News 2007

November / December
Data Center | Project Management We accepted the technical project management responsibilities for the design and rollout of a new high-availability data center. We supported the client with difficult routing questions regarding BGP4 and the acquisition of an ASN (Autonomous System Number). We also assisted in creating documentation that is compliant with the rules set down by the regulatory authorities.
Eclipse RCP We supported a new client developing a document management system based on the Eclipse rich client framework.
Workflow We developed and extended several business applications on an IT application platform that we designed. These include workflows supporting incentive schemes, applications that reflect updated labor contracts and an adjusted master data management system.
Atlassian TNG became partners with Atlassian. This partnership deepens our relationship with one of the leading providers of collaborative software like wikis and issue trackers.
Talks | Project Management, CCC Several of our consultants gave public talks, for example at the elite graduate program 'Technology Management' at the Center for Digital Management and Technology and at the Chaos Communication Congress 2007 in Berlin.
Certifications | Scrum, ITIL At this point about three quarters of all TNG consultants are Certified Scrum Masters. In addition to this, more consultants became ITIL Foundations certified.
September/ October
Development Process | Evaluation, Code Review We evaluated the development process of a large software project with over 40 team members. and gave concrete recommendations for possible improvements.
Sarbanes-Oxley-Audit We developed a partially-automated code review process for a large corporate group, which was appraised as the "best company-wide solution" during a Sarbanes-Oxley audit.
Master Data Management We developed an application for EMEA-wide master data management for an international client,. The system is based on a generic workflow framework also developed by TNG. The framework was updated as it was developed to current technologies such as Java 6, Spring 2 and Hibernate 3.
Project Management | SW Development We managed a software development project within an international insurance company. The project's goal was the realization of a comprehensive sales portal.
Age Verification We developed a certified age verification system for a large B2C client. It provides the effective and efficient protection of minors from restricted content sites. In its implementation, we use JEE, Spring, Hibernate Annotations, Axis and Jax-WS. We supported our client taking the application into production, which works without any problems.
Rich client | Adobe Flex 2 We developed a rich client application for a large telecommunications supplier. The application manages information subscriptions within a VoIP network. It is based on Adobe Flex 2 and Java-based backend Web services.
Configuration Management We analyzed the system environment of a large software project within an insurance company's internal configuration management project. It consists of IBM hosts, various UNIX and Windows servers and Windows Client PCs.
Wiki Migration One of our consultants developed handcrafted Python scripts to migrate the contents of a JSP-Wiki into a Trac Wiki. Over 500 pages, some with attachments, were quickly converted.
Training | Hibernate We developed and gave a seminar on the Hibernate object/relational mapper and on the Spring framework. We explained the underlying theoretical concepts and illustrated it with hands-on practical examples.
Talks | Requirements, Self Management, Presenting Several of our consultants gave public talks:
  • At Java User Group München on how to write good requirements.
  • At CCC Darmstadt on efficient and effective self management employing the "Getting Things Done" methodology.
  • At LMU München on effective and efficient presentation techniques.
Certifications | Scrum, abaXX & IPMA As part of our continuous training programme, a third of all TNG consultants are now certified Scrum masters. Moreover, four of our consultants became "abaXX Certified Engineers", and TNG as a company became an "abaXX Certified Partner". One of our consultants was certified as an IPMA Level D project management expert (GPM).
July / August
Project Management We took over the time planning and resource management of the testing phase in a huge IT project for one of our clients, which has several iterations. This included analysing the requirements for each test phase, aligning the resulting scenarios with all participating groups in the project, ensuring that all planned targets are reached and all activities are finished in time and, finally, reporting back to the management of the project.
Testing | Fitnesse We took over the responsibility for testing a new software system in the mobile sector for one of our clients. Significant areas for the tests were the client and account management, the ordering process for the clients, various money charging and discharging mechanisms, the document management and the money transactions with the banks. We used the Fitnesse framework and different programming languages (Ruby, Perl and Java) to automate all the tests. As well as this, other national and international service providers were involved in the project.
JEE | Development Process One of our clients needed support in choosing the future software platform for a B2C portal which is tailored for branding partners. We provided support in making the decision between .Net and JEE. Moreover, we analysed the current software development process and identified improvement opportunities. All of this happened across locations in three different countries.
Architecture | Planning We supported one of our clients writing a big proposal for a planning tool in the automotive sector by supplying the vital technical and economical sections of the proposal. It is planned to do a large proportion of the work via an outsourcer in India. Our contribution to the proposal consisted of - amongst other things - the technical architecture (JEE/Rich Client Platform), the concepts for data migration, the project dimension estimations (via different methods) and a project planning sketch (Gantt chart).
Data Center | Concept We supported a client in designing a high availability data center in an enviroment under heavy government regulation. We contributed to selecting firewalls, routers, servers, interconnects, virtualisation technologies and the sizing of clusters. Particular attention was paid to balancing the goals of low cost with the good manageability of the used products.
Simulator | Java We developed a simulator in Java for a complex, stateful and proprietary protocol in the order handling area with one of our clients.
TNG In order to accommodate the past and future planned growth of the company, TNG boosted its equity capital to 450 000 Euros.
May / June
TNG | Big TechDay We organised a big technology day with talks spanning the entire IT field from software engineering to future technologies. A particular highlight was a talk about the autonomous driving vehicle "Stanley", which won the Darpa Grand Challenge 2005. As well as this a well-known science fiction author gave a visionary talk about the possible future impact and application of technology that is already available today.
V-Modell XT | Java For one of our newer clients, a large system house, we renovated and extended a Java web application which is used for tailoring processes in the project execution field. Thanks to this application, the client's project managers are now able to tailor the process model V-Modell XT according to project demands.
Analysis | Mobile telecommunication We analysed an existing web application in the area of deposit management for one of our clients. We established plans to move the application to a new division and gave support through analyses, trouble shooting and small enhancements. Finally we carried out the transfer plans.
Subversion | Website To put the contents of a website under version control, we introduced a Subversion system. It enables us to work on different parts of the website at the same time and also to verify new content before going live. Furthermore we tested light weight markup languages like Textile and reStructuredText to ascertain whether they are suitable for structuring the contents of the website.
Coaching | Best Practices We accepted a assignment coaching in Java, Spring and Hibernate for a large company. As well as communicating Best Practices, we counselled those of our client's outsourcers that were located overseas.
Talk | Project management Two of our experts gave a lecture on software project management within the elite graduate program 'Technology Management' at the Center for Digital Management and Technology.
Talk | Distributed Shared Memory Two of our experts gave an extensive talk at the Java User Group Munich on Oracle Coherence.

