Custom Software Development Services from MBRIT

10% Discount for New Customers

Mon, 16 Feb 2009 23:00:43 GMT

Looking to start a new software development project in the new year? Book a consultation and get 10% off of the total project cost, up to a maximum discount of £1,000.

Simply get in touch now for a friendly discussion about how we can help you.

In tough economic times, investment in your IT systems can create savings in the short and medium term.

Read our latest case study on the system we built for the Health Insurers Counter-fraud Group to see how the system we built will help save healthcare insurers tens of thousands of pounds in 2009.

Due to the popularity of this offer, we are continuing it through to 15th March 2009!

Not to be combined with any other offer

Challenge 09: Survive and Thrive

Mon, 12 Jan 2009 10:48:09 GMT

Investment in bespoke software can help you survive (and thrive) in a recession

The beginning of 2009 finds most people responsible for keeping a business running working hard to find ways to cut costs and increase revenue.

Statistically, in past recessions companies that have actively sought to diversify and engage with new opportunities have had an increased chance of survival. They also tend to outperform their counterparts who “baton down the hatches” once the recession is over.

Bespoke software offers an edge over traditional IT investment is that it specifically allows for creation of opportunities. Most of our customers have benefitted from our services to create new revenue streams and increase revenue from existing customers.

Our whitepaper Challenge 09: Survive and Thrive gives many examples of how tactical investment in bespoke software can help you and your business. Download it today using the link below.

Services

Mon, 12 Jan 2009 10:25:51 GMT

Our core service is Custom Software Development. This is where we take your vision of your requirements and turn it into a bespoke solution that exactly meets your needs.

We publish two guides for customers looking to buy our service:

Developing Software to Fit Like a Glove
Scope Your Software Project for 100% Success

You can also read our Technologies page to see which technologies we work with day-to-day, learn more about our Hosting Solutions, read about our Centralised Error Reporting Service and also discover more about our Software Development Consulting practice.

Feel free to contact us to discuss your specific requirements.

About Us

Fri, 09 Jan 2009 17:26:40 GMT

MBR IT Solutions was founded in 2004 by Matthew Baxter-Reynolds, a software development consultant and expert in software engineering who has worked his entire career in software development in in the UK and US software industries. In his time, Matthew has authored and co-authored over a dozen books on software engineering on the Microsoft platform, written hundreds of articles and spoken at many conferences. In January 2004 he was made a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP).

MBRIT the business was born out of Matthew's desire to move from working with software companies to help them improve the capabilities of their own teams to a model where Matthew had his own team that could be deployed on client projects. We have now been doing this since 2004 with great success. We also like to tell people what we do through our case studies, and our newsletter. (You can sign up to the newsletter using the form at the bottom of this page.)

We are based in central Milton Keynes, an area that allows the company to service London and the South East, as well as the Midlands and the Thames Valley. We a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner.

All of the work done at MBRIT based on Microsoft .NET, with Web applications written in C# being the preference driven by our clients. Each member of our software development team is an expert at working with this platform, and all of the work we do is done in accordance with a strict and well-defined method and philosophy.

We also publishes a best-of-breed .NET application framework called BootFX, which is available as open source software under the Mozilla Public License.

Resources

Wed, 07 Jan 2009 14:53:12 GMT

This section of our Web site contains resources that we have made available to our customers and visitors to our site.

Azure Blue Skies
Buying Bespoke Software Development Services
Helping Contractors to Keep Your Customers' Data Secure
Sitting on Cloud Nine

You can also download BootFX, our world-class .NET application software development framework and review the standard agreements that we base our customer engagements on.

Buying Bespoke Software Development Services

Wed, 07 Jan 2009 11:38:38 GMT

This white paper is intended for those directors and other senior members within organisations that are contemplating procuring a software system developed specifically for them as a bespoke solution. It details the key points that we feel are important in how to interact with the bespoke software market, how to select and interact with a software partner and hints on tips on executing the final project.

Scope Your Software Project for 100% Success

Wed, 07 Jan 2009 11:34:33 GMT

Define Your Software Requirements and Achieve Better Results

Customers often say to us that they are unsure how to understand how much implementing the vision of their new software will cost or how to understand what’s involved. This article on the subject of scoping studies is designed to help you understand why you might like to formally scope and define your next software project.

Purpose

If you are not familiar with the process of defining or commissioning software, it can often help to enlist the help of an expert in defining requirements. A good way to define requirements is through a scoping study.

Essentially at the end of the day what you get out of it is a set of documents that you can either make a decision to do nothing, put together an invitation to allow vendors to bid for the work (and managing this to create a good level of competition so that you get the best deal is important – and we would like to be one of those bidding), or you can ask us to go forward from the scoping study an deliver a final implementation.

Scoping Studies

Wed, 07 Jan 2009 11:28:58 GMT

Click here.

Sitting on Cloud Nine

Wed, 07 Jan 2009 11:23:30 GMT

"Use Cloud Computing to Realise Significant Benefits in Working Practices, Increase Reliability and Reduce Costs"

“Cloud computing” is the new buzzword in the IT industry and as a result we are having more and more customers ask us for “cloud” solutions. Looking back over the past six months, 38% of the solutions we have been asked to build have been cloud solutions. Compared to a year ago, that figure was 21%, so the trend is definitely upwards. But why?

