Sofware Development

The key to a solid system is structure. The experience the EBS team brings to the table can't be undervalued. With over 25 combined years of experience and 12 years of .NET experience alone, our clients have come to know and expect a certain level of software development to come out of EBS.

Our diverse software engineering background makes us uniquely qualified to participate in almost any type of software development project. We have strong expertise in developing Web and Desktop Applications using the following technologies:

ASP.NET	C#.NET	ASP.NET, Web User Controls	eBay SDK
VB.NET	SQL Server	HTML	PayPal, Payment Services API
ADO.NET	ASP	XML	PHP
SOAP	DIME	DHTML	JavaScript

The core strength of our team is structure and the other pieces of the foundation fit right on top. These five pieces include analysis, design, development, testing, and deployment. All five are outlined below.

Analsys n. pl. a·nal·y·ses - The separation of an intellectual or material whole into its constituent parts for individual study.  

What this term means to us is the ability to understand the bigger picture and take the time to understand not only the business requirements, but also what the final output should look like and what the user is trying to accomplish. We are a team of problem solvers, and before running into the fire, it is our goal to understand the problems, ask questions and sometimes even challenge the answers received in order to make sure what we deliver is beyond the expectations of the client.

Design v. de·signed - To plan out in systematic, usually graphic form

To design a solid system which will be both scalable and user-friendly, a lot of thought and communication must go into the process. To be blunt and to the point, a scalable system which has no users is a piece of junk and a waste of money. Our experience has shown and demanded us to incorporate the feedback and suggestions of the end-user early on during the process, because ultimately, is this person or groups of people who will be using it the most.

Development n. de·vel·op·ment  - Dictionary.com defines development as “The determination of the best techniques for applying a new device or process to production of goods or services”.

Work harder, not longer. Strive to work smarter, not harder. The development process can only be successful if the previous two steps have been done correctly. Knowing what to develop and eliminating all of the guess-work is very important and the groundwork must be laid early on. .NET allows our teams to build component-based systems to maximize efficiency, eliminate redundancy, and build re-usable components to drive down production time and allow us to bring the product to market sooner. Our development cycle includes communication on a regular basis within the team, through the team lead, and ultimately through status reports to the client. These important elements will allow us to save time and avoid surprises during testing and deployment.

Testing n. test - Dictionary.com defines this noun as “A procedure for critical evaluation; a means of determining the presence, quality, or truth of something; a trial”.

Test the application, test the common paths, and test the uncommon paths. Or maybe even be very creative and test the path nobody would ever naturally evolve. The testing phase of our software development life cycle using bug software and other tools is a crucial stage and one that must be accounted for. Our team has significant experience developing test plans, database scripts, and testing utilities to ensure the application we are producing is of high quality and ultimately bug-free. We strive for involvement of the client at this time, allowing them familiarize themselves with the application and helps us verify the business rules and processes of the application. Knowing what to test, how to test, and when testing is completed is as important as the noun itself.

Deployment v. de·ployed, de·ploy·ing, de·ploys – Dictionary.com defines this verb as “To bring (forces or material) into action”.

Deployment or the release of our software applications usually are with high energy and excitement. The goal of our team is to deliver high quality, bug free software applications each and every time we release. The idea of that is very good; however the reality is there are usually small issues and small bumps along the way. This is where the experience of our team cannot be matched. Many of the systems we build are not always rocket science and many out there can probably match up, however when systems don't work exactly as expected as soon as the deployment packages are run, our problem solving skills are key. This is not only true during initial releases; however different versions and upgrades have environments which cannot be controlled. Whether the problem is an issue related to folder permissions and system not having the proper rights to serialize a file and save it to disk or a missing index on a database table is causing the system to act unusually slowly, it is our problem solving abilities which help us quickly diagnose and solve the problem.