Working with clients that demand high quality technical expertise necessitates that we actively evaluate the latest technologies available, which currently include; Silverlight 2.0, Apple’s Objective C, GWT, Gigaspaces and Foglight 5 enterprise application instrumentation.

This page outlines DSI’s industry leading tools, practices, skills and architectures that allow us to be a flexible and agile technology partner to our customers. Remember, you can always stay in touch with the DSI development team at the DSI Blog http://blog.decaresystems.ie

Feel free to comment and interact. See you there!

Regards,
Yagiz

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Java

Eclipse is the main IDE used for Java development in DSI in additon to Oracle JDeveloper.  In reality, our build.xml-based project structure is IDE-agnostic.   We have created our own Eclipse plug-in to complement our agile software development process.  This plug-in defines a standard project structure and manages the dependencies automatically keeping the build.xml synchronized.

We have used Oracle Application Server, BEA WebLogic, IBM WebSphere and JBoss Application Server across various
projects. Apache Tomcat is our preferred Web container for lightweight Web applications.

We are agile in our development; therefore the tools that we internally use follow this concept. Even though we value individuals and interactions over processes and tools, it is extremely important to have tools that don't disturb the development flow.  Atlassian Bamboo Luntbuild is the Continuous Integration (CI) software that we put in place. It runs our standard Ant build scripts defining the steps containing:

- Programmer (Unit) tests developed using JUnit, jMock, GSBase, groboUtils.
- Code checks using FindBugs, PMD and CheckStyle.
- Code coverage analysis done by Atlassian Clover.
- (Optionally) integration tests (using extensions like dbUnit and JUnitPerf.)
- (Optionally) automated system tests (using extensions like embedded-Jetty, HTMLUnit, jWebUnit and StrutsTestCase)
- DSI’s continuous performance management product, CPM Toolkit, is used to control the quality of the Java software under development during the construction phase of the software lifecycle. The CPM Toolkit is implemented as part of a chained build process within our CI environment.

The dependency management in a build file is implemented using Maven 2.  We use Subversion as our internal SCM software and we often integrate with our clients' SCM systems as well, systems such as PVCS, ClearCase and Perforce.

Spring Framework is the backbone of all DSI projects. Hibernate, JPA and iBATIS are used as persistence frameworks/standards
through their respective Spring templates. When stored procedures are required, we use either OrindaBuild or access
them directly, both through Spring (Brendan will discuss Spring in a bit more detail later).

Apache Struts has been the presentation layer framework used in our projects since we deprecated our own MVC framework in 2002. In addition to Struts we have used Spring MVC and Tapestry as presentation frameworks on customer projects. GWT (Google Web Toolkit) and JSF (JavaServer Faces) are also two excellent frameworks that we're currently using on projects.

RIAs (Rich Internet Applications) are created using various JavaScript frameworks such as GWT, dojo, DWR and jQuery. Having also used Prototype and Scriptaculous in the past, we are mainly using GWT in order to add AJAX functionality in our Java Web applications. Eclipse Web Tools Projects and IBM's AJAX Framework Toolkit provide good environments to build AJAX components.

Drools helps us externalise the business rules.

Aside regular XML parsers and XSLT libraries, we've used XMLBeans and Apache Digester to create a rich interaction
between XML documents and our object-oriented applications.

As a Web Services stack, we use Apache Axis. We find it to be a powerful tool when used in conjunction with Spring
Framework to define handlers and services in a Spring configuration file, allowing us to take advantage of the IoC container.

Even though we developed projects taking full advantage of the EJB features in the past, our recent applications are built in
a lightweight manner. Rarely, when EJB is required, we strive to use it as a remoting mechanism. Spring Remoting
abstracts the EJB access layer so that we still maintain the lightweight aspect of the architecture. In this case, even
the transactions are managed using declarative transactions in Spring.

Oracle is the major RDBMS that we utilize. We also have projects including Microsoft SQL Server and
IBM DB2 in their infrastructure.

Projects requiring high scalability (linear scalability) benefit from our experience in working with GigaSpaces. GigaSpaces define an intuitive programming model and its SLA-driven container provides unmatched runtime flexibility in automatic scaling. Alternatively, we offer a message-driven full open-source stack using Mule and Apache Camel.

Redwood CronacleBeans provides event-driven automation of Java and non-Java processes and is the Job Scheduler that
we use for our batch applications. In order to optimize Java applications running in a batch environment we had to be able
to run our Java processes in -server mode to take advantage of JVM (Java Virtual Machine) optimizations such as aggressive
inlining. Considering the long running nature of these types of processes, we needed a method to 'inject' jobs into the JVM. CronacleBeans fit the bill perfectly; providing us with the ability to inject jobs into a CronacleBeans enabled JVM in an
adhoc or scheduled manner.

