Offshore Development Center for Multiservice-Voice, Video, Data & Security Gateway Router
Company
This case study demonstrates Calsoft Labs’ expertise in Enterprise & Carrier Class Multiservice Gateway Router and other Network Access Device Development as well as Calsoft Labs’ capability to execute and deliver projects successfully from a cost effective Offshore Development Center in India.
Client
The client is a leading provider of multi-service business gateways that enable service providers to deploy highly integrated, robust, and easy-to-manage IP communications solutions to SMB and enterprise customers. The client’s all-in-one customer premises devices, supported by the company’s revolutionary QoS (GoS) mechanisms, ensure the secure, reliable and cost-effective delivery of converged VoIP, data and video services.
Challenge
With a growing customer base, the client’s R&D team faced increased pressure to add new features and provide rapid bug fixes to their existing products and at the same time had to focus on the development of their next generation products. The client had limitations to expand the onsite R&D team due to the scarcity of competent R&D engineers and ballooning costs.
Solution
The client selected Calsoft Labs, a niche player in the networking domain, as its offshore partner to take care of sustenance engineering and enhancements to the product. This would give their in-house R&D team the freedom to focus on new product development.
The Calsoft Labs engineering team’s extensive experience in various business and home routers/gateways allowed the client to deliver bug-free firmware to its customers quickly through rapid resolution of existing bugs and enhancement in its feature set.
The Calsoft Labs team set up labs in their Chennai and Bangalore offices. A thorough inspection of the client's lab setup was followed by identifying those equipment that could not be replicated offshore. The team setup a VPN connection between the two facilities effectively leveraging the client’s resources and ensuring consistent testing between the onsite and offshore teams.
A pilot/minor release and lab setup gained the clients confidence in the team and its capability and the offshore center was entrusted with several enhancements to the existing product in areas of VOIP, Security and EMS/NMS features.
The Calsoft Labs team also helped the client set processes for effective offshore development and took ownership of most of the product software within a few months.
In addition, the team addressed the following:
- Fulfilling Immediate Needs of the client: Calsoft Labs provided a strong team with relevant expertise, quickly ramped up when needed, setup the lab and ensured that knowledge transfer was done quickly.
- Complete Product Sustenance:
- A rigorous development process with systematic and streamlined project planning, experienced program management and clear and consistent communication with Client
- All product documentation is kept up to date with development
- Complete product line coverage ranging from low end SMB products to Enterprise/Carrier class flavors of the product
- Deliver Turnkey Projects to build new functionality and complete EMS/NMS system for their product
- Complete redesign of EMS system based on Calsoft’s Java based EMS framework
- Phased development catering to Client’s market requirements
The figure below depicts a feature rich, complex product development undertaken by the Calsoft Labs team for the client
Benefits
- Increased customer satisfaction for the client’s customers with faster bug fixes as well as feature enhancements
- Drastic increase in percentage of bugs fixed - from 4% to 75% in just 6 months
- Maximize return on investment with engineering deliverables right from initial phase of engagement
- Increase product development productivity with a flexible, proven partner approach
- Quick ramp up with skilled engineers
- Achieve the client’s overall objective at a lower cost and with guaranteed support from a proven technology vendor
Technology
Calsoft Labs partnered with the client in development, maintenance of the product covering various technology areas given below.
| Switching / Routing / Gateway | LAN Ethernet Switch | WAN Ethernet Interface | MAC Filtering | WAN Connection – Cisco HDLC | Proxy ARP and VLAN | Multi-Link PPP over two or more T1/E1 lines, ADSL |
| Device Management Support | Firmware upgrades and License key related enhancements | CLI | Web UI and Web Wizard | Network Monitoring | Network Protocol State Machines | sending and receiving of SNMP traps |
| Security | Firewall and NAT related feature enhancement | NAT bypass | Remote NAT Traversal, IPSEC VPN, Authentication, IDS |
| VoIP Session Controller | SIP Trunking and SIP Forking | Registration of end points to the SIP server | Session state machine | QoS administration , ISDN Signalling | VOIP Testing |
| EMS/ NMS System | ava Based EMS framework Solution | Presentation Layer JSP, JavaScript, HTML, CSS | Web Server with SQL db | SNMP Interface | Complete FCAP features | Integration with Google Maps Ex-GWT | User Mgmt / Authentication |