.NET Center of Excellence
General description
The Microsoft .NET platform marks a paradigm shift in the way Internet applications are developed. It incorporates open standards that allow companies to collaborate over the Internet with minimal investment. Hanu Software Solutions Inc. (HSS) is an expert in using .NET to develop solution frameworks and applications.
HSS has established a dedicated Center of Excellence (COE) that leverages the company’s expertise in the .NET platform for the benefit of its customers. The HSS COE team provides technical excellence through enhanced system architectures, application development capabilities, and reusable enterprise components, and also focuses on creating business solutions using existing and emerging .NET technologies and standards.
The Hanu Software Solutions .NET Center of Excellence
Background
For all the attention paid to returns on IT investments, little progress has been made in linking all the elements of IT to what a business is trying to do. Managing IT investments and demonstrating the value of IT to a business are more challenging than ever, and most companies seem to be losing ground. CIOs are often asked by management to justify the IT components that add value to the business.
This white paper describes the strategies that HSS has developed to maximize its efficiency in delivering .NET solutions to our clients.
As a software services organization whose business itself is IT, HSS has learned to align its operations into technology-focused Centers of Excellence (COEs).
What is a COE?
The term Center of Excellence (COE) is a generic phrase used in many types of institutions, primarily in education, research, and healthcare. The IT industry picked up on this phrase and began using it to define the collection of tools, resources, and skills used to perform specific development and maintenance tasks by a focused team working in a single location.
Sometimes “COE” became more of a marketing term, with little substance behind it, for IT. This was because IT service organizations turn out to be project-focused organizations with defined schedules and goals, in contrast to other departments that may not have the vision, longevity, and resources to maintain a focused long-term delivery system. in a common thread.
business sense
From the very beginning, HSS has had the strategy of continuously offering cost-effective and value-added solutions to its customers. As the company grew, HSS saw a need for a common set of processes and procedures that would allow its developers to build solutions quickly and leverage project knowledge across projects, so the company could deliver ever-improving services and solutions. . This need also required that all specialized tool sets, languages, and knowledge of how to use them be available to HSS engineers in a structured and defined system, allowing them to develop new solutions flexibly, faster, and at reduced cost. . Enter the HSS Center of Excellence.
Elements of an HSS COE
HSS has established a structure for all of its COEs, consisting of the following key elements:
1. Languages and Technologies
2.Tools
3. Process
4 people
Languages and Technologies
Each COE includes various programming languages, technologies, development libraries, and compilers related to that COE’s particular technology domain. For example, the .NET COE uses the following technologies:
Languages: C#.NET, VB, VB.NET, ASP, ASP.NET, C++.NET, JavaScript, VB Script, XML, XSL, XPath, and AJAX.
Web services: SOAP, XML RPC and WSDL.
Distributed technologies: COM/COM+/DCOM/CORBA, RPC and NET Remoting.
Tools
The HSS development toolset is an important element of the company’s unique selling proposition, namely its ability to deliver solutions for many different lifecycles, budgets, and schedules. HSS does not believe in developing a new solution from scratch for every new project. His toolkit includes:
Engineering tools: GUI controls, reusable components, generic data access layer, SQL data script, SQL schema script, SQL comparison, and many more.
· Migration Tools: VB to VB.NET, VB.NET to C Sharp, ASP to ASP.NET, PHP to ASP.NET.
· Process automation tools: defect management, VSS, dashboard, line count, MS Project.
HSS also employs tools for analysis, utilities, and controls.
process
The process is important in HSS. The processes used by HSS are documented and defined in its quality management system (QMS). All HSS development engineers follow these processes. The QMS implements industry best practices and is based on ISO quality standards and the Software Engineering Institute’s Capability Maturity Model (CMM), and includes:
· Formally documented project management processes, including planning, scheduling, progress tracking, reporting, communications, issues, delivery management, and many more.