Using our own CPM Toolkit product in conjunction with Quest Software’s JProbe and Performasure ensures that our applications meet the expected quality standards. As we revised our Java software development process and infrastructure, Quest’s applications became an integral part of our new development environment. For more detail on Application Performance Management services please visit http://www.decaresystems.ie/service_APM.html

In the past software developers have largely ignored how their work can be managed and monitored once it reaches the production environment. Many developers use various logging methods to output processing metrics to flat files or database tables. These go some way to providing support organizations with visibility to what is actually going on in the application but in many cases this approach fails in providing any true value. DSI has a different approach. For our large scale enterprise applications, we instrument our applications to interface via JMS to Quest Software’s Foglight 5 application management software. Now customers can see how their entire environment is performing on one single dashboard. Needless to say, DSI provides Foglight 5 dashboard consulting and development services to customers.

QA

DSI is benefitting from the newly released Microsoft Visual Studio Team System (VSTS) 2008 Test Edition, which we are using in conjunction with the Visual Studio Team System 2008 Test Load Agent software to web test and load test our .NET and Java web-based applications.

Our DSI test team uses QuickTest Pro for automated tests and Grinder and JMeter for load tests.

Our internal bug tracking system is ITracker using MySQL and running on JBoss.  We are currently moving to Jira. Externally, more than often, we will often use our clients' systems such as Serena TeamTrack, Bugzilla or Rational ClearQuest

For custom Oracle applications development, we previously used shell and SQL scripting, PL/SQL, SQL*Loader, Pro*C and Oracle Developer (Forms/Reports). We have set up data interfacing and concurrent programs in Oracle Financials (Receivables, Payables, GL, Cash Management). Recently we have moved to a Redwood Scheduler-based architecture with JCS scripting. We have also introduced Crystal reporting. For large scale data conversion projects Mercator and Microsoft Biztalk have been used.

The DSI skill set also covers mainframe 3GL development – this includes the VSE COBOL programming language, CICS TP monitor and VSAM file storage and access method under the VSE operating system.

The latest generation of iPhones and mobile phones offer screen sizes and functionality that now makes mobile commerce a viable channel for multi-channel retailers. We have taken a major step into this mobile commerce world with our new ‘iDeal A Day’ iPhone application. Built in Objective C and using the iPhone OS 3.0, iDeal A Day’ iPhone application currently has a number of flavours including a Business to Business model, a promotions edition and a version that fully integrates with Microsoft® Commerce Server 2009. We have built an ‘iPhone Management Console’ for the promotion edition. This is a standalone application that allows organisations to easily manage their iPhone product promotions. The iDeal A Day’ iPhone application is integrated with analytics packages Omniture and Pinch Media Analytics and can be easily customized to interface with third party and custom Ecommerce, catalogue and promotion systems. More information on the ‘iDeal A Day’ family of applications can be found on our website http://www.decaresystems.ie/iphone.html

Microsoft technologies being evaluated include, Dynamics for Ruby-like, rapid deployment of CRUD applications, without Ruby’s annoying lack of flexibility, MVC, Microsoft’s Model View Controller Framework and Linq to Entities, as possibly .NET’s first really successful ORM implementation. We have a strong interest in developing cloud based applications within the Azure environment. Once commercially viable applications are possible within the Azure cloud infrastructure, DSI will be adopting this technology for some of our clients.

Dependency Injection or IOC (Inversion of Control) is employed in many of our applications using the Spring.Net Framework. This is a powerful, but lightweight, Dependency Injection Framework, minimally intrusive, analogous to the Java version but with strong .NET specific functionality.

Code documentation is a strong ethos within DSI and XMLDOC comments are extracted and compiled into web based documentation using Sandcastle. Static Code Analysis is provided within Visual Studio and can be enforced by a source control check in policy.

Source Control for Microsoft applications is provided by Team Foundation Server 2008. DSI was an early adopter of this award winning product. TFS offers more than just advanced source control, by utilising Work Items and Bug tracking together with Scheduled CI builds and automated test execution, TFS offers a completely integrated Project Development platform. Every development environment we use successfully integrates with TFS. DSI has experience in migrating from both Visual Source Safe and TFS 2005 to TFS 2008.