What is the Cloud?

Firstly, what is the cloud? The cloud is essentially the Internet. When IT specialists draw network diagrams, they will tend to draw the Internet as a “cloud”, hence the name. For example:

(Click on the image to view a larger version)

Helping Contractors to Keep Your Customers' Data Secure

Wed, 07 Jan 2009 11:21:55 GMT

Recently, there has been another story in the news about an organisation managing to expose customer data to the public. This time the problem occurred when a company disposed of a server using eBay, neglecting to wipe it first.

Although there have been high profile incidents of organisations themselves losing data – particularly public bodies – most of these stories now are about contractors employed to perform some data processing activities who subsequently manage to lose the data. In this paper, we’ll look at some ways in which this can be avoided.

Azure Blue Skies

Wed, 07 Jan 2009 11:09:58 GMT

Microsoft’s Cloud Computing Offering Could Change the World

Throughout their history, Microsoft has always done an excellent job of supporting developers. From a commercial perspective this makes perfect sense – the more developers, the greater critical mass of applications, the more dependence on the platform.

Each year Microsoft run a conference called TechEd, where developers have the opportunity to learn about new initiatives from Microsoft. They run one in the US and others around the world, particularly in Europe. However, every now and again they run a special conference called the Professional Developers Conference (PDC). This is only held in the US and is usually huge.

Whilst TechEd happens regular as clockwork, PDC only happens when Microsoft have something they really want to shout about. Right now as I speak PDC 2008 is happening in Los Angeles, and this time they are shouting about Microsoft’s new cloud computing offering, which is called Windows Azure. It might just change the world.

Testimonials

Fri, 19 Dec 2008 15:58:42 GMT

Here are some of the things that our customers say about us:

"MBR IT rose to the challenge, came up with a number of fresh and innovative ideas – and has given us excellent service."
    - Bob Bruce, PlusOne Services Ltd - read the full case study

"While we had the vision of what we hoped to achieve, MBRIT supplied the technical expertise and turned our vision into reality. ...their input has proved invaluable."
    - Sam Smith, Forest Garden - read the full case study

"MBR IT was easy to work with, took a practical view of what we were trying to achieve and handled the project excellently. We would certainly use them again.”
    - Lewis Weidman, Vitalograph Ltd - read the full case study

"MBRIT were able to deliver the project on time, in line with the specification and on budget. The ongoing support and system changes have been made easy by the relationship that has been developed. MBRIT delivered exactly what they promised."
    - Ray Collins, Health Insurers Counter-fraud Group
    read the full case study

"We have been working with MBRIT for many years and in that time we have found them to have excellent technical knowledge and to be extremely dependable."
    - Karl Horner, FSI (FM Solutions) Ltd

"I've been very satisfied with the quality of service and the software itself, which has proved to be extremely reliable."
    - Natalie Taggart, Tesco EMS

"We have worked closely with MBRIT on innovative projects for a number of different clients. They have a solid technical approach and deliver quality products in a timely and professional manner."
    - Ben Murray, TFX Consulting Ltd

"We’ve worked with MBR IT on a number of projects, the management of projects has been handled very well, with all projects being completed on time and on budget. Matthew and his team are very knowledgeable and easy to work with, we will continue to use MBR IT for any development work in the future."
    - Paul Tomlinson, Mirus IT Ltd

"Delivering hosted messaging and mobile data applications as a service means we need software that is scalable, resilient and bug free. MBR have been delivering solutions to us that meet these requirements for three years; on budget and on time. The team at MBR go beyond the call of duty without needing to be asked – every time, and we would recommend them without hesitation."
    - Jane Saunderson, Simplehosted Ltd

Clients

Fri, 19 Dec 2008 14:41:24 GMT

Here is a selection of some of our clients:

Data Management System for the Pharmaceutical Industry

Tue, 11 Nov 2008 13:39:47 GMT

A provider of clinical trial management services commissioned by one the world’s largest pharmaceutical trial needed to solve a very unusual logistical problem using off-the-shelf commodity hardware.

Action: MBR IT developed a system that would allow the organisation to define the structure of the personnel involved in the trial, and created tools to run on standard PC hardware to collect information from trial subjects in the field. All information fed back into existing systems that the customer had for analysing and reporting on the data.

Results: The new solution has made it possible to create a powerful and dynamic system that allows for a geographically dispersed group of people with highly diverse skills to share a large quantity of information in a way that was totally secure and adhered to international standards and regulations.

Contact us for more information on this solution or download the full case study.

Order Processing System for the Garden Product Manufacturing Industry

Tue, 11 Nov 2008 13:39:14 GMT

A timber garden products manufacturer had grown to the point that their ordering system couldn’t cope anymore, meaning they were drowning in paperwork and struggling with delivery lead times. They needed a better way to handle the volume of orders, ensure a better, speedier delivery, reduce paperwork and improve tracking and accountability.

Action: MBR IT rationalised the resource management / order processing system already in place to improve functionality and enable it to cope with even greater order volumes in future. We also integrated additional tools to channel orders from their existing systems in to one main ‘pipeline’ to provide them with more control and visibility.

