As technical presales lead at DSI I am often involved in deep technical discussions with prospective customers around software development, and I want to highlight a recent campaign that didn’t exactly go the way I thought it would. Let me set the stage. As our sales guy was taking the lead in prospecting and talking with developers and architects about “Continuous Performance Management” (CPM), I was there for support in case our sales guy ran into some difficult questions. As technical presales you need to know when to step in or step back on these calls. After arming our sales guys with the necessary information I sat back and waited for questions that never arrived. I was ready to talk about reliability, performance, quality assurance and Continuous Integration. What I was hearing instead was developers pulling all nighters when the code was not performing in production like it was in development.
Author Archive for Fergal Cronin
I was very much taken by a discussion, “Continuous Integration: Was Fowler Wrong”, I recently came across on the TheServerSide.com, It was most interesting to read the diversified opinions on the definition of Continuous Integration (CI), and the relative significance of compiling vs testing, and where these two practices sit in the CI world. While I do not wish to join the debate as played out on the TSS, it did spark a train of thought about how this debate, in my opinion, is simply a symptom of the diversified nature of CI, and by extension, how the various views expressed are all valid. Different practitioners of CI emphasise the components of CI that matter most to them. Developments here in DSI, where we have moulded our own CI process over time, are another example of how the original idea of CI has evolved, to the point where it now incorporates altogether different software developments practices.
Continue reading ‘Continuous Integration and Application Performance Management draw closer’
There can be little doubt but that there is increased emphasis placed on Ireland as a knowledge economy. We have a well-established array of research funding agencies , whose aim is to promote the area of R&D within Ireland, by focusing on industry R&D and by linking industry and academia. This is all done to improve the long-term viability and sustainability of the Irish economy. But what can individual firms achieve on their own? What R&D are they doing? And, significantly, who is benefiting from this focus? DSI as an organisation is certainly contributing to this work, much time and effort is devoted to R&D activities. Let us examine this work, and ultimately see who is benefiting from this.
The open source community has long since emerged as a leading example of cooperation and collaboration within the wider software development community. DSI’s long standing commitment to supporting open source software is demonstrated by having a policy for preferential adoption of OSS tools and applications where possible, and by actively contributing to other OSS initiatives. Earlier this year DSI announced that it was invited to contribute to the open source framework Spring .NET. This follows on from DSI’s adoption of Spring as the framework of choice for DSI’s Java application development. Recently DSI released it’s own OS DBPro Bridge application. This is of interest to developers using Visual Studio who are required to work in conjunction with a DBA using DBPro. This is designed as an open source download, users can use it as a plug-in to their own software development projects.
Continue reading ‘R&D, Innovation and Technical Progress at DSI’
Technorati Tags: knowledge economy, R&D, industry R&D, Irish economy, open source community, software development, open source software, OSS, Spring .NET, Java application development, Visual Studio, DBPro
DSI has just released an early version of an open source Visual Studio plug-in for developers who wish to access project files as created by Team System Edition for Database Professionals – without requiring them to have a Team System Edition for DBPro license. As a freely available open source (and still emerging!!!) project, users are invited to download the plug-in, use it for their own purposes, and contribute to it’s future through a number of ways. You may blog about DBPro Bridge, ask and answer questions on the discussion forum, submit issues or feature suggestions, or indeed fix bugs or check in new features.
This plug-in, known as DBPro Bridge, is for developers using Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Team Foundation Server (TFS)and Visual Studio 2005 who are working with database project files from Team System Edition for Database Professionals. It allows for better cooperation between a DBA, who is using Team System Edition for DBPro, and a developer who does not use DBPro, but who needs to keep their work in sync with their DBA.
It is available under an Apache License 2.0 and users can download it free from codeplex. The user guide will guide you through the set up process.
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Technorati Tags: Visual Studio, Database Professionals, open source, Microsoft Visual Studio, Team Foundation Server, TFS, Visual Studio 2005, Team System Edition for Database Professionals, DBA, DBPro
Two significant developments have recently taken place to underline the importance of Spring.NET. Interface21, the people behind the Spring Framework, have appointed a principal consultant to head up the Spring.NET project. This event follows hot on the heels of the recent milestone release of Spring.NET 1.1. This release has many features such as NUnit Integration, NHibernate Integration and ASP.NET AJAX Integration. These developments significantly point to the maturing nature of this framework and its increasing importance to the development community.
Continue reading ‘Good news for Spring.Net!’
Technorati Tags: Spring.NET, Spring Framework
What sets DSI apart? At the outset it seems a straightforward concept - we have 100+ highly qualified technical resources. We have worked for many of the world’s leading brand names - Expedia, Amazon, Avon, Mastercard. We are very active and successful in the US dental insurance industry. We constantly work with and promote the use of the best of breed technologies (with the skill set to match) - The Spring Framework, Hibernate. We have recently acquired Microsoft certification status. We work closely with the major names in the software sector - i21, Quest, Amazon.
So where does the challenge lie? The software development space is extremely competitive. There are an unlimited number of ‘brand name’ firms out there competing in the same space, firms from seemingly every corner of the globe offering their services. So how do we differentiate ourselves? What sets us apart? Why would someone choose DSI over others? What is the unique DSI message?