March / April
Billing | Mobile telecommunications We accepted a new project to build a tool which will generate and process proprietary billing data records (CDRs) in the mobile telecommunications sector. Our client will use the tool to generate unit, component and load test data for a huge migration project.
Testing | Web We analysed strategies to perform a migration towards the abaXX web framework for one of our clients. In addition to this we set up a test environment based on various departments' test data. The data are defined in a domain specific language (DSL) and are used for unit as well as integration testing. The test department can use convenient form based entry masks for generating and updating data.
Verification | Java We analysed and verified a very large commercial Java application and were able to give detailed feedback to the application customer regarding the quality and completeness of the application. The application development company were able to use the feedback to refactor and improve its application.
System Architecture | VMWare | Hosting We developed an entirely new system architecture for a B2C startup, onto which all online applications were to be migrated. For this we provided concepts for the security architecture, for the backup of operating systems and databases and for the sizing of production and test systems. All systems were implemented in virtual machines based on VMWare to ensure short time-to-market and rapid testability. At the same time, we choose a suitable hosting partner that guarantees the operation of all systems as a full service provider. We established selection criteria and guided our client through all communication with the hosting providers up until there was a contract ready to sign.
Training | ITIL As part of the continuous training at TNG, more than 15 percent of our consultants are now ITIL-Foundation certified.

January / February
GIS | JavaScript | GSM We used JavaScript to enhance the usability of an existent GIS (Geographical Information System) web GUI of one of our customers. By selecting a rectangle or moving the map it is now possible to zoom and pan, as in native client applications.
Apache & Tomcat Cluster | Solaris 10 For one of our customers we installed clustered Apache 2.0.x Webservers and Tomcat-5.5.x application servers on six new Solaris 10 machines. Amongst other things we organised the migration of ten hosted web applications.
Consulting | Analysis We analysed the website of an international company which is represented in 15 countries. The site combines different functionality like user accounts, online auctions, market places and live bidding. We advised them to gradually introduce flexibility into the website architecture. We also made several suggestions on how to react to future market demands more quickly. Our results were presented to the upper management.
IT Expertise | SAN We wrote a report about approaching a RAID level change in the area of SAN storage for an international service provider. After analysing the steps and researching the hardware we gave a technical assessment. We also commented on possible alternative methods that could be used to achieve the migration.
J2EE | Code Review | Financial Services For a company with which TNG had already established a working relationship we conducted a code review of a J2EE application in the field of online financial services. After analysing the presented Java source code and documentation, we generated all build targets and prepared a package for further tests. We presented all the results as well as our suggestions for improvements to the software quality.
J2EE | Spring | Hibernate One of our newer clients is a startup that operates an online market place. The back-end uses Microsoft Access. The growing demand for the site requires much-expanded back-end functionality. We supported the customer in a complete rewrite of the software. J2EE, Spring MVC and Hibernate were used.
Operations | Application Management We accepted new responsibilities for one of our clients application management area. We will be aligning the further development with the operational needs for some of the applications.