Results: The new solution has reduced paperwork, cut delivery times, increased delivery success rate, streamlined performance, enables product availability calculations to be made and delivery dates from customer postcodes, improved seasonal demand logistic handling, created capacity for future growth in the business with improved accountability and tracking.

Contact us for more information on this solution or download the full case study.

Business Development Platform for the Insurance Industry

Tue, 11 Nov 2008 13:38:34 GMT

The business development agenda for a major insurance company supplier was being hindered by their ‘delivery platform’ which couldn’t do what needed to do. It was an old application written by a development partner they had no relationship with and the business was being stifled.

Action: We gave them a new platform that they could use to deliver their business development agenda on. This involved listening to what they needed, delivering software for the IFA’s to use and new in-house systems. We actually built them a solution of lots of different strands.

Results: The upgraded and improved trading platform, not only achieved a faster, more responsive and flexible client service, but was also applauded by insurance brokers and IFAs, who now have access to a wider range of services from this client.

Contact us for more information on this solution or download the full case study.

MBR BootFX

Tue, 11 Nov 2008 11:28:52 GMT

The MBR BootFX Application Framework is a best-of-breed application framework that we offer to all our clients who engage us to develop software applications or software components for them. It’s designed to give us a “leg up” on new projects by providing a tried and tested code base for common software development activities.

Core features of the framework are:

Fully 100% managed code (i.e. Microsoft .NET) throughout with strict adherence to .NET development best practice,
High performance data access layer that supports Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle and MySQL,
Object Relational Mapping (ORM) functionality with powerful metadata model,
User interface components to support development of desktop applications and Web applications,
Code generation of data access and UI classes to aid developer productivity,
Encourages the user of appropriate and proper “n-tier” architecture,
Automatic generation of Web service facades for the business tier, with an eye to ensuring strong cross-OS interoperability,
Logging, instrumentation and system administrator/management support built-in,
“In-the-field” database schema extensibility,
Equal level of support for C# and VB .NET depending on customer requirements.

Open Source
We are pleased to announce that we have made the MBR BootFX Application Framework as "open source" software available under the Mozilla Public License 1.1.

Developers
Download MBR BootFX source packages here:Release packages (with source code)

Build 1.4.20416.1337 - 16th April 2008 - 2.2MB - Recommended

MBR BootFX is distributed under the Mozilla Public License (MPL) 1.1.

Comments
You can address comments directly to the MBR BootFX via the contact page.

Technologies

Tue, 11 Nov 2008 11:26:32 GMT

The majority of applications that we build are line-of-business applications, written in .NET and designed to run on Window Server 2003. Our customers typically prefer to use SQL Server 2005 as the RDBMS for their applications. They also prefer to run Windows XP SP2 on the desktops.

We keep step with the general market in terms of the server and client products that our customers wish to run – therefore once Windows Server 2008, Vista, etc become more mainstream in enterprise environments we will deliver our customers applications on those platforms too.

Here is a list of the Microsoft technologies that we typically use with our customers.

.NET and Related Technologies

.NET through to v3.5 – exclusively C#, Ajax, ASP.NET, Generics, Linq, Silverlight, Windows Communication Foundation, Windows Workflow Foundation.

Microsoft Windows Product Family

Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2008, Windows Small Business Server, Windows Storage Server, Active Directory, Distributed File System, General Networking (configuration, etc), Hyper-V, Internet Authentication Service, Internet Information Services, Internet Information Services, Kerberos, Network Load Balancing, Server Clustering Services, Smart Card, Software Update Services, Telephony API, Virtual Private Network.

Microsoft Server Product Family

BizTalk Server, Exchange Server, Forms Server, Groove Server, ISA Server, Live Communications Server, Operations Manager, Performance Point Server, Project Server, Project Portfolio Server, SharePoint Server, SQL Server, Virtual Server.

Microsoft Office Product Family

Core Office System (Access, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, Word), Groove, InfoPath, Visio.

Microsoft Dynamics Product Family

Dynamics CRM, Dynamics NAV, Dynamics Snap.

Software Development Consulting

Tue, 11 Nov 2008 11:24:28 GMT

Are you or your IT team trying to develop software outside of your areas of experience?

Do you need some additional support to help with the new challenges?

As software development consultants, MBR IT offers a combination of consulting, mentoring and
software development to support your business.

Benefit from our many years of knowledge and experience, working with a variety of businesses, industries and cultures.

Problem / Solution Workshops – we will sit down with your IT team to investigate a problem and implement a solution.

Development Environment Set-up – a specific support service that assists with setting up your team development environment. This has a focus on achieving process scalability, tools and procedures.

Auditing – want to know how the output from your software team compares to other teams in the industry? You may find our auditing service useful. Our auditing consultant will spend time with your team to analyse how they work and what they produce. They will then help you compare their performance with comparable external teams.

Mentoring – professional development support to individuals and groups, to improve performance and bring out the best. Mentoring services benefit the individual, the team and the business.

Method and Philiosophy

Tue, 11 Nov 2008 11:23:53 GMT

Our Aim
To provide the IT infrastructure which enables you to take your business to the next level of growth.

Our Method
Plan, Design and then Implement.

These are the three stages we take towards a successful solution delivery for you.

