Client: A Leading Insurance Company
Industry: Insurance
Challenges
The main challenge faced by the client was to select an easy to use, yet scalable and feature-rich application development framework to build a multi-technology stack for building the Order Generation System (OGS). The primary requirement here was to identify an open standards based robust platform at the backend which could be integrated with Microsoft specific technologies like ASP.Net used at the frontend. The client was familiar with Java based backend application development practices. But all of their desktops were Windows based, and they wanted a native Windows based application to be built and installed on those desktops, which in turn were going to be used by their business users.
This demanded a middleware solution capable of harmonizing disparate technologies while providing required stability and performance from the backend system, which could also be developed with medium or low skilled developers which they had at their disposal. At that time, usually the technologies used by companies to build the frontend as well as backend were from the same vendor - like ASP.Net, VB.Net, Java-Swing etc. But this was not applicable for this particular client due to this kind of special requirements.
Additionally, implementing fine-grained access controls, user management, and facilitating module-level extensions within the OGS introduced complexities requiring careful considerations before choosing a middleware framework.
Solution
Paramatrix engineered a sophisticated solution leveraging PACE's middleware capabilities to facilitate agile development and seamless integration with the OGS' frontend and its database backend.
PACE provided a REST-based gateway, enabling OGS to interact with business objects which used PACE service to access corresponding backend databases effortlessly. The developers were spared the work of writing authentication and authorization layers, sophisticated role and permission management, data caching and data transformation layers etc. because PACE provides them out of the box itself. By standardizing communication protocols and data formats, Paramatrix ensured interoperability between the .Net based OGS frontend and MS-SQL based database backend.
Moreover, PACE's comprehensive framework offered robust features such as pluggable execution hooks via suitable plugins, audit trails, ORM based data access etc. This empowered developers to focus solely on the business logic required to implement the OGS, eliminating the need for extensive plumbing work typically required in enterprise data oriented applications. The PACE based solution streamlined file processing, message logging, and database access; thus enhancing overall operational efficiency, application-scalability, and compliance to the internal processes.
IMPACTS
Facilitated horizontal hardware scaling for enhanced performance
Enabled seamless integration across diverse authentication backends
Strengthened user and role management with fine-grained access control
Enhanced operational efficiency and scalability with workflow engine support