In-Depth

Nominee for OpenSource

  • April 21, 2006

2006 Innovator Awards ADT's annual Innovator Awards recognize IT development teams who have solved their company's business problems by deploying unique solutions. This year 31 nominees entered their application development projects in the five categories listed below. Each week for the next month, a new category will be added to the mix until the winners -- based on judging by a group of consultants at Keane -- are announced in the May issue of ADT. Tell us who you think should win. Scroll down and vote for the best project in the middleware/application integration category.

Categories

  • Application Engineering

    Emphasizes the use of software engineering tools and practices. Includes the use of Extreme Programming (XP) concepts, the Unified Modeling Language (UML), Computer-Aided Software Engineering (CASE), object-oriented analysis and design tools, automated testing tools, methodologies, project management, process management, configuration management tools and/or productivity measurement tools in an innovative corporate development project.

    Click here to see the Nominees for this category

  • Data Warehousing

    Emphasizes the design and development processes and tools used in enterprise data warehousing projects, including: data mining tools, online transaction processing systems, data extraction and transformation tools, database management systems, universal data management systems, query and reporting tools.

    Click here to see the Nominees for this category

  • E-Business Application Development

    Emphasizes efforts to develop a corporate application architecture that incorporates legacy systems, client/server systems and the Internet. The judges will evaluate how the finished application affects business processes, as well as the tools and technologies employed. This category also emphasizes the use of multi-tier development tools for development of enterprise-wide applications that can include Web-based and wireless clients. Examples include RAD tools, data modelers, visual 4GLs, Java tools, Internet tools, wireless development tools and development frameworks.

    Click here to see the nominees for this category.

  • Middleware/Application Integration

    Emphasizes the use of middleware, integration and messaging technologies within an application architecture. Relevant tools can include transaction managers, object request brokers, RPC-based schemes, XML-based technologies, object transaction monitors, Web services, application integration tools, message-oriented middleware (MOM) alternatives, and publish and subscribe systems. Also emphasizes the use of middleware to link multiple packaged and/or packaged and internally developed applications, and multivendor DBMS systems to allow seamless integration between dissimilar systems.

    Click here to see the Nominees for this category

  • Open Source

    Emphasizes the use of open-source technologies and tools by corporate development teams building internal, proprietary applications or for extending the capabilities of existing systems. Projects that combine traditional development methods with open-source offerings as well as projects relying solely on open-source technologies are relevant to this category.

Nominee for OpenSource

Nominee: norisbank

Industry: Financial services

Goal: Grow market share.

Hide

Business Problem: Develop an end-to-end automated platform to drive the bank’s credit process. Integrate prototype system with additional financial institutions (apps, services and infrastructures) after merger with another bank.

Application Solution: The development team opted to use open-source Java 2 Enterprise Edition-based app server JBoss 3.2.5 (now 4.0.2) with the Apache Tomcat Web server as the platform for the Web-based easyCredit system. The use of the J2EE standard-platform mitigated the risk because the bank could port the easyCredit system to a commercial J2EE platform such as BEA WebLogic or IBM WebSphere, if necessary.

easyCredit uses Web-based apps and tools to gather third-party data for credit checks, when applicants apply for a loan. A rules engine and business intelligence tools are configured to detect fraud, allowing for machine-based credit decisions. An enterprise content management system gives employees access to customer files.

Development was done in an Eclipse environment. The team used the unified software dev process. About 80 percent of the tools were open source from the components framework (Apache Struts, Apache OJB) and version control (CVS), to testing (JUnit, Grinder) and build (Cruise Control).

A test version of the system was ready by May 2003. After norisbank was acquired in June 2003, the 35-member dev team was told the system needed to integrate with 785 additional financial institutions to support 11,200 agencies and more than 31,000 users. It also needed the capacity to handle 100,000 Web-based transactions, concurrently. The prototype was finished and the system was open enough to integrate into the infrastructure and specifications of the parent company, according to the dev team.

click here to read full submission.

Most   Popular