Our Philosophy
We assess your requirements and plan effectively by discussing what is needed with your IT decision makers. We take into account your current IT environment and your strategic and tactical plans for the future.

When designing a suitable software set-up, we facilitate production of functional specifications, technical specifications and other helpful documents. This lets us, and your IT decision makers examine the proposed project objectively and with transparency.

We have close involvement with you throughout the implementation process, gathering feedback and ensuring the project is producing the correct result – the successful functioning of your business.

Our focused approach results in delivery on time and to budget.

Hosting

Tue, 11 Nov 2008 11:23:35 GMT

We are always happy to work with a customer’s in-house IT team or their existing outsourcing partner for application hosting. However, for customers that do not have an existing provision we offer two solutions, both from partners with data centres in the UK.

We offer two simply because different customers have different needs in terms of criticality of the application to the business’ operations and different budgets. Please contact us for more details to discuss your specific requirements.

Centralised Error Reporting Service

Tue, 11 Nov 2008 11:23:16 GMT

When supporting a production application, it can be helpful to have a central server that collects error information in a single place whereupon it can be accessed by support staff. Moreover, if second-line support is being undertaken by the software vendor, it can be extremely helpful for the vendor’s support team to have access to the same error messages.

To satisfy this requirement, we now offer a centralised error reporting service as a free-of-charge service to all of our customers. Applications that we build are able to transmit error information back to a secure centralised server that we manage. Once uploaded, error information can be reviewed by our support staff or our support staff using a secure management console.

(Click on the image to view a larger version)
This system is available to both Web and desktop applications. In particular with Web applications, if the user is presented with an error they will be given an option to transmit the error information back to the central server:

(Click on the image to view a larger version)
When the user clicks the Send an Error Report button, the error information is sent and a unique error ID returned:

(Click on the image to view a larger version)
Should the user need to escalate the issue to the support department, all they need to provide is the unique support ID. The support team can then logon to the error reporting server and review the error information.

(Click on the image to view a larger version)
In terms of security, each customer’s errors are partitioned off from one another for privacy, and all communication with the Web server is done over HTTPS.

Developing Software to Fit like a Glove

Tue, 11 Nov 2008 11:22:46 GMT

"Understand the software development process to enhance your chances of great ROI"

Download the PDF version of this page for easy printing

The software development process can be thought of continually reducing your vision of what want your software to do into a series of smaller and smaller pieces.

You can probably describe the vision of what you want your software to do in one or two sentences. The job at hand is to “decompose” that vision from that single unit of thought into hundreds of thousands of lines of computer software source code.

(Click on the image to view a larger version)
Software development projects will only succeed is there is some level of control over the how this process of “decomposition” takes place.

The best way to do this is to create “control points” as you go so that when you get to a certain level of decomposition you can control how you get to the next.

Your Vision

Your vision states in broad terms what it is that you are trying to achieve.

For example:

“Our best customer has asked us to let them view their open orders online,” o
“Our competitors don’t do XYZ very well. If we had an IT system to help us, we could do XYZ extremely well.”

You will know what your vision is before we meet. In our first meeting together, we will be looking to learn more about your business, the history and your culture.

This helps us understand the business case that will drive your vision to reality.

Your Scoping Study

(Click on the image to view a larger version)
Customers often say to us that they are unsure how to understand how much implementing their vision will cost or how to understand what’s involved.

The purpose of a scoping study is to set out your requirements more formally. It is the first stage of “decomposition” and is the first control point.

The process takes between two and four days depending on the size of the project and is usually done at your offices. It is a process all about facilitation.

At the end of a scoping study you will have a formal set of requirements that accurately describe the scope of your vision. You will also receive a price, which is the fixed-price that is the exact amount that you will pay if you ask us to do the project.

Customers often like to have the flexibility to go out to the market to get more prices. The scoping study lets you do that because you can give other vendors the same formal set of requirements and ask them to quote.

You can read our whitepaper Scope your Software Project for 100% Success for more information.

The Contract

At this stage, you will look to secure a software partner to develop the software. The contract that you draw up will formalise what you’ve agreed in terms of deliverables, payment and intellectual property rights.

Our policy at MBRIT is that you own the complete intellectual property rights for your software on final receipt of final payment. Not all software companies work like this.

You can review our standard Software Development Agreement for more information.

Project Iterations and Your Feedback

(Click on the image to view a larger version)
Once you’re ready to go with your project, the process of decomposing the project from the formal set of requirements into deliverable software begins.

Because customers tell us that they like to have regular updates as to how the project is running, we divide the project up into small iterations.

This allows us to regularly deliver to you “builds” of the software that lets you see how the project is progressing.
When you receive a build, you can look at it, see where the project is, get a feel for what you think of it and send us feedback to incorporate into later builds.

Working collaboratively in this way greatly increases the chances of you getting the software that you want and that fits your business like a glove.

Your Project

At the end of the project, you will have delivered to you a piece of software that realises your original vision.

We would always look to make sure that you are delighted with what you have – click through here to see some of what of our customers have to say about us.

Hosting

Some of our customers have an in-house IT staff that can look after the servers that will run your software. Some do not.

If you do not, click through to read about our managed hosting solution.

If you do, we are always more than happy to work with your IT team on provisioning your software for your users.

(Most of these details would be worked out during the scoping study.)