· Formally documented engineering processes, including configuration management, requirements development, design, build, and unit test (UT), system testing, and user documentation development.
Comprehensive quantitative process control and measurement, including productivity measurement, schedule variance tracking, defect density reporting, and effort variance tracking.
HSS engineers follow the following best practices throughout the life cycle of a software project to reduce development schedules and schedule volatility:
1. Inspections – At each stage of development or maintenance, HSS performs a detailed technical peer review of software design and code implementation. Identifying and fixing bugs at this early stage prevents bugs from getting into the code, saving time and expense, and preventing bugs in delivered software.
2. Component reuse: HSS has developed a library of more than 100 frequently used software components typical of .NET applications. These components are tried and tested, have proven designs, and have no critical bugs. Components can be reused with no changes or with modifications. In the design phase of a new project, HSS engineers identify the right components for the new application. Only the application’s unique code is designed and written from scratch. Building high-quality existing software in this way into a new application saves the HSS customer time and expense and helps ensure quality in the deployed application.
3. Change Dashboard – HSS QMS requires software developers to strictly adhere to the requirements defined for an application. On moderate to very large projects, a central control mechanism is needed to ensure that each change is properly considered and coordinated. That is why in such projects, HSS establishes a Change Control Board. Includes members of the design, development, and test teams. Sometimes it also includes members of the client’s team. Its purpose is to ensure that each baseline change is properly considered by all parties involved and that each change is authorized prior to implementation. The CCB is the body that reviews all major change requests and approves, disapproves, or defers them for more information. Using this board prevents “feature drag,” a typical problem in the software development industry, keeping the development schedule on track and with the features the customer expects.
4. Nightly software build and smoke test: Every night, HSS Build Group builds a new version of an application and runs a series of tests that verify its basic functionality. Building builds nightly allows engineers to find and fix integration bugs almost immediately. It also allows HSS to track feature deployment on schedule by displaying features that have been deployed on a daily basis.
5. Risk List and Plan – As part of its QMS, HSS develops a Top 10 Risk List for each development project, along with a plan to address each risk should it materialize. HSS engineers assess risks on a weekly basis, resolving any and identifying potential new risks, minimizing the impact on schedule and software quality.
People
Quality human resources are the fundamental asset in any organization. HSS staffs each COE with employees who are experts in the set of tools, languages, and products used by that COE. The company hires engineering graduates with experience, training and certification in internationally recognized IT skill sets. For example, the people in the .NET COE are certified MCPs and MCSDs.
HSS recruits top engineering talent from top universities and puts them through six weeks of rigorous classroom and on-the-job training. HSS also provides ongoing advanced programmer training for all staff.
What this means for HSS customers is that their solutions, products, and software are developed by certified resources, so customers don’t have to worry about the people being employed on their projects. This also means that HSS clients receive value-added recommendations for long-term planning and can develop IT roadmaps with the confidence that HSS recommendations are based on the latest knowledge.
The .NET COE: Delivering Agile Solutions on a Microsoft Platform
The HSS COE for .NET aligns with the Microsoft platform and toolsets and provides business-critical solutions to a variety of business and technology domains. This COE has a collective IT experience of 200 person-years and .NET experience of more than 75 person-years. Other key data are:
Staff 45
started 2002
Number of projects executed 30
Rental Gurgaon, India
.NET COE Components
This diagram illustrates the basic components of the .NET COE. Central is the HSS quality management system (QMS), which controls the activities, tools and resources of the other elements.
Faster.NET: The HSS Development Framework for .NET Solutions
Continuous improvement work with the .NET COE enables HSS to deliver scalable, on-demand .NET solutions to customers in a variety of industries. The company calls this Faster.NET. Its key elements are:
Pre-assembled and reusable software components
A set of reusable engineering tools that do not require customization for each project, improving development speed
A reusable set of architectures or Solutions Blue Prints (SBPs), which saves the time of developing a software architecture from scratch.