Within the realm of Microsoft SQL Server, as well as supporting and utilising the traditional database features, DSI has been developing Message-Orientated applications for customers using the relatively new Service Broker technology in SQL Server. Message-Orientation is best practise for avoiding many limitations associated with traditional RDBMS functionality. Visual Studio 2008 Team Edition for database Professionals is leveraged, to facilitate the complete capture of entire database schema within source control.

As part of ongoing maintenance and upgrade programs for some of our customers, we support legacy COM, COM+ and classic ASP applications often developed with VB6 and VC++. We are also experienced in operating in mixed environments of legacy and .NET components. We are familiar with integrating three-tier ASP.NET applications into existing two-tier classic ASP web applications. We have even developed .NET based replacements for VB6 COM+ components. One of our most innovative projects involved load balancing legacy COM+ applications, our solution involved WCF based COM+ proxies.

Performance profiling and memory utilisation assessment is provided within the Visual Studio IDE, and is often supplemented with custom diagnostic services and performance counters, to provide realtime feedback into application performance.

Automated testing is a strong design imperative within DSI. Automated testing is provided by the VSTS (Visual Studio Test System) integrated with both TFS and Visual Studio, with Mock Object support from the Rhino Mocks Mock Object Framework. We adopt both a Unit Test and an Integration Test approach, for all our developed applications, wherever possible.

Scripted deployment is now provided with custom scripts developed in Powershell, Microsoft’s powerful new scripting environment. Strong integration scripts with TFS have been developed in DSI to allow for completely scripted application and database artefact deployment. Using Powershell l, it is possible to script function calls to any .NET or COM based component.

Developing Microsoft Sharepoint integrations is one of the latest tasks we have undertaken to develop skills in. Many clients see such tasks as opportunities to leverage the existing software investments. DSI is a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner with competencies in developing Custom Development Solutions and Data Management Solutions. We have a strong program of continuing employee training, promoting and subsidising up to date Microsoft Certification.

Finally, we understand that staying current with the latest Microsoft technologies and Frameworks is vital for delivering high value applications for our customers. To that end, we actively participate in conferences and presentations, and share our expertise via the company Blog http://blog.decaresystems.ie.

Agile takes into account that the best form of communication between people is face-to-face, so this is preferred over formalized documentation. It recognizes that the best way to document the detailed design of a system is in working code, so it values this over formalized documentation. Formalized documentation still has its place of course, but to be part of an agile process, it must add enough value to merit the effort required.

The tooling that supports our Java Development Infrastructure is robust and fit for purpose; Confluence (Wiki), JIRA (Task Management), Bamboo (Continuous Integration Engine), CPM Toolkit (Continuous Performance Management), Fisheye (Subversion Browser), Crucible (Peer Review Application), Maven (Build Management System), Eclipse (Standard IDE), Subversion (Source Code Control) and OSS License Checker (Build Management System Plug In).

In our .Net development teams we use the Microsoft Team Foundation Server product for organizing projects, managing source code and performing Continuous Integration.

Our release management process includes a software security review which we feel is a vital part of software delivery. We use IBM’s Rational AppScan security software to protect our customers IP against the threat of attacks and data breaches. DSI has been using security software to scan DSI developed and supported software since Q4 2008.

For more details on our software development process, please visit the Building Better Software section on our web site at http://www.decaresystems.ie/building_better_soft.html.

DSI implements an APM enhanced process to incorporate proactive performance management throughout the development life cycle (see figure1). The DSI built CPM Toolkit has become an integral part of this Java development and build process. By introducing Continuous Performance Management (CPM) into a Continuous Integration environment, we are identifying and capturing costly performance issues early in the development phase. The toolkit leverages Quest Software’s JProbe to automate the collection of performance, code profile and code coverage data to generate performance benchmarks. We can therefore focus in tracing measurable code defects; reducing time spent investigating false positives and preventing premature optimisation.

The toolkit includes performance profiling, historical build analysis, performance benchmarking, alert notifications, a user friendly CPM dashboard and search capabilities. For DSI, the most significant benefit of the CPM Toolkit is how it reduces the cost of Java application development by:

• Automating the execution & analysis of Unit Tests
• Utilising existing Unit Tests
• Reducing regression testing costs
• Finding and resolving performance problems early in development

Beyond cost savings, using the CPM toolkit gives DSI’s project managers a new level of visibility across development projects and enforces higher software quality standards. As a software development house with a diverse range of global client projects, this capability enhances project management oversight to ensure service level agreement delivery.

