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An interview with Mark Reed on porting desktop Heat product into web in 2 months by 1 developer:

NetworkD is a leading provider of desktop systems management and help desk solutions. NetworkD’s customers have long yearned for web based access to Frontrange’s HEAT® service and support system. NetworkD decided to develop a product called iNferno which provides analyst access via the web to Frontrange HEAT® customers without necessitating terminal services. NetworkD’s developers needed to find a means through which to recreate the complex user interface which was robust, secure and maintainable.

Established in 1996, NetworkD is the number one provider of Infrastructure Management Software and Business Process Solutions - designed and delivered on a global platform. NetworkD specializes in LANDesk® implementation, Custom Development, Software Packaging and other IT Systems Management consulting services.

Frontrange’s HEAT® service and support system users have longed for a web based interface to the product for years. NetworkD were challenged to develop a web based user interface which would provide the level of interactivity and responsiveness required by HEAT® users. The goal was to achieve the same look & feel of the desktop based system without requiring any additional technologies beyond a browser and a regular HTTP server.

 NetworkD’s iNFerno solution provides access to the HEAT® system via a browser. The solution replaces Frontrange’s current practice of accessing HEAT® via terminal services enabling business users immediate access to HEAT® screens.

Mark Reed, NetworkD’s Group Development Lead shared his experience with Visual WebGui:

How have customers reacted to iNFerno?

Reactions have been great and all the customers who have seen it are surprised at how well we are able to re-create Frontrange HEAT® inside a web-interface. What other technologies were you looking at for developing iNFerno? We first started developing iNferno using Microsoft Ajax and ComponentArt WebUI and there were two major issues:

1. Performance was horrible with some actions taking 10-15 seconds.
2. No matter how hard I tried I could not get the rendering of the screens correctly especially when taking into account different screen sizes and re-sizeable forms.

Once we went to Visual WebGui we saw anywhere from 100%-400%+ improvement in speed those issues that took 15 seconds went down to 2-3 seconds.

How did you decide on using Visual WebGui?

I stumbled upon VWG and installed it and after 1 hour I was convinced that we needed to port the entire project over and that any current time lose would be made up down the road with ease of maintainability so I actually took it upon myself to port it to Visual WebGui knowing that it was still a bit immature.

I was presenting a business case to my manager to purchase it when the project became open source under the LGPL and it sealed the deal for me to begin the migration. It only took about 2 weeks to re-write what took 2 months to create.

How many developers were involved with developing iNFerno? How long was the development process?

There was one developer involved. It took four months for the first version to be released.

So what are your plans for incorporating Visual WebGui in NetworkD’s products?

We are currently working on Web Dashboards for iLaunchPad, iRecall and we will soon be porting iControl for Windows and iSurvey over to it 1st half of next year. We may possibly be re-writing the main iLaunchPad interface as a dual application.

What was the business impact of using Visual WebGui?

The biggest impact has been the speed of development. We are able to create more professional looking products with less time and effort then before and saved us from having to hire additional staff. The fact that we could integrate other tools that we bought such as Data Dynamics saved us a lot of time as well.

Screenshots from the Application

The main iNferno™ interface acts as a web-based alert monitor as well as adding additional features requested on many occasions by HEAT® users. Utilising a truly web-based interface, iNferno™ provides a clear representation of the groups and work lists associated with an analyst including all of the important support data they require for their role.

iNferno™ renders HEAT forms just as they have been designed through the HEAT® Administrator editor removing the need to design specific web forms for use by analysts. As well as rendering forms, iNferno™ supports many of the capabilities that make HEAT® so flexible and powerful including AutoTask functions that allow call automation and launching of external applications. Other NetworkD components are supported for launch via HEAT® auto-tasks within iNferno including iLaunchPad™ and iControl for Windows™.

Customer details are also fully accessible via the toolbar icons including customer profiles, configuration item data, and caller history.