The requirements for Buzz arose out of feature-additions
and maintenance issues for two third party
systems – LiftOff and Canaveral which
were being used by one of our clients. Both
these systems were Windows applications and
involved extensive use of Win32 programming
interfaces (API’s). In order to fix
issues and add features to these systems a
complete understanding of Windows platform
internals was required which at times needed
cumbersome low level debugging of the Win32
API’s – this was when the existing
windows help libraries failed to provide sufficient
documentation.
LiftOff was an application provider interface,
through which one could remotely use any
application over the internet. Quite naturally,
it dealt with the Remote User Interface
of Win32 API’s. On similar lines of
application-sharing over a network, Canaveral
was a software platform for managing applications
and its users. Plainly, Canaveral’s
application management technology enables
“software-as-a-service” over
a network.
The major feature-additions to these systems
were Backup script generation, TWAIN Scanner
support, Netscape Plugin and Oracle SQL
scripting support. In terms of new administrative/management
features we had service support for Microsoft
Active Directory and Novell NDS which managed
the complex relationships between applications,
their users and their servers. With this,
users could to register themselves, select
their applications, choose their department
grouping, and even pay with their department's
credit card. Advanced features such as user
authentication, load balancing, license
management and application metering formed
some real powerful administrative tools.
Other support features included the use
of XML interface to plug in third party
customer management applications such as
CRM, billing, help desk and so on.
Buzz ran over a 15 month development phase
and for its team of 7 developers it served
as a great Windows platform learning experience.
Since it involved low-level debugging and
dealt with Windows internals, it definitely
worked wonders in terms of setting up ADI
as a Windows application developer.
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