Ongoing Support and Enhancements

(Click on the image to view a larger version)
All of our customers like to have the security that their application will continue to run as well five years after it goes live as it did on day one. They also like any software development to be a partnership that lasts for many years because they want their software to last for many years too.

We have a policy of offering a standard warranty to fix all bugs discovered in the first 12 months of operation of the software. We can offer this because we’re confident that after “signoff”, you won’t find any!

The other thing that customers like to have is the option to enhance their software as new opportunities arise or as things change. We always build a strong degree of flexibility into our applications to satisfy just this and are always happy to discover with customers new ways that we can help them do business.

Download the PDF version of this page for easy printing

Case Studies

Tue, 11 Nov 2008 11:21:19 GMT

Over the years, we have worked with a large number of UK businesses and helped them to deliver significant solutions to their organisations.

We helped a major insurance company supplier to deliver a new business development platform that provided important improvements in client service.

We helped one of the UK's largest manufacturers of garden and landscaping products deliver a new order processing system that delivered huge benefits to the business.

We helped a leading supplier of clinical trial management services build a data management system that streamlined the operation of a major drug development trial.

We built a solution that allows the Health Insurance Counter Fraud Group share intelligence on fraud.

Read our testimonials to find see what some of our customers say about us.

Contact

Tue, 11 Nov 2008 11:19:47 GMT

How to Find Us

MBR IT Solutions Ltd.
Exchange House
494 Midsummer Boulevard
Milton Keynes
MK9 2EA
United Kingdom

How to Find Us
We are located in central Milton Keynes, at the South corner of Midsummer Boulevard and Saxon Gate. We are in Exchange House, part of the CBX complex near the Holiday Inn.

We're Listed in the
e internet directory .co.uk

Under: Software Development

Custom Software Development

Tue, 11 Nov 2008 11:18:05 GMT

Do you have a unique set of software requirements?

Are you unable to find an off-the-shelf system that will do what you want?

Every business is different.

Management teams know what functionality is required in order to satisfy customers, streamline internal processes and maintain a competitive edge. But this often means looking for a software solution to satisfy a diverse and unique set of requirements.

Delivering a truly unique solution requires custom-written software.

MBR IT will help you plan, design and implement purpose-built applications that are fully integrated within your IT environment.

We have proven capability to deliver the precise functionality and tools demanded by your users, customers and partners, on a fixed-price basis within a manageable and flexible process.

Case Study: Health Insurance Counter Fraud Group

Tue, 04 Nov 2008 22:04:35 GMT

Fraudulent healthcare claims are exposed as insurers share information using bespoke software from MBR IT

The Client

Thousands of pounds worth of bogus private health insurance claims are made each year - a level that directly affects customer premiums. Insurers are constantly looking for methods to uncover fraudsters – one way is by sharing intelligence. This is now possible thanks to a bespoke technology system devised by Milton Keynes based, MBR IT Solutions Ltd.

The Health Insurance Counter Fraud Group UK is an industry initiative to prevent and detect fraud within health care and the insurance sector. It consists of eleven health insurance companies, including PruHealth, AXA PPP healthcare and BUPA.

The Challenge

In 2008, the Group approached MBR IT to design and implement a software package to fulfil four key criteria.

1.   To create a flexible and efficient database facility for members to share and store information

2.   To allow interested parties from outside the organisation access to this information

3.   To create a ‘community’ website where intelligence can be exchanged

4.   To devise a ‘public’ website to educate and inform

“Within the sector we knew that by pooling the research and collected data on fraudulent claims and their perpetrators, we would help reduce such offences,” explained Chair of HICFG, Ray Collins of PruHealth. “So we needed an IT solution provider that would meet these requirements and fulfil the information exchange needs of members.”

The Solution

MBR IT built an extranet based on Microsoft.NET, Microsoft Windows Server 2003 and Microsoft SQL Server 2005 to allow the Group to load details of possible fraud cases in real-time – where quick responses can be crucial in preventing further actions where other members may have an interest.

The Group also has an efficient ‘signposting’ function to highlight potential issues – a network that can identify risks to alert others and act as an ‘early warning ‘ system.

The Results

MBR IT software is helping the Group to identify patterns and trends in unusual claim activity whilst saving time in the investigation and collation of information. Sharing of such details between the 11 HICFG members can have immediate impact on claim and claimants behaviour – ultimately leading to significant cost savings. The ‘forum’ also assists in the prevention of future loss by supplying data to identify incorrect claims – already the Group has seen significant improvements in recovery of fraudulent appeals.

HICFG is delighted with the system and has received complimentary reviews in the sector media and is making presentations to public sector services and life/pension companies that are also looking to reduce cases of fraud.

The public HICFG Web site can be found at http://www.hicfg.co.uk/. You can also read more about HICFG and the system MBRIT built in this FT article: Insurers to share data on fraud.

Home Page

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 13:31:45 GMT

BESPOKE SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT

Bespoke software development is crucial to the success of any business striving to meet the specific needs of its clients. Every business has a unique set of actions and requirements that are dictated by the needs and requests of the customer base. MBRIT bespoke software development affords every business the opportunity to meet these demands. The realisation of new and innovative ideas through bespoke software development will give your business the requisite competitive edge to make it an unbeatable success.

