Product development Center (PdC) for Cisco Systems
Business objective in ACE XML Gateway product development
In spring 2007, after a strategic acquisition of Reactivity, Inc., Cisco Systems launched Cisco ACE XML Gateway product development. Reactivity Inc. was in the front line of XML-based Web services solutions market. Acquisition integrated Reactivity team into Cisco Systems Application Delivery Business Unit, where they continued to work on XML Gateway product. Mirantis Inc. and Reactivity Inc. were partners for more than a year by then. A group of engineers in Mirantis Inc., Saratov branch, started working on one of Reactivity XML Gateway extensions in 2006.
Cisco Systems management team made a decision to establish and maintain a dedicated production environment in Russia with a core competence in product development and maintenance. Mirantis Inc. took the responsibility to build a Cisco Systems Center of Excellence, meeting all the requirements.
Solution: Center of Excellence
By June, 2007 Mirantis, Inc. built a unique Cisco Systems Center of Excellence (CoE) in Saratov which became the first Cisco Systems RnD center in Eastern Europe. Competent specialists with extensive expertise and profound knowledge in the area of scientific research and product development were assembled into a team. Among them are European champions of ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest (ACM ICPC) of 2002 and 2006 and an ACM ICPC world champion of 2006.
Nowadays Saratov-based CoE remains the only Cisco Systems RnD center in Eastern Europe. The group is integrated into the corporate culture of the customer and performs processes according to Cisco Systems standards. The detailed analysis of the customer’s expectations helped shape the work process strategy, according to which the Saratov-based Cisco Systems CoE was assigned to create solutions for XML Web services market.
To evaluate and improve customer’s level of satisfaction a Customer Survey program was developed. Mirantis and Cisco Systems active partnership determined predictable results of Cisco Systems CoE performance and helped to develop effective solutions for the customer.
Close partnership between Saratov CoE team and Cisco ACE XML Gateway team, based in San Jose (CA, USA) made it possible to get the maximal mutual understanding in Cisco ACE XML Gateway product development and support. In addition to that Cisco Systems CoE team developed Cisco ACE WAF (Web Application Firewall), a new firewall product filtering Web applications traffic.
Saratov-based Cisco Systems CoE high performance resulted from a competent approach of Mirantis executive staff in team building and management, accurate individual assessment of employee’s potential and total compliance of every engineer with the sphere of Excellence. The key factor, which determined success, got to be an effective management in product development & maintenance and efficient workflow coordination between Cisco Systems Application Delivery Business Unit and Cisco Systems CoE.
Results of Cisco Systems and Mirantis, Inc. cooperation:
- Mirantis builds the only in Eastern Europe Cisco R&D Center.
- The number of employees got 3.5 times as big from June, 2007 to May, 2008.
- Saratov-based Cisco Systems CoE was assigned to take full control over ACE XML Gateway product development and support.
- Saratov-based Cisco Systems CoE developed Cisco ACE WAF (Web Application Firewall) product.
- Java extensions automated testing system was developed along with the following Java extensions:
- Mail-services integration
- WebsphereMQ integration
- NTLM protocol support
- JMS support
- Authorization in Oracle Access Manager
- Authorization in Tivoli Access Manager
- Authorization in Netegrity SiteMinder
