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Case Study: Full Degree
(Adobe Acrobat (.pdf) version 
787k PDF)
Firm Saves 600% in Development Costs by Integrating
Reactor 5 Process Engine
The Challenge
Like many software developers, the professionals at Full Degree needed
to find a workflow solution that would integrate easily and fully complement
their product information management application. This was necessary so
that the firm could continue to support their enterprise, retail and manufacturer
customers without over-committing the invaluable engineering resources
needed for core development efforts.
Full Degree’s need was particularly acute as reliable task automation
is at the heart of their flagship Symphony Workbench product. By
cutting inefficient business processes out of a company’s workflow and
enabling all business users to update, share, and access product information
in real time, their product helps clients shorten production cycles, improve
customer satisfaction, and accelerate time to market.
Full Degree knew that the promise of an automated product information
management system could only be fully realized with an embedded workflow
solution.
Third Party Alternatives
Full Degree evaluated a wide range of products, including BEA WebLogic
Process Integrator™, but none of the vendors they considered was able
to provide the solution they needed. Each came up short for one or more
of the following reasons:
• Prohibitive cost for deployment
• Limited to working with a single platform
• Inflexible product design
• Onerous integration requirements
• Constantly changing APIs
Build versus Buy
The company also explored the possibility of building the program themselves
in-house - only to determine that a fully functional solution would cost
hundreds of thousands of dollars and consume more than a year’s worth
of programming time.
The Reactor 5 Solution
Full Degree then turned to Reactor 5 from Oak Grove Systems. Robust, easy
to integrate and platform independent, Reactor’s J2EE, XML-driven source
code solution provided Full Degree with a cost-effective solution they
could implement almost immediately. The Oak Grove Solution provided Full
Degree with:
• A single up-front fee with no ongoing royalty costs
• Application server and database neutrality
• Flexible product design
• Preconfigured integration points
• Standard sets of APIs for integration and user interface
customization
The total Reactor 5 integration time covered a period of approximately
six weeks. This involved a short time for the programmers to familiarize
themselves with the code, followed by the three weeks it took to integrate
the program into their development environment and get it running with
WebLogic - and then a few more days to integrate it with their systems.
The Final Results
Since choosing Reactor 5, Full Degree has already estimated that they
will achieve a final return on investment in excess of 600% based on the
development costs saved by integrating Reactor 5. Faster time-to-market
has also been a result by cutting the time to add this core functionality
by at least one year.
Most important of all, however, was the functionality of Reactor itself.
“At Full Degree, our customers demand nothing less than a best of breed
product through and through,” said Mike Seilnacht, chief architect at
Full Degree. “And if I’m going to integrate someone else’s software into
my application, it had better be at least as good as if we had designed
it ourselves. And on that count, Reactor fills the bill.”
About Full Degree
Based in Palo Alto, Calif., Full Degree
is reinventing the way enterprises manage, distribute and publish detailed
product information. The company’s software and service solutions make
enterprises easier to do business with by ensuring that the most consistent
and complete product information is available across the enterprise value
chain and at every customer interaction.
Full Degree’s modular and scalable system can be customized for businesses
of all sizes and industries.
In addition, Full Degree complements its product offerings with business
consulting, application design, technical support, training, and installation
and implementation services. Full Degree is privately held and has received
funding from Convergence Partners, a leading Silicon Valley-based venture
capital firm, among others.
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