CUSTOM DEVELOPMENT SOFTWARE

Custom development software is an ideal solution for companies that cannot find an off-the-shelf product to fulfill their specific business needs. Custom development will provide fully tailored software to meet the all the requirements of the business and its clients. MBRIT has the expertise to develop quality custom software that provides unbeatable competitive edge.

CUSTOM DEVELOPMENT

MBRIT understands that its customers are looking for an IT solution that will help to define their business as a leading industry player. Custom development provides software that is both appropriate and exclusive. Custom development will play a crucial role in meeting the needs of your clients and will prove to be a vital component of everyday business.

SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT

MBRIT are industry leaders in software development. By focusing on the explicit needs of each business, we ensure that the knowledge and skills of our IT experts is applied to fully address the requirements and aims of your company. Whether it be an auditing service allowing you to gauge your success against competitors or the mentoring of individuals and teams to get most value from your software, the MBRIT software development professionals will strive to provide a solution that will see your company go from strength to strength.

SOFTWARE SOLUTION

As your company evolves and grows, early software packages may no longer meet the requirements of the business. Our experienced professionals will assess your current IT function and identify areas where improvements can be made. Our software solutions will fully integrate with your current systems to ensure that there is no need for lengthy retraining programmes and that business function and development remains uninterrupted. The primary focus of MBRIT is the design and build of leading edge, business focused software solutions.

Project Implementation, Deployment and Post-"Go Live" Support

Fri, 06 Jun 2008 17:29:00 GMT

Download the PDF version of this page for easy printing

This paper is intended to set out for customers key aspects of MBRIT’s process of project delivery and support of software code once it goes live. It is written from the perspective that the project has been commissioned and that the scoping study steps have been completed. Readers may wish to familiarise themselves with our paper Developing Software to fit like a Glove to help understand some of the specifics.

Implementation

Once you have commissioned us to start work, the “implementation” phase begins. This is simply the process of writing your software application.

Builds and Deployment

From time-to-time we will need to deploy a new version of the application. Each version that we deploy is called a “build” and has a unique number comprising four parts. An example of a version number would be 1.2.20606.744. We will explain where to find this version number as this is essential for feeding back issues to us (see below).

Most applications that we develop for customers are Web applications, and most customers are happy for us to deploy the applications directly on to their servers. We also work with who have outsourced servers managed by another company. The details of where your application will be hosted and who will manage that hosting would have been determined during the scoping study.

For customers that have applications or application components that have to be installed directly onto the user’s machines, we will either provide an MSI installer, or we will work with the customer to develop a delivery package and/or method that most suits them.

Systems Access

We typically require remote access to the servers that your applications are hosted on, whether the servers are hosted in-house or outsourced. We can support most remote access mechanisms, although the most common is Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) over VPN. Most customers will grant us an “always on” domain or machine account with administrative access to the servers, but we can obviously work in-line with your particular security policy.

All authentication details are stored with the strictest security in mind. Any two-factor authentication (2FA) tokens are kept in a locked safe box unless needed.

Preview Server

For some projects and customers it is appropriate for us to release builds to our own preview server. This server is accessible over the Internet and is not secured behind any VPN or similar. We will discuss with you as to whether this is appropriate for your application. Preview builds running on our preview server provide a good way for you to project progress without having to involve your IT department.

User Acceptance Testing (UAT)

During development we will produce a number of builds that we will use for internal testing, but eventually we will start producing builds that need to find their way into a live “production” environment. Once an application reaches a production state it is ready for real users, real data and potentially integration with other production systems.

In order for an application to reach the production environment we require that all customers go through a formal User Acceptance Test (UAT) process.

To facilitate UAT, we typically will look to deploy two versions of the application – a UAT version and a production version. Some customers are able to make two sets of hardware available – i.e. one for each – however we can accommodate customers who would prefer us to run UAT and production versions on the same machine. (Our preference is a separate set of hardware.) Virtualisation can help in making a second server or set of servers for UAT available.

An important “wrinkle” to consider with UAT is that you also need a parallel set of any systems that the application integrates with. For example, if the application is designed to integrate with your production ERP system you must have (or configure) a test ERP environment to run the UAT version of the application against.

We perform a full system test before deploying a UAT build. When you look to do your UAT testing you must test all of the application features and modules even if you believe that only a part of the system has changed. The reason for this is that you need to be confident that the application will work properly once deployed to the production environment (i.e. made live) and you can only get this level of confidence from a full system test.

Training

Some customers like to have a separate training installation made available to them. This can be provided on request. Note, however, that you will also need training installations of any systems that the application integrates with for similar reasons given as per the UAT build above.

Feedback

Whilst your application is in development and has not reached production it is essential that we receive prompt and detailed feedback on any application component that you do not feel is working in the way that you envisaged. This feedback should be sent to your account manager via e-mail.

All feedback issues must be referenced against a build number and the installation you are running against (e.g. production, UAT or training).

Passwords

From time-to-time we may need to make passwords available to you. If this is the case we will never transmit these by e-mail. We will only ever send them by SMS message to a phone number that you nominate or of course we can phone you and read out the password over the phone.

Handover Documents

Standard policy is to provide a document or set of documents that allows for the application to be setup from scratch by your own IT department or resource.

