Table of Contents
The Scenario
The client is an automobile giant in state of US. They develop, produce, and manufacture various motor products, ranging from small general-purpose engines and scooters to specialty sports cars. The Warranty Management System (Protection Plan) provides a means of processing and managing Extended Service Contracts for Motorcycles, Scooter and ATVs. An Extended Service Contract is an agreement between the client and a customer to extend the warranty service for a certain period of time beyond the basic Factory Warranty Period.
The functionalities of the system include:
- Create & Print contract
- Extract contract print & reprint
- Print & Mail thru vendor
- Cancellation & Refund handling
- Sales promotion and performance bonus
- Dealer performance bonus
- Revenue share
- Special DEMO discount
- Special model discount
- Marketing fund
- Support Direct Sales
- Roadside assistance
- Dealer Sales
- Internet Sales
The mission of the client is to reengineer the legacy PowerBuilder application to cutting edge .Net technologies.
Business Need
- The current System is at risk since it was developed using PowerBuilder which is no longer supported on the existing infrastructure.
- The Vendor support for PowerBuiIder V8 ended in 2005 since the vendor was unable to make the required program changes to sustain the MC business.
- The lack of support for PowerBuilder puts the system’s data integrity at risk since the business must make requests to directly access the database since the current system does not provide the needed functionality.
- If the system fails, there is the added risk that the system will not provide timely information needed for legal compliance.
- Skill set available in the market.
Key Challenges
Since PowerBuilder as a legacy technology, enterprise standard tools and technologies will be leveraged, as appropriate and it should support:
- Target being web application, the proposed solution shall support current client web application standards and style guides
- The application is a windows application and the end users require similar look and feel along with web features.
- Maintainable, scalable & performance oriented application TAM, LDAP and SAML secured authentication.
- Existing data retention process of application for the upgraded application.
- The upgraded application should support IE Il, Firefox and Chrome browsers
- The application shall integrate with internal and external systems. Architecture shall be capable of handling integration in a loosely coupled architecture principle.
- Integration of reports
The Solution
Kumaran understand that organizations that use legacy applications would have evolved over years of business enhancements for which functional documents may not have been updated. And it is difficult to maintain, improve, upgrade and scalable the PowerBuilder legacy application with lack of skilled resources. Kumaran Systems assisted to develop the web based system in .NET using agile methodology.
Some of the salient features of this legacy modernization by Kumaran are:
- Look and feel of a completely re-designed to modern responsive web standards
- Cross browser support
- The existing functionality of the client server was preserved and future maintenance on the transformed code made less complex
- The existing client server access and functionality were role driven. The same fine grained role based access was maintained .
Highlights of the Solution Architecture
| # | ARCHITECTURE DECISION | DESCRIPTION | RATIONALE |
| 1. | REST web service | All applications interface will be exposed as REST web services with JSON payload. | REST web service is one of client standard format. It’s lightweight, fast and can use smaller data format such as JSON. |
| 2. | HTTPS and Session-based authentication with SecurityContext | HTTPS is the standard secured transport layer protocol for exchanging information. Session based authentication is the standard way to secure REST Web services. | A SecurityContext as an added security layer provides access to a security-related information for a request. |
| 3. | Angular JS | Web application’s View layer will be constructed with angular JS. | As angular uses MVW (Model View Whatever) structure, it offers high code maintainability. The benefits of angular are two way data binding within view layer, and minimal coding when compared to traditional java script and jquery structure.
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| 4. | Crystal Report Integration | The reports will be developed Using Crystal reports and integrated with the .NET application. | A custom developed .NET application will be able to provide seamless integration with Crystal report BI server infrastructure. Reports are able to export in all formats like PDF, XLS, CSV, etc. |
| 5. | Bootstrap, HTML5 | User interface will be constructed using Bootstrap. | It provides easy layout and ready to use CSS for advanced and better look and feel. |
| 6. | LDAP, TAM and SAML | User Authentication. | Provides single Sign-On authentication. |
Business Benefits
- The risk associated with the legacy technology was eliminated.
- Easy availability of .NET skilled resources.
- The migrated .NET application can be accessed from anywhere through internet.
- Loosely coupled architecture enables easy maintenance & scalability.
- Improved user experience with the responsive user interface and cross browser support
- Implementation of Reports needed for legal compliance.
- Easy integration with other systems.