Sogeti New Tools Help IT Firm Visualize, Improve, and Validate Architecture in Large Projects

Sogeti is a global IT consulting firm that specializes in professional software services. Its developers, architects, and testers often work in different locations and had issues collaborating on large customer software projects. They needed better application lifecycle management tools in order to ensure on-time implementations without glitches. In 2009, Sogeti decided to become an early adopter of Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate and Microsoft Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2010. By using the solution’s integrated tools, employees can easily visualize the software’s structure as it develops and validate it against the desired state. Team members can collaborate more easily, and developers and architects spend six fewer hours a week checking that software adheres to the plan. Sogeti has also increased customer confidence and expects to lower software maintenance costs. 

Situation

Sogeti, a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, is a leading provider of professional technology services. It specializes in application and infrastructure management and software testing. The company's business spans more than 200 locations in 15 countries.

Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2010 closely connects our architects, developers, and testers during the entire application lifecycle management process. That is very powerful for us.  Clemens Reijnen Management Consultant Sogeti

For Sogeti, a key success factor in its project work is to architect new software to support the desired customer functionality, minimize defects, and ensure robustness and maintainability. However, this is only successful if the actual implementations adhere to the architecture, which is difficult and time-consuming to manage with a large geographically dispersed team.

“We have a very disconnected team, and that was a big problem,” says Clemens Reijnen, Management Consultant, Sogeti. “More and more, we have been executing projects that start with developers in India and are managed by our designers and architects in the Netherlands. So, for example, the process of checking applications to ensure that the architecture is correct was very time-consuming. It involved travel, many conference calls, and a lot of e-mail messages and instant messages back and forth. As a result, we were not as productive as we would like to be.”

Sogeti team members also lacked effective tools to aid in the application building and management processes. Although Sogeti had used Microsoft Visual Studio Team System 2008 as its primary development environment for the past several years, developers needed better design and modeling tools. “Reviewing a complex solution without proper documentation can be a challenge. Visual Studio 2008 code metrics helped a lot, but we still struggled to find architecture implementation glitches,” says Dustin van de Sande, Senior Designer, Sogeti.

During a recent software maintenance project, Sogeti software architects had difficulty updating the application code. “It was hard to understand the application structure when we wanted to change some of the components,” says Reijnen. “It was a very large project with a lot of code and many dependencies, and we didn’t have the documentation we needed.”

These challenges were particularly urgent because Sogeti wanted to improve its chances of winning and keeping new business in an increasingly competitive marketplace. “We didn’t really have the ability to give customers full confidence in our software implementations,” Reijnen states. “In order to do that, our managed delivery team members needed to work together better and gain more visibility into the application lifecycle management process.” 

Sogeti began to consider investing in a new development environment that would help address these issues.

Solution

In early 2009, Sogeti decided to become an early adopter of the Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate development system and Microsoft Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2010. The company wanted to take advantage of new architectural, testing, and tracking tools. 

With the design and modeling tools in Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate, our managed delivery team has better visibility and control over system implementations.  Clemens Reijnen Management Consultant Sogeti

Another important tool is the Layer Diagram, which gives developers the ability to visually design applications and run checks to validate the architecture. Developers can also use the tool to view and model application dependencies. In addition, the solution supports UML 2.0 diagrams, which Sogeti developers use to get a complete view of all attributes of an application.

Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate also includes testing tools that can be used by architects and developers as well as testers. “I was eager for Sogeti to become an early adopter of Visual Studio 2010 because it has the architectural and testing features we needed,” says Reijnen.

Sogeti also implemented Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2010, a collaboration environment that includes new work item tracking, reporting, and source code management features, which help connect the organization’s geographically dispersed development employees.

Benefits

With the new tools in Visual Studio 2010, Sogeti employees have better visibility into software implementations and collaborate more easily. Sogeti developers and architects spend six fewer hours each week on implementation checks, and Sogeti has been able to increase customer confidence. Additionally, the company expects to lower software maintenance costs. 

