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Application Development

At Ventera, we focus on improving the way that organizations conduct their business, while helping them get the most from their IT investments. Very often, this means designing and building software applications, or integrating and installing COTS application products, to meet their business needs.

Ventera provides life cycle application development and integration services using the industry standard Rational Unified Process (RUP) methodology. RUP’s flexibility makes it appropriate for the wide variety of application development projects that Ventera undertakes, including development of custom applications, installation/integration of off-the-shelf software, and complex data migration/conversion efforts. In addition, RUP focuses on reducing project risks and building in quality, critical attributes that help us to develop high-quality solutions that meet our customers needs and are cost-effective, reliable, and maintainable. See RUP Implementation Scheme for a more complete description of how Ventera implements RUP.

Ventera provides our staff with extensive training in the RUP methodology, ensuring that we apply RUP consistently and effectively for all of our customers. Most of our senior technical staff have received formal certification in using RUP.

Our staff is also skilled in the following technologies and application development techniques:

  • Business analysis, requirements definition, and use case modeling.
  • Object-oriented analysis and design using Rational Rose.
  • J2EE and Microsoft .NET distributed component architectures.
  • Java/EJB, HTML/DHTML/XML, WebLogic, Microsoft ASP, Lotus Domino, and Cold Fusion development tools.
  • Java application servers including BEA Weblogic.
  • Middleware/Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) including WebMethods and Active Directory.
  • Databases including Oracle, MS SQL Server, MS Access, and Sybase.
  • Data warehousing tools including Business Objects, MicroStrategy, and Informatica.
  • Reporting tools including Actuate, Business Objects, and Crystal Reports.
  • Automated test tools including Silk Segue and RSW Team Test, and WinRunner.
  • Internet infrastructure including Cisco routers, switches and load balancers.
  • Unix and Microsoft Windows platforms.
  • User training and system documentation.

STARS II Project Highlights
  • Full lifecycle systems development and integration effort
  • All aspects of the project were completed on-schedule and under budget, saving USDA millions of dollars
  • Completed application consisted of more than 700,000 lines of code
  • Project consisted of 12 RUP development iterations
  • STARS II is fully compliant with Section 508 requirements
  • Migrated over 9 Gbytes of data, from three sources of legacy data

Ventera’s highly capable staff and our use of industry-leading methodologies have enabled us to successfully deliver dozens of applications to our customers, including Nextel Communications and the USDA, Food and Nutrition Service (FNS). FNS turned to Ventera for help when their main legacy application, STARS, was no longer able to support the 800 users who monitor and manage activities at 146,000 grocery stores and specialized meal service providers. FNS contracted with Ventera to become their application modernization business partner – addressing their critical systems and data issues through the development of STARS II.

On the STARS II project, Ventera used the RUP methodology to perform a complete iterative application development lifecycle effort for a mission-critical enterprise system. Ventera completed a 14-month development and testing effort on-time and under budget, which enabled USDA to save millions of dollars while providing users with a web-based system that met their needs and could be accessed anywhere in the field.

Ventera’s application development approach brings together highly-qualified people and a strong methodology to deliver systems to our customers that improve business operations while reducing costs.

Ventera's RUP Implementation Scheme


Ventera uses the industry standard Rational Unified Process (RUP) to deliver projects. As reflected in the graphic below, RUP is an iterative approach to application development. Development proceeds through each project phase only once, performing potentially multiple iterations of each process discipline in each phase.

Rational's Implementation Procss Chart

The following paragraphs describe Ventera’s implementation of each RUP phase.

Inception


Ventera gains an understanding of the system requirements and relevant business processes, identifies product evaluation criteria, and formulates design standards. Ventera uses the high-level business and technical requirements to define the project’s scope and functionality.

Elaboration


Ventera defines the foundation upon which the complete system will be built by developing detailed use cases, sequence diagrams, and the class/data model, and builds initial system components for the defined subset of functionality included in the Elaboration iterations. During the Elaboration phase Ventera completes multiple design and development iterations that focus on designing and building the baseline system architecture.

Construction


Ventera designs, builds, and tests system components consistent with planned iterations. Iterations begin with high-risk core components and conclude with low risk non-core components. Ventera integrates system components, building one on another. This results in an increasingly complete system which we subject to increasing levels of testing.

Transition


Ventera focuses on formal system acceptance and system deployment. Ventera makes the application available to the user community, provides ongoing production support as required, and transitions the production system to the client.

Benefits of Ventera’s Implementation of the RUP Methodology


  • Risk Mitigation: RUP’s iterative approach to development and integration allows Ventera to mitigate project risks early, because we integrate and test system elements progressively, rather than at the end of the project.
  • Accommodating Changes: In any development project, it is inevitable that users will change their minds in some degree along the way. The reason is that the context of the system changes as the users learn more about the technology and as they review interim products. Ventera encourages a controlled level of in-scope requirements change; we know that this comes from active user involvement in the project, and that user involvement is one of the keys to project success. RUP’s iterative lifecycle approach accommodates changes of this nature.
  • Higher Quality: RUP’s iterative approach results in a more robust, higher quality product because errors are corrected over several iterations. As we test each new iteration, Ventera’s technical staff discover system defects and performance bottlenecks. By discovering them early we can reduce and repair them early, as opposed to being discovered upon delivery of the final product.
  • Increased Reusability: RUP’s iterative lifecycle facilitates code reuse. Our developers identify common components as they are partially designed or implemented, compared to having to identify all commonality up front. As a regular part of the design reviews we conduct, our software architects identify previously unsuspected reusable components. We then further develop and mature this common code in subsequent iterations.

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