Server Monitoring

We recommend that you implement some sort of server monitoring on the application. For systems that are directly visible on the Internet (i.e. intranet solutions or extranet solutions secured by VPN, 2FA or similar) you will need to provision this yourself. For systems that are directly visible on the Internet we have a service partner that we recommend and can configure this for you. The cost is approximately £50 per server per year.

Domain Names and DNS Management

Some customers prefer that we manage their domain names and domain name service (DNS) for them. We can accommodate this, typically at no charge, through one of our service partners.

Error Reporting

We offer a service whereby error reports from your application are sent to our own server whereupon they can be accessed and investigated by both your IT support team/resource and our own support and development team. More information on this can be found here.

Post-“Go Live”

This section contains notes on working with us after your application goes into the production environment.

How to tell us about Issues

In the first instance you should e-mail the details of the issue to our support mailbox. If the issue is urgent you should also call your account manager. (The reason why we require the e-mail step is that invariably it will be easier to resolve your issue with technical details that are less easy to gather over the phone.)

If you do find an issue we will need as much technical information as you can find. If your application is configured for online error reporting, you should click the Send Error Report button. This will return to you a number, and you should send this number through to us. It is extremely helpful to receive a list of steps that you went through in order to end up at the error. It is also extremely helpful to know whether you can repeat the error. A screenshot is also helpful.

If your application is not configured for online error reporting, a screenshot of the error together with the steps is important.

When you do feedback issues, we need to know the build number and the installation you are running against (e.g. production, UAT or training).

Turnaround

Once you tell us about a problem we will acknowledge receipt and we will log it for investigation and provide you with a problem number for you to track the status. (Business hours for MBRIT are Monday to Friday, 0830 to 1700, excluding bank holidays.) We will also explore with you the criticality of the issue.

After receipt we will return to you a formal “response” within one working day. This response is the result of a preliminary investigation and will contain one, some or all of the following:

It may contain a workaround that you can use to keep working on the system,
It may contain a request for more information,
Unless more information is required, it will contain a “resolution plan”.

If we are able to put together a resolution plan, this is simply the work that we need to do in order to resolve the issue. The nature and length of the resolution is entirely dependent on the problem, the status of the project or the status of work currently being done on the project. The resolution plan will take your criticality into account.

Warranty

We warranty our software against bugs for the first twelve months after release to a production environment. This means that we will cover the cost of fixing any bugs within the software code and deploying a new build to UAT and production for that first year.

Maintenance Contracts

Some customers like to take out a maintenance contract. The purpose of this is to pre-pay for development time on the project. We typically suggest 15% of the total project cost for the first year (starting when the application reaches production) and 10% for each year thereafter. You can enter and leave this contract at any time – i.e. there is no tie in. Payments against the contract are made quarterly in advance.

For the first year, the warranty covers the cost of fixing any bugs, therefore in that first year the maintenance contract the 15% fee can be used against adding new features to the application. (See Changes, below.) In the second and subsequent years, because the warranty is not active the 10% fee is used against bugs not discovered in the first year, or for adding new features.

If at the end of the year you have not consumed all of the pre-paid development time against the contract, any balance left can be deducted off the next year’s maintenance contract.

Source Code

MBRIT’s standard policy is that we retain copyright and intellectual property rights (IPR) over the application until such time as the final invoice is paid. On payment of final invoice copyright and IPR is automatically transferred to the customer.

Once the project reaches a point where copyright and IPR have been transferred, we will make the software source code available. This is provided as an encrypted ZIP file that is made available for download over the Internet. As this file is encrypted, we will contact you to provide the password to this file (as per the note above re Passwords).

It is your responsibility to put into a place a procedure to receive the source code. You must ensure that you are able to decrypt the ZIP file and access the files within. You must also ensure that you have securely stored the source code most probably in accordance with your own business continuance policy.

Once we provide the source code to you we no longer guarantee to be able to retrieve it in the future.

Changes

You may over time find things about the application that you wish to change. Changes to the application are made through our Customer Change Request (CCR) process. If you do need to make a change, contact your account manager and they will be happy to take you through the process.

The CCR process is process enables us to quote for any new things that you would like your system to do. The process is essentially an abbreviated version of the process that you went through to commission the project in the first place – i.e. scoping to determine requirements, feedback to you of a price for the work and then a commission step where you ask formally ask us to undertake the work. Unless the changes are very large, the scoping study is a “lightweight” version of the process that can be done remotely or by having a short meeting.

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McDonald’s McDrive Over-engineering “Lessons Learnt” for Developers

Thu, 17 Apr 2008 15:40:11 GMT

Next time you're using a McDonald's "McDrive" drive-through restaurant, note carefully how many service windows they build - and then compare this to how many they use. A typical McDrive offers three or five service windows. However, you'd be hard-pressed to ever be served at any more than two.

I often use this analogy when discussing overly complex software architectures. I would think that when designing a drive-thru, getting customers in and out is a key objective of the design. It therefore makes sense that by being able to run the order taking and delivery operations in parallel you should be able to get the cars through quicker. But why are most of these windows closed?

