• It should be easy to use but be capable of mapping complex customer networks (up to hundreds of sites)
• Users should be able to pick and mix network application types
• Users should be able to define their own network applications
• The tool must automatically recommend bandwidth sizing, QoS profiles and pricing for each customer site
• Full help documentation and training must be provided

Our consultants successfully conceived, designed and developed the 'Construct' tool to help pre-sales sell IP VPN (QoS).

The tool allowed pre-sales to classify, categorise and map any network-based applications (email, web traffic, SAP ERP systems, etc) while helping customers understand their application QoS requirements (bandwidth, jitter, latency) and interface bandwidth sizing and pricing. This introduced a step change in the way a multimillion pound product was marketed and sold to their customers.

The tool was provided under budget to specification in the allocated time.

• Microsoft VBA
• Microsoft Excel

Cable & Wireless: is a leading international telecommunications company with customers in 80 countries.

After Cable & Wireless acquired Digital Island and Exodus they became the premier global hosting provider. To help market and sell their hosting products Cable & Wireless required an industry leading tool to show customers the advantages of outsourcing hosting.

Challenges:

• The only defined requirement was the need for a hosting outsource calculator. No further detailed requirements were provided.
• Brainstorm and facilitate all elements of the tool design and associated business benefits
• Easy to use and enter information
• Provide customer reporting and pricing
• The tool had to be deployed as an excel-based spreadsheet or add-in
• Full training and support to be provided

Our consultants were not only responsible for the architecture, design and delivery of the tool but also the workshops, brainstorming and requirements gathering exercises to define what an industry leading hosting outsource calculator would look like.

The result was a Microsoft Excel-based sales tool that calculated the TCO (total cost of ownership) of an inhouse vs outsource hosting solution.

The tool provided the functionality to dynamically build and save customer hosting scenarios based on the hundreds of hosting products available (infrastructure, hardware, software and services). Users could edit, save and delete scenarios and when complete run the scenarios against various parameters to create 1-3 year TCO graphs and reports. The reports helped customers understand cost allocation and savings associated with outsourcing.

The tool was used as part of the TAS (target account selling) methodology to target the financial decision makers in customer organisations.

• Microsoft VBA
• Microsoft Excel

Tier 1 telecommunications company

The Telecommunications industry is undergoing a phase of re-structure as the IT and telco world converge. i-Associates were commissioned by a tier 1 telecommunications company to lead the effort to define a service delivery platform which would allow the company to open new revenue streams.

Challenges:

• Identifying possible areas of savings from the re-engineering of operations
• Identifying current and future network and voice telecommunications requirements, including opportunities and strategies to apply new and emerging technologies
• Providing a framework to assist in negotiations with vendors with the objective of establishing and maintaining a long-term relationship in which requirements are better met
• Providing recommendations for consideration by senior management to address how to take advantage of future opportunities
• Facilitating a paradigm shift: bringing the telecommunication industry into the IT era

i-Associates worked with the company to build a roadmap for next-generation network-based services. Our work took 4 main routes:

• A whitepaper which served as a technology review, market analysis and industry marker
• Prototyping services using new leading edge telecommunications architectures, frameworks and technology
• Evaluating and initiating partner relationships with the likes of Sun Microsystems, JNetx, Open Cloud, Appium & Intersystems
• Presentations and workshops with all levels of the company from board level down - to deliver the concept of a service delivery platform

• J2SE
• J2EE
• JAIN
• OSS/J
• Parlay
• Open Cloud Rhino Server
• JNetx Server
• Intersystems Cache, Ensemble

Deutsche Bank is a leading global investment bank with a strong and profitable private clients franchise.

Financial institutions are generally hothouses for software development. Deutsche bank was a Java workshop with numerous disparate systems being created by different divisions within the organisation.

Although their expertise was not in doubt, the nature of the development in silos meant that integration was proving to be a bit of a nightmare. i-Associates were engaged in a consultancy capacity.

Challenges:

• Evaluate and analyse current applications for best practice
• Identify a framework that would allow the development teams to continue to work independently but to develop systems that would more easily integrate

The i-Associates team engaged with Deutsche bank to put into place a number of best practices, these included:

• Single code repository across the bank
• Component development strategies producing a core toolset
• Agile software methodology

Our consultants also undertook evaluation on behalf of the bank for client-side application frameworks, frameworks that would do for client-side development what application servers had delivered for the server side.

The deliverables to the bank were various workshops on the frameworks available and custom built prototypes to highlight the features of each framework.

• J2EE
• J2SE
• Netbeans Platform
• Eclipse Platform
• .NET