Reporting leveraged the available SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS). Using SSRS, an known and trusted Microsoft reporting application, removed the complexity of developing our own reporting engine, allowing the users to build their own one-off reports if required and the development team to dedicate more time and focus on the application development.
In addition to the development and deployment-to-staging, Etain are also hosting the production environment on-premise at our HQ, ensuring optimal security and, status notifications and 24-7 Health monitoring. This implementation facilitates ease of creation, testing and deployment to production environment. This replication environment also enables us to securely fix bugs and test change controls, safeguarding the system against defects and optimising future enhancements.
Etain strongly recommends our software solutions are hosted, managed and maintained by our own DevOps team. To achieve this, we offer customers a variety of hosting options ranging from shared / multi-tenant private cloud in Belfast through to 24/7 Rackspace managed Private cloud / Azure Public Cloud platforms.
Hosting benefits are tangible for both Etain and customer – the Waterways Ireland AIMS system is a good example of this:
- Single “Throat to Choke” – the entire solution is designed, built, deployed, monitored, managed, backed up and updated as part of a single subscription / “Opex” based managed service
- Guaranteed SLA’s & performance levels
- Easier support for everyone – no “finger pointing”
- Strictly controlled access to production environments
- Developers write the code and deliver packaged components
- Infrastructure deploy these to UAT and subsequently Live environments under strict well documented change control
- Fully Managed - Managed monitoring, backups, DR
- Highly Available – clustering, always on mirroring, resilient hosts, SAN, SAN controllers – no single points of failure.
- Scalable – per request load balancing, “scale out” design to allow solution to grow organically as customer requirements make additional load demands on platform
- Secure – regular in-house penetration testing before deployment to production (using variety of tools), annual perimeter pen testing by 3rd party (IT-guarded), award winning firewall technology and threat detection, software / config hardening of server builds
The Benefits
The Waterways Ireland AIMS system now provides the organisation with a robust, integrated facility where all physical assets of the canal network are accurately managed and reported on, enabling them to maintain the waterways to a standard suitable for recurring public access. In turn this enables Waterways Ireland to better promote the network as a suitable tourism attraction for both local and inbound visitation.
Talking on the DevOps Excellence Awards shortlisting of the AIMS project for 'Project of the Year', Uel Horner from Waterways Ireland says:
“We’re delighted to hear that the Waterways Ireland’s AIMS project has been shortlisted for the Computing Award for DevOps Project of the Year; it’s a great acknowledgement of how a close working relationship can reap dividends for both customer and supplier. Waterways Ireland has a long standing relationship with Etain as a software supplier; we have worked together since 2006 to develop a number of different solutions and then more recently Waterways Ireland has entrusted Etain to host these solutions. It has been a pleasure to work with Etain, the partnership works extremely well and as a result we have a considerable understanding of each other’s business. This understanding results in fast turnaround times from requirement through specification to product delivery – certainly the “agile” nature of Etain’s operations contributes to this. Whilst we may not necessarily have a deep understanding of the development tools used by Etain, it’s reassuring to know that they keep ahead of the curve in terms of adopting practical technology. Hopefully we both win from this nomination” Uel Horner, Systems Analyst, Waterways Ireland
Asset Management a growing concern? If you’d like to discuss a custom project or simply want to know more feel free to call us on 028 90 87 2222 or drop us an email below.