The Client’s core product is called Data Center Manager. The software provides a Windows application (an MS Visio add-on) to model a data center, a Navigation portal, drill-down data center capacity search, executive reports, advanced device configuration information and the detailed device analysis for over 20,000 different data center IT devices. It allows organizations to manage their entire Data Center infrastructure from a central location, managing IT assets and physical infrastructure associated with power, cooling, space and connectivity. The company has a challenging plan to enhance the application and much effort is required to implement it. Quality is of the essence here as the application is extensively used by a large number of clients and any single error could make a client pull out. The Client has retained Luxoft to improve the quality of the application and significantly reduce development costs.

The Client

A leading United Kingdom-based provider of software products and services that help connecting the Internet / IT domain and the Telecom domain and enable the telecom companies to offer a wide range of new services

The Business Challenge

The Network Gateway is an essential element that connects disparate networks and makes them work seamlessly together. It accomplishes that by providing a network abstraction layer that sits horizontally across network platforms such as switches, messaging systems, charging/rating systems and HLRs, and provides a common, standardized set of northbound APIs that simplifies the process of new services launch and delivery across multiple network protocols and platforms from different vendors. Services that are developed using these APIs are network-agnostic, i.e. the same services can be deployed across fixed and mobile networks, as well as within and between circuit-switched “legacy” networks and packet-based IP / IMS networks.

The client was faced with a tough delivery schedule for a new version of Network Gateway. At the same time, the rapid market expansion has strained the company’s resources to the limit. The decision was made to look for an outsourcing partner who possessed the required expertise, had excellent track record and was located in a similar time zone. Following thorough evaluation process, a number of Eastern and Central European vendors were selected. Finally, Luxoft emerged as a leader, thanks to its strong telecom expertise, impressive portfolio of accomplishments and geographic proximity.

The company needed to introduce to the single application instance servicing over 15 online stores in Europe. The system was required to handle all internet user transactions for ordering multiple types of the Client’s products (computers etc.) Following market areas were supposed to be covered by the solution:

• Global Online (Home & Small Business)
• Premier Customers Stream (Corporate clients)
• Public Sector
• The company contacted Luxoft seeking to tackle this challenge by creating a portal to handle all online transactions in Europe.

The Network Gateway is an essential element that connects disparate networks and makes them work seamlessly together. It accomplishes that by providing a network abstraction layer that sits horizontally across network platforms such as switches, messaging systems, charging/rating systems and HLRs, and provides a common, standardized set of northbound APIs that simplifies the process of new services launch and delivery across multiple network protocols and platforms from different vendors. Services that are developed using these APIs are network-agnostic, i.e. the same services can be deployed across fixed and mobile networks, as well as within and between circuit-switched “legacy” networks and packet-based IP / IMS networks. The client was faced with a tough delivery schedule for a new version of Network Gateway. At the same time, the rapid market expansion has strained the company’s resources to the limit. The decision was made to look for an outsourcing partner who possessed the required expertise, had excellent track record and was located in a similar time zone. Following thorough evaluation process, a number of Eastern and Central European vendors were selected. Finally, Luxoft emerged as a leader, thanks to its strong telecom expertise, impressive portfolio of accomplishments and geographic proximity.

Client’s product is a unique eCommerce platform optimized for rapid roll-out of the derived ecommerce solutions. The platform’s main features are:

• Open Source
• Easy integration with 3rd parties components
• Web Services-based
• Flexible architecture

A new release date for the client’s software was approaching, while a number of serious challenges had surfaced, including certain issues with the existing architecture that affected performance and scalability. JavaScript-based eCommerce management software application encountered serious maintenance and new feature development issues, which degraded the overall performance. In order to address these challenges, the client decided to redesign the architecture in their upcoming release. The web interface of eCommerce management application would be redesigned, using the Eclipse Rich Client Platform, and Open JPA for persistence of objects to database would be used.

