Re:[Openflow-dev] How are you using OpenFlow?

[Michael D. <mic...@ea...>]

We provide business and technology alignment services, primarily in the
Small, Medium Business (SMB) market.  What that means in simple terms is we
review the operational business processes and help our clients automate
their operations to improve workflow, continuity and profitability.

At the base of the services we provide we are "technology agnostic" meaning
we will provide the best of breed solution that fits the customer
environment.  In the SMB market we often find existing systems are out of
date, lack integration or scalability, and have little support.  When that
is the case, OpenFlow represents a clean slate that allows our clients to
reevaluate their business processes and find an approach that meets their
needs without requiring them to bend to fit a predetermined operational
plan.

Our current project is for a private investigations company.  Our project
will allow their customers to add and track new cases, their investigators
to receive the cases and make annotations as the casework progresses, and to
accumulate the results into a final report that can be delivered to the
client electronically.  All this work will be able to be done remotely
across a VPN and the workflow will have an integration with QuickBooks
through a Python COM implementation.  Because all of the workflow side is
all web based, any user with access to a web browser can use the system.  We
are using Sendmail for mail services and Samba for Windows file service
across the VPN.  The hardware is all Intel-based.  We have an application
server, a document server (OpenBSD running Samba and Sendmail), a Windows
server for COM services and a sandbox server for development staging.

The base platform is OpenBSD and of course Zope on the application server.
We are using the Apache web server and PostgresSQL as the database for the
casework and accounting integration.

This solution was selected by the client over an alternative proprietary
investigations package we also offered to install and maintain.  The reasons
the client selected the OpenFlow solution are:
  1.. Flexibility to design a system to meet their process rather than
requiring them change to work with the process in a proprietary solution.
  2.. The proprietary solution was not being actively maintained to meet
current technology.  It was still client-server based, requiring Windows
Terminal Server for remote use.  Support from the software developer was
expensive and would have required much new coding.
  3.. There was no easy way to integrate the proprietary solution with
either their current accounting or future choices.  That meant all
accounting entries would be double work and prone to errors.  By using a
Windows server with the standard COM library, we could use the Windows based
Python to reach the COM object and integrate OpenFlow and the QuickBooks XML
interface which is designed for the Microsoft web services platform (.Net).
  4.. The Zope/PostgresSQL base is n-tier and can run on any common
operating platform.  The client has plans for growth and this platform is
extremely scalable.
  5.. The administration and hosting can be outsourced at a reasonable cost.
The client does not want to have to worry about having internal IT
resources.  We will provide those services.
  6.. The open source base means lower costs and wider options.  The cost of
a built to fit solution in this case is much less than the proprietary
solution and much more extendable.
It is important to understand we offered both the proprietary solution and
the OpenFlow solution side by side.  We costed hardware, licenses,
implementation, and maintenance for both solutions although we only sell
service.  Our competitors could only offer the proprietary solution and the
total cost of their proposals was far more than either of our proposals.  It
is also important to understand we came in discussing the business process
and not the eventual outcome.  When the client really looked at all the
things the proprietary package had in it that they frankly didn't need and
didn't want to add to their process, it was an easy choice.

Regards,

MIKE…
Make your Information your KnowlEDGE
Michael L. Dunham
Principal Consultant
2333 La Lima Way
Sacramento, CA 95833
Phone: 916-716-6073
Pager: 888-469-1963
Email: mic...@ke...
Webpage: http://www.kestrelworks.com/