Some of the worst software architecture designs involve adding too much complexity for the sake of getting some perceived value out at the other end. However if you make the architecutre too inaccessible, it becomes impossible to realise those benefits. This problem is compounded by the fact that for the most part architectures are designed by talented and experienced developers but are consumed by developers who just don't get what the developers are trying to get at. It pays to make the actual consumption of the architecture as simple as possible, because that's the only way to make delivery and maintenance of software based on that architecture work from a commercial perspective.

Coming back to McDrive, the same is true. It's just not possible for someone who didn't design the drive-thru and is basically not interested in the principles for the design to understand how to consume it. The reason why multiple order taking and receipt windows don't work is because someone with a car full of kids struggling to cope with their day is not going to be able to remember which window to collect their order from. As soon as they get to the wrong window, the whole architecture falls apart and the principle rule - i.e. get people through the drive-thru as quickly as possible fails.

If you design a software architecture that is too complicated, that is too distant from the normal way of writing code by being too "magical", the same thing will happen. The less good developers on the team simply will not know how to use it properly and will either a) use it wrong and create occult problems that are impossible to track down and come up at exactly the wrong moment or b) not be able to progress through their work quickly. Either way, your architectural principles will probably fail - providing those principles are based on a sound focus on the commercials of the business and aren't technology led. (Watch for a future article on that very issue.)

- Matthew Baxter-Reynolds

Back to "IT Direction"

Do Google’s Search Results Represent Your View of the World?

Thu, 17 Apr 2008 15:39:41 GMT

On a recent drive to work, I heard an article on the Today programme about a article in the British Medical Journal that said that people Googling for articles on suicide were more likely to find sites that advised the reader how to take his own life, as opposed to ones from the Samartians and other similar organisations.

When I first heard the speaker on the Today programme discuss this, but first reason was, “Well, this is easy – Google can just increase the PageRank on the Samaritan’s site so that it comes top.” But on reflection, I don’t think this issue is anywhere near that easy.

In this article, I’m not intending to advocate any particular viewpoint – rather my intention is to lay out some of my thoughts on this. I will refer to “pro” and “anti” sites. Generally can pick your “pro” and “anti”, whether it’s about smoking, reducing carbon emissions or the Easter Bunny, I believe the arguments are the same.

There has been a recent trend in the IT community of starting to think of Google as some sort of deity-like entity that has enormous power by virtue of the fact that it controls information. Moreover, it controls how that information is presented based what should be roughly representative of the audience. Although there are some tricks that you can work on Google to get your page listings higher, generally the organic listings (i.e. the ones that are not sponsored) are based on how many links are pointed at a particular page.

If you assume for the moment that half of the pages related to suicide are pro-suicide and the other half or anti-, the fact that the pro sites appear top would imply that Google’s audience would rather read about pro than anti sites. This isn’t quite this easy because Google’s PageRank is based on how many people write, not how people read. (In order to create links in, you have to write something – even if it’s just a simple “Hey, read this page” comment.) In essence, if pro sites appear on top, pro should be representative of the population’s view. Google artificially changing the ranking to so that the anti sites appear top would appear to turn their back of representation of the people’s view in favour of the view that they felt was politically expedient.

Google has in the past changed a site’s ranking based on what they felt was best for their own organisation. There was a time when searching would yield a lot of blog comments on a topic of varying quality. Google came under fire for this quite badly. Their solution was to artificially boost the PageRank of Wikipedia with the aim that Wikipedia’s editorial structure should increase the quality of results.

My knee-jerk reaction to the pro-suicide site issue ignored the rights of people looking to take their own life for whatever reason. Whatever my personal views were, if I had been someone listening to the Today programme on that morning would have gone to work and filled out whatever form I needed to fill out to give the Samartian’s site a PageRank of 10? The point is that I might have done, and where does that leave Google in terms of its responsibility to the public?

What seems like an eternity ago now in the dotcom days people used to talk about the Internet as a frontier and users as a community looking to make their own rules. What we have today within Google could by some be regarded as “judge, jury and executioner” of access to public information. I wonder if as we mature as a society where the gateway to most information is through the Internet and at the moment particularly through Google whether some legislation is required to ensure some public visibility whenever Google changes organic listings to suit whatever and whosoever ends it’s trying to suit.

- Matthew Baxter-Reynolds

Back to "IT Direction"

Audit your Current IT Systems

Sat, 02 Feb 2008 21:27:11 GMT

Are your customers starting to look elsewhere for a more streamlined service?

Are your computer systems preventing you from delivering the service your customers want?

If you know your existing systems are not able to deliver what the competitor is offering; but you also know that there’s no way to bring forward planned implementation of a new application. What can you do?

Well, by tweaking, modifying and enhancing what you already have, MBR IT may be able to help you meet the ultimate goal of providing what your customer wants.

Get greater value and functionality from the tools you already have.

Integrate New and Existing Software

Sat, 02 Feb 2008 21:24:41 GMT

Trying to make your IT systems more integrated than they were designed to be?

Uncertain how new systems can work with existing applications?

MBR IT can help integrate the new with the old.

From adding an application with exciting new features, which you need to make widely available within your business, to integrating systems and enabling smooth running. We can find the solution for you.

MBR IT will work along side you to understand how the existing applications interact and the motivation behind your software choices. We can plan design and build bespoke integration software that can link everything together usefully and intelligently.