Improves Project Visibility

By using Visual Studio 2010, Sogeti developers, architects, and testers now have a much better ability to view specific information about software implementations and maintenance projects. “With the design and modeling tools in Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate, our managed delivery team has better visibility and control over system implementations,” states Reijnen. “For instance, we can easily create very detailed diagrams using the Layer Diagram feature, which gives us a better, more complete picture of an application. We can now check every build to make sure the developers have followed the architecture.” 

Sogeti developers can also identify implementation errors much more efficiently. For instance, Sogeti recently developed a large software solution for a government research organization that wanted assurance that the solution would be implemented as specified. “The solution was so complex that the customer actually requested an external source code audit from a software analysis company,” says Dieter Camps, Software Architect, Sogeti. “Using Architecture Explorer and UML diagrams, we found multiple defects in the solution’s architecture that the auditors did not catch. We showed the customer almost in real time what the architecture looked like and what the dependencies were.”

Previously, developers and architects spent up to six hours a week checking implementations and helping customers understand the architecture. The architecture analysis tools in Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate automate those processes.  Clemens Reijnen Management Consultant Sogeti

Connects Disparate Workers

With the work item tracking, reporting, and source code management features in Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2010, Sogeti team members can collaborate in the same development environment, on all phases of a project’s design and implementation. “Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2010 closely connects our architects, developers, and testers during the entire application lifecycle management process,” says Reijnen. “That is very powerful for us in terms of our ability to execute our projects quickly and efficiently.”

Using the integrated architectural and testing tools in Visual Studio 2010, software architects at Sogeti now have access to architectural tools in the same environment that developers and testers work in. “A developer can view a diagram and immediately jump to the work item connected to that diagram, while also creating test cases for that work item,” says Reijnen. “It’s a very seamless process, and that’s something we lacked previously.” 

Saves Developers and Architects Up to Six Hours a Week

Because the solution can automatically perform checks to validate an application’s architecture, Sogeti development employees now spend less time checking software implementations for customers. “Previously, developers and architects spent up to six hours a week checking implementations and helping customers understand the architecture,” Reijnen says. “The architecture analysis tools in Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate automate those processes, which helps eliminate that implementation check time.” 

As a result, the organization’s managed delivery team will spend less time on testing and will be able to complete customer projects more quickly than before. “Our overall productivity will definitely increase as the result of Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate,” says Reijnen.  

Increases Customer Confidence

Because the new solution provides better insight into the details of application architecture, Sogeti customers are more confident about their applications. Reijnen expects that it will be easier for Sogeti to win new business because the company can now use complete architectural diagrams to demonstrate the quality of its applications to customers. “Our salespeople and managers in particular are excited about this, because they now have a way to clearly show new and existing customers the quality of our work.”

Lowers Costs

The new solution will also help Sogeti reduce some of the maintenance costs related to certain customer projects. “With Visual Studio 2010, we can get much better analysis into every aspect of a software maintenance project,” says Reijnen. “We can more easily find information on possible problems so we can implement more solid solutions that will make maintenance easier and less costly.”

For More Information

For more information about Microsoft products and services, call the Microsoft Sales Information Center at (800) 426-9400. In Canada, call the Microsoft Canada Information Centre at (877) 568-2495. Customers in the United States and Canada who are deaf or hard-of-hearing can reach Microsoft text telephone (TTY/TDD) services at (800) 892-5234. Outside the 50 United States and Canada, please contact your local Microsoft subsidiary. To access information using the World Wide Web, go to:
www.microsoft.com

For more information about Sogeti products and services, call +33 (0) 1 58 44 55 66, visit the Web site at: www.sogeti.com, or contact directly via e-mail at microsoft@sogeti.nl  

Microsoft Visual Studio 2010

Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 is an integrated development system that helps simplify the entire development process from design to deployment. Unleash your creativity with powerful prototyping, modeling, and design tools that help you bring your vision to life. Work within a personalized environment that helps accelerate the coding process and supports the use of your existing skills, and target a growing number of platforms, including Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 and cloud services. Also, work more efficiently thanks to integrated testing and debugging tools that you can use to find and fix bugs quickly and easily to help ensure high-quality solutions.

For more information about Visual Studio 2010, go to:
www.msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio

This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.

Document published March 2010