A Community Edition of the CPM Toolkit is also available. While it does not contain the full functionality as provided in the commercial version of the product, it allows users gain access to the comprehensive analytical capability of the toolkit for free. For more information on the Community Edition and the CPM Toolkit Early Access Program, please visit http://www.decaresystems.ie/cpm

Through advanced usage of Quests’ APM Suite; FogLight, PerformaSure and JProbe DSI can limit the business impact of performance issues and guarantee the scalability, robustness and performance of Java applications. These tools have been employed in a number of different environments, varying in scale and complexity, to incorporate proactive performance management for DSI clients. These environments include:

• eCommerce and high volume transaction processing systems running on clustered Dell 1855/1955 Blade Servers powered by Red Hat ES3 Linux
• Real time insurance claim pricing systems running on SunFire V210 powered by Solaris 9
• High volume insurance enrolment systems running on HP-UX 11i servers
• Internet Banking applications running on IBM’s Websphere/DB2/AIX environment
• Public Sector applications running on Oracle Application Server 10.1.x
• Mobile Exchange Software running on Red Hat’s JBoss platform
• Telecommunications application running on HP-UX server, MySQL, Oracle and Mule Enterprise Service Bus messaging framework.
• Critical financial account maintenance system running on Websphere 6x, IBM VM and IBM AIX.

Other techniques that DSI employs to help resolve performance issues and increase overall throughput are:

• VM Tuning including memory usage analysis and garbage collection tuning
• Resource utilization including CPU usage, network bandwidth usage, database resource management
• Identify and resolve application performance bottlenecks
• Architecture performance reviews
• Code performance reviews

• Usability via a secure remote desktop environment
• On-demand Scalability
• Integration with existing data sources
• Ensure the Security of data transmitted across the wire

As part of any engagement, we ensure a strategic choice of OS. Traditionally, we have used a mix of MS-Windows, Solaris, HP-UX, Linux and AIX. Over the past year or two multi-core 64-bit processors have become the defacto standard. The cost performance characteristics of this platform has meant that even ardent HP-UX and AIX supporters have assessed 64-bit Linux and Windows solutions as part of their strategic direction. We continue to see a significant uplift in MS-Windows as a platform of choice.

The presentation tier is of increasing importance to our clients - ensuring the right users see the right things. We ensure that the security design is considered upfront, ensuring integration with existing user directories such as Microsoft Active Directory and Sun One Directory Server. We’re noticing several of our clients moving away from off the shelf access management solutions such as Computer Associates SiteMinder. I believe this is as a result of inconsistent roadmaps from vendors and the increasing maturity of the interoperability standards for identity management and federation. For our Microsoft based customers, we continue to leverage Kerberos with tailored identity management solutions based on the Microsoft platform.

Service orientation and the increasing acceptance of web services in the industry via the publicity garnered by SOA, have facilitated the scaling of the application tier. This has allowed many pieces of inexpensive commodity hardware to be placed behind a load balancer (Cisco CSS, F5 BIG-IP). The HTTP requests which come from a variety of consumers, even including IVR systems, are served reliably. Significantly the access management challenges traditionally faced on the presentation tier are now at the application/service tier. We pay close attention to security at this tier, leveraging the maturing WS-Security standards, while ensuring they don’t compromise the web service ‘s interoperability. Over the past year I’ve been working with customers to run security assessments using IBM Rational AppScan against their externally available web services using industry standard security assessment software and am happy to report that DSI’s focus on security principles has paid dividends.

The database tier is traditionally highest cost to the customer from a hardware and software licensing perspective. For high-end transactional systems, Oracle RDBMS has been the default choice for many years due to its active-active clustering and its support for proven high end 64-bit operating systems. DSI’s proven skills garnered during the early adoption of Microsoft’s SQL Server 2005 has lead to DSI earning a Microsoft Data Management Solutions competency, this in conjunction with our Microsoft Gold Partner status gives us the resources to build large scale Enterprise Systems on the SQL Server platform. DSI is has been working for over a year on a custom Enterprise Claims Processing system for a large US based company SQL Server 2008 is a core component of this solution and over the past year we’ve been very impressed with its scalability and reliability.

Over the past number of years DSI has helped clients to adopt virtualization technologies to optimise the three scarcest commodities in a datacenter – space, power and cooling. We’ve seen virtualization go from a lab and test platform to a mechanism that allows our customers to scale their production infrastructure on demand. The DR advantages of virtualization are well known, but even now, several years on, I get an occasional email from our customers mentioning how my idea of virtualizing one of their domain controller’s saves them hours in DR testing. EMC’s VMWare still has the market share, but we’re gradually seeing some adoption of 2008 Core with Hyper-V and I suspect the certification deal with RedHat will help increase the market share of Hyper-V.