Service: custom software development
Solution type: desktop application
Business area: security & data protection
Client: a leading provider of powerful data security solutions offering a broad range of centrally managed data security applications.
Period: 2000-2002
Key problems
To satisfy the growing requirements for enterprise networks security, the Client started to implement the idea of a centrally-managed security system. To effectuate the system in a reasonable time-frame, the Client would have had to expand its development team quickly. However, it was quite difficult and expensive to hire suitable staff in short time. So, the company offered its long-term partner Arcadia, ZAO to develop this system in collaboration.
Solution
Having started with developing a system for the central management of data security, the experts soon arrived to a more general management framework capable of managing multiple applications running on multiple operating systems and able to integrate with different enterprise management systems. This framework is based on the three-tier architecture that consists of the agent software, installed on the end-user machines, management server, and a management console.
Policy-based management became the cornerstone of the framework. Differing radically from the traditional network management methods, it essentially expanded the opportunities of network administration.
- The policy-based management framework provides for: remote software distribution, remote configuration, status viewing, and event handling.
- Remote software distribution includes: first-time installation, updates and upgrades either from the management server or via the Internet.
- Remote configuration includes: automatic registration of new workstations with the management console, monitoring of the products' behavior, and launching different product-specific operations.
- Status viewing allows viewing the statistics reported by the products and reviewing the product settings at the workstations.
- Event handling includes logging and alerting. The alerts can be routed to the management console, pager, GSM SMS, e-mail, fax, and SNMP-based monitoring systems.
- The management system is fairly transparent to the end-user.
Arcadia's team also performed internationalization of the management framework in order to enable its localization to Japanese and Chinese.
Technologies used
- C++
- cross-platform development
- internationalization
- RPC
- TCP/IP
- SMTP
- SNMP
- HTTP
- Windows Networking
- ISAPI
- Java
Duration and scope
34 months / ~ 612 person-months