Web Applications Production Support

Project Overview

IBA provides support for a number of customer applications including:

1. Extranet n-Tier B2B application designed to automate the development of distribution programs allowing our business partner to manage the growth in demand within a distribution channel. As a result, both internal and external users (customers) are able to utilize and process efficiently the data that are distributed between various sources.
   Internet n-Tier B2C application designed to provide warranty support to the users of our partner’s hardware.
2. Extranet B2B web application that supports warranty returns by OEMs, distributors and resellers (Return Material Authorization). The application is ultimately flexible and easily customizable to the needs of each specific user.
3. A number of intranet applications that perform a range of functions for more than 18,000 users worldwide. These are applications like company-wide employee directory, employee CADP (Contribution Assessment and Development Plan) tracking, hardware deployment tracking, and etc.

All extranet and internet applications are implemented using the MVC (Model Viewer Controller) model. The front-end of the systems is using JSP, Java Servlets, DHTML, and Struts technologies and is hosted on IBM WebSphere four server cluster. The business logic is implemented using the EJB. Data between different application tiers flow in XML format using IBM MQSeries (JMS) as transport. IBM DB2 UDB cluster is used as a data storage system. The system interacts with SAP R/3 as a back end. All intranet applications are built on Vignette Application Portal.

Project Execution

IBA responsibilities include:

• Functional requirements definition in collaboration with the partner’s business operations team and application owners
• Application design based on the functional requirements in collaboration with the partner’s architects
• Application development and unit testing
• Processing of customer service requests assigned by the applications’ help desk. Based on the customer severity, IBA reacts to the requests for service within a certain time frame (e.g. 24 hrs, 3 days, etc.)

• Interaction with customers to work out the details of customer requirements
• Analysis and improvement of application performance
• Based on the business and/or customer needs, development of applications’ enhancements
• Ongoing applications’ administration
• Updating the applications’ code to utilize new technology versions and testing the changes to produce new releases of the supported systems
• Continuous study of new technologies and the possibility to apply these technologies in the supported systems

Project Results

IBA is providing remote support for customer applications on a daily basis. As a result, our customer achieved significant cost reduction and could focus its IT staff on problem areas and the activities that bring the greatest return.