Solution: Service-Oriented Architecture
Product: INFINITE NET
Industry: Government
Country: Seychelles

INFINITE Corporation’s INFINITE NET is the cornerstone of the SOA implementation of the Seychelles Marketing Board’s systems. The development of Service-Oriented Architecture and related business services has enabled the rapid creation of many new composite applications and business processes.

With each phase of the integration of this technology completed in less than 2 months, the Board is now benefiting from a highly flexible infrastructure geared to managing business change and technology improvements in low-risk environment.

Often described as the most beautiful in the world, the 115 islands of Seychelles are spread over 1.3million square kilometers of the western Indian Ocean. Seychelles has historically been a melting pot for settlers from Africa, Asia and Europe - with successive ethnic groups infusing a cultural and economic legacy thereby enriching the distinctive heritage of the islands. The economy of Seychelles has similarly flourished over the years with the hitherto total dependence on imported goods slowly giving way to an energetic local manufacture base, new export opportunities and increased wealth and security for the citizens of Seychelles.

SMB (Seychelles Marketing Board) has played a crucial role in this economic resurgence of Seychelles. Ever since its formation in 1985, SMB’s role has been to ensure a steady flow of essential commodities at stable prices to the end customer. Today, as the single largest business in Seychelles and a major employer, SMB continues to play a significant role as a manufacturer, importer, exporter, retailer and employment generator in this small island economy.

Merging departments and integrating platforms have always created change and problems. The requirement to integrate legacy iSeries-based applications with Windows-based ones created a significant opportunity to grow productivity, but it also led to a number of challenges, especially for the IT group. The IT platform was an older iSeries system that did not integrate well with other open systems such as Windows. “The architecture simply wasn’t flexible enough to support the needs of this dynamic marketing group”, says Amitava Sutradhar. “The development teams were struggling to keep pace with the changing needs of the Board.

The users had to switch between two separate applications to understand travel client needs. And we needed to integrate our call center with the back-office iSeries to provide customers wit a real-time multi-channel service. With the decision taken to standardize on one common technology architecture, SMB began a stringent review o alternative application integration solutions. We compared INFINITE NET with IBM’s WebSphere and Seagull’s Transidiom, but it was INFINITE Corporation’s visionary Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA), which convinced us that INFINITE Corporation was the right choice. Unlike IBM WebSphere and the Seagull product line, INFINITE Corporation’s INFINITE NET represents a single, unified solution, not just a collection of independent applications.

Following the standardization on INFINITE Corporation INFINITE NET for future strategic development and infrastructure integration, the first program undertaken by SMB was to integrate the Board’s call center with the backend systems. This represented a fundamental business process integration problem. The main challenge was to develop more than 20 workflows, which managed the call center agents work and connect these with the back and services. Here, the team used the web Services functionality of INFINITE Corporation INFINITE NET to develop the processes as secure Web Services, allowing the call center workflows to be accessed via well defined Web Services interfaces.

The INFINITE Software INFINITE NET solution has enabled SMB to overcome the primary challenge of integrating the IT assets of the two platforms and departments in a very short timeframe. With each phase completed in less than 2 months, the Board is now benefiting from a highly flexible infrastructure geared to managing business change and technology improvements.

“Thanks to Service-Oriented Architecture and INFINITE NET, SMB performed the integration on time. Based on this highly successful integration program, SMB will continue to use the INFINITE Corporation INFINITE NET solution. As the core platform for developing applications and integration solutions.” Sutradhar continues.

This rapid change management is complemented by reduced risk. The Board is confident that whatever the scenario, the integration of another department or platform, or the adoption of a new technology, the INFINITE Corporation environment will enable the company to adapt its systems quickly, cost-effectively, and without risk to the Board. “We now have the freedom to choose whichever technology we need. And we can address the time to market for new products, all within a flexible, stable environment,” concludes Sutradhar.

INFINITE Corporation, (OTC: IFSC) is a global provider of software and services for the legacy extension and financial services markets. The company is headquartered in Orange County, CA and operates globally from offices in Asia, North America, South America and Europe. The Company's products are marketed under the brand names INFINITE and LPS. INFINITE Corporation enjoys significant industry experience and many client engagements.