“The integration with Oracle will be significantly faster after attending the MTC. We probably saved a couple weeks of time.”
Eran Kriegshauser, .NET Architect, NCH Corporation
To make strategic decisions for future development projects, NCH Corporation needed to understand the latest technologies. NCH attended a Microsoft® Technology Center (MTC) to discuss integrating Microsoft ASP.NET with Oracle for a new sales force automation system, plan a challenging migration project, and explore service-oriented architecture. Through the MTC, NCH streamlined research and analysis and gained consensus on technology decisions.
This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.Document published October 2008
Business Needs
Based in Irving, Texas, NCH Corporation is a leadingglobal provider of industrial maintenance supplies that employs more than 8,500 people around the globe. In early 2008, the IT leadership identified the strategic IT projects for the next three fiscal years.
Because NCH recently deployed an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, the additional IT projects needed to integrate tightly with the new system. Eran Kriegshauser, .NET Architect at NCH Corporation says, “Our primary goal was to develop a new sales force automation application using ASP.NET applicationswhile also getting it to integrate easily with our new Oracle ERP.”
The NCH IT team believed that updating to the Microsoft® ASP.NET development framework would address both of these challenges, but the team needed more expertise about ASP.NET technologies and potential development tools before committing company resources to a specific solution. The development team also wanted to learn more about improvements made to the Microsoft Visual Studio® Team System development system and supporting collaboration tools such as Microsoft Visual Studio Team System 2008 Team Foundation Server.
In addition to building the new sales application and integrating with Oracle ERP, NCH also planned to migrate from Microsoft SQL Server® 2000 to Microsoft SQL Server 2005 data management software. The team wanted to know the best way to approach this challenge. Finally, the NCH IT team wanted an in-depth discussion of the benefits of a service-oriented architecture and whether this framework would be a good option for NCH.
With a long list of diverse projects to complete, the NCH IT team needed to research and launch these projects quickly and with the best information.
Solution
NCH looked to the Microsoft Technology Center (MTC) as a way to gain insight from industry experts, gather the knowledge needed to make informed decisions, and standardize on a common suite of development tools. NCH sent a group of 10 IT team members to the MTC in Dallas, Texas, for an Architecture Design Session (ADS). The group, which was comprised of developers, database administrators, and managers,met with Microsoft experts for two days and discussed various solutions.
On day one, the teams conducted white-boarding sessions, during which they defined and discussed how to best address the company’s goals and challenges. The MTC experts spent a second day with the NCH team to demonstrate how to architect the best solution for each challenge.
The team held discussions onbuilding the new sales force automation tool on the ASP.NET framework using Visual Studio Team System, the benefits of Visual Studio Team System 2008 Team Foundation Server, and also integrating the sales force automation solution with the Oracle ERP application. The ADS sessions provided an opportunity for many NCH team members who were unfamiliar with the latest .Net development framework to see how this new solution would work and how the NCH developers could customize the solution. Further, the IT team was able to see how the Visual Studio Team System Team Foundation Server could provide robust tools to manage development projects more effectively.
Kriegshauser comments, “The MTC engagement was a great opportunity for our team to catch up on what new technology is out there. This was a great way to see what’s new, what’s cutting edge, and then make informed decisions about our strategic technology direction.”
Beyond the sales force automation update, the NCH team was able to analyze other solutions, such as outlining the future SQL Server migration and learning more about how a service-oriented architecture could benefit the company.
Benefits
After attending the MTC engagement, the NCH team had a clearer understanding of technologies and solutions that would address the company’s needs. “We benefited from dealing with the experts in the subject matter with which we needed help. ‘I don’t know’ is not an answer for these people, and I felt confident we were getting the best answers,” says Kriegshauser.
Access to Latest Technology Solutions
“The MTC provided access to the best experts in the industry with the most in-depth knowledge of current technologies,” says Kriegshauser. NCH team members obtained expert advice on their unique technology challenges and can now apply the technical knowledge that they gained through the MTC engagement to the company’s current projects and those in the future.
Minimized Time for Research and Analysis
The company had numerous projects that required the entire team to familiarize itself with new technologies quickly and thoroughly. “The integration with Oracle will be significantly faster after attending the ADS,” says Kriegshauser. “There will be less prototyping on our part, and we were able to bring in our Oracle database administrators to ask specific questions of the MTC experts. I would estimate we saved weeks of time.”
Achieved Unanimity
After attending the Dallas MTC, the 10 developers, database administrators, and managers from NCH were able to agree on the best solutions to their challenges. The team achieved a clear consensus and recently completed development of its sales force automation upgrade using Visual Studio Team System and Visual Studio Team System 2008 Team Foundation Server. The Microsoft SQL Server migration has begun and NCH is continuing its research on service-oriented architecture.
This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.Document published October 2008