The client’s continued growth and international expansion demanded better internal information exchange. The solution was a new comprehensive Intranet system giving access to the corporate information resources to all employees in all global locations. However, the main concern was the MIS system due to the critical nature of its functionality and the high cost of development, considering the existing budget constraints. Since the internal IT resources were operating at full capacity, a new system had to be purchased or its development outsourced. The option of purchasing a packaged solution was soon discarded, as it was virtually impossible to find a ready solution that would meet all their requirements. The decision was made to outsource it to a service provider. The search soon shifted away from the large vendors toward smaller and more specialized companies. Geographic proximity was also an important factor, so the selection process narrowed down to a few Eastern European vendors. Finally Luxoft, with the development centers in Romania and Ukraine, emerged as the leader, thanks to their strong focus on engineering excellence, in-depth domain knowledge, solid track record and the conveniently located development centers.

The Smart Mobile solution is an enterprisegrade wireless LAN infrastructure that runs seamlessly, even when subjected to a variety of equipment failures, extreme traffic conditions or maintenance that would normally require the network downtime. Voice calls continue uninterrupted, sessions are securely maintained and users have always-on access to mission critical network services. The solution consists of a family of wireless controllers and access points, as well as a software suite for network planning, management, security and location services. The client was looking to develop a new release of Smart Mobile, containing several major technological advancements. Due to time and budget constraints, the decision was made to outsource it to a qualified vendor. Client already had a very positive collaboration experience with Luxoft, so that made the decision process easy and Luxoft was contracted again.

A leader in Internet Identity Management technologies needed to develop a standalone application that implements a Security Token Service to extend Identity Management to web services. To facilitate development and accelerate time-to-market the client sought a partner who could seamlessly integrate with its core development team and support standard processes based on the agile approach. The client was looking for a partner who would co-development the solution from step one. Luxoft was chosen for its ability to provide a highly qualified team ready to work as an extension of the client’s product development and testing teams.

Outsourced Resources Assist With Crucial Software Application Upgrades, Enabling OB10 to Offer Expanded Product Features to More Clients Worldwide.

Luxoft developed interactive software for the Sberbank exhibition booth at the 15th St. Petersburg International Economic Forum that took place on June 16-18, 2011

Client is a world leading travel agency, offering the best rates on airline tickets, hotel reservations, car rentals and more. In order to meet expectations of the travel price-hunters, the client’s system has the following components:

• Functional web interface to search, book and advertise trips, based on a particular trip requirement;
• Back-end systems to manage deals and other business-related data;
• Interface for the suppliers’ to fill in their offers.

Rapid growth and market expansion strained the company’s in-house IT resources, while the need for technology upgrades and new architecture solutions continued increasing. Outsourcing the professional services became an obvious solution, allowing the core staff to stay focused on critical projects. The outsourcer had to meet tough professional skills criteria and to have a proven track record.

Historically, setting up an Internet identity management program across the enterprise was a nightmare sometimes lasting for months.Proprietary single sign on (SSO) solutions do not solve the problem largely. The system becomes increasingly unwieldy and costly to manage.

Ping was determined to cut SSO implementation to days instead of months, and add additional identity connections in hours.

During the development cycle of a L2/3 Ethernet Switch, the product verification takes up a considerable part of the overall project time. It starts in the early stages of the project with the formulation of the test strategy, test planning and continues with the execution of the test plans, defect analysis and risk assessment. The Product Verification (PV) team works closely with the development team to understand and validate the requirements and come up with the appropriate types of testing, test environments requirements, key milestones etc. The PV team starts working after the unit testing is completed by the development team and certain criteria are met, as specified in the test strategy. The stages of the verification comprise the functional testing, system testing, regression testing and other non-functional testing like performance, scalability, stress etc. The progress/productivity reports are generated on a weekly basis to monitor the quality and risks as well as meeting the milestones. After each feature of a product is verified against the specification files, provided by the development team, and the existing standards, it is very important to test the system interaction of all the features that make up a client solution under normal and overloaded traffic conditions. Luxoft was selected to work jointly on developing the testing setups for the product verification process.