Implementation of Web services for WMS

I am working on Phase A of a project whereby our existing solution’s file transmission channel will be replaced with web services, integrating with our Customer’s web service gateway.  The project is pretty tight as we are aware of the requirements last month and to implement by end-March for go-live with Customer.  As such, we have to manage in a proper project management processes to ensure the needed scopes are covered and “scope creep” are identified to ensure we can deliver the time-lines.

The in-scopes activities are:

1. Identify data elements’ gaps, review and agree on the correct data mappings for the mandatory elements against the web services’ requirements.
2. Identify operational gaps due to the new requirements, review and agree on the appropriate change management for the existing business processes.
3. Identify solution changes for the existing Warehouse Management solution, especially on the data extraction/stored procedures.
4. Identify the solution design for web service API for 4 countries.
5. Development of the web service API, with reference to the Web service specifications/WSDL from the Customer’s requirements.
6. Develop test plan (i.e. test strategy, schedule, entry/exit criteria etc) for System Testing and User Acceptance Testing.
7. Deployment plan (i.e. installation of web service API, database refresh).

The out-scopes activities are:

1. No new WMS functionality included in this phase of the project.
2. No new inter-related sub-project included in this phase of the project.

Wrap-up on the commerical asap!!!

Last 3 months we been working on the commerical for a Customer account.  This had been ongoing for months and nothing tangible was addressed throughout the whole process.

Recently I have a conference meeting with the Customer.  Note that I was only involved with providing estimations of the IT project activities and costings.  I did not have any ideas of the discussions my Business Account Manager had with the Customer.  In joining to the call, to my initutions, the customer will like to know the details of the project activities/man-days that been addressed from my Business Account manager.  In the middle of the discussions, it was brought out from the Customer as he liked to know how we derived the maximum numbers of days for the development components.  I was of course, stuck with this question as I was not sure if the Account Manager mentioned anything like it was a new solution or ‘off-the-shelf’ software that involves customisations for the proposal.  Again, with I can think of, I mentioned the latter and Customer pointed out that they like to know the details of the development for that components and to share with them promptly as they are in a stage of negotiating the contract and this component is the main key to clear off before deciding on the contract.

True enough, after the discussion my Manager phoned me up and requested me to write out the activities and shared with the rest before sending to the Customer.  I thought I have already shared the information with them when I was in Sydney with the teams, addressing the changes and needed works on those changes.

I do hope that we can clear this thing up as soon as possible as the teams are pressuring us on the internal charging mechanisms for their efforts for this project.

Application-Search Optimisations for Web Application

Last 2 months we had been concentrating on the application performance, in the midst in resolving the network issues.

Findings that the SQL-Server and Web server seems to be as disadvantages for the Application.  The allocated memory-settings caused some swapping, which lead to additionally and slowly I/O. The current memory-settings are not useful for any productive running and there may be some memory hip-cups during our testing.

We performed the page loading’s responses time in 2 criterias by one full search  and a partial search (limit the nos of records shown in per page).  The outcome of the test results for these 2 criterias are different.  One possible reason is that the used SQL server does not support paging.

When we load the first 30 records the used SQL-Statement produces a searching result of 36.34 records in the database. I assume, that during the build up of the side (through the application) all 36.34 records will be used to identify the first 30 references. The rest of the 36.34 records will be dismissed afterwards. This assumption is leaned on the result, that when demanding the next 30 records, the same SQL-Statement turns towards the database and – again- the outcome are 36.34 references. This is caused by the used SQL-Server, which does not support any LIMIT-clause within the SELECT-Statement.  From this investigation there may be some redesign of the application OR the switch to some other SQL-Server to remedy the problem.  Redesign of the application seem unrealistic, as the application is still new, likewise switching to another SQL-Server needs to be evaluated in a detailed manner and could indeed be some realistic option.

Defining SLA of Online Procurement System

Not another topic to discuss about service level agreement.

In one of the accounts I am managing, we are discussing on moving a application server in Singapore to host in England.  The Singapore team here is concerning with the types of support tools and working relationship with the English service provider in terms of the remote access tools to access the server for application installations, troubleshooting etc.  The another issue is to consider the timezone differences with the teams in providing support for the Customer who is located in Germany.

We need to identify the responsiblities of the different area of support in terms of infastructure and application teams, the common issues and transition to one of our German colleagues to pick up the basic support processes and procedures as acting as 1st point of contact with the Customer.

Hopefully the team is able to get inputs from Customer from last night discussion on moving forward for the migration activity in the couple of months’ time.