LARGE MEDIA BROAD CASTING CORPORATION

Three Pillar Global partnered with a large media corporation to establish an on-going software product capability supporting the development of internal web-based software products and infrastructure. This would anchor media content management and publishing in conjunction with the corporation's web presence. Read More The scope of effort included the following:

• Organizational consulting and training to establish appropriate organizational structure and practices to support product management and product development methodologies
• Staffing of Product Managers, Program Managers, Engineering Managers, Technical Leads, and Software Engineers to support development
• Oversight of the technical delivery of software product from other vendors to ensure technical conformity to requirements and standards

Program Management is a key element of the services provided. Three Pillar coordinated development efforts and integrated Three Pillar Global team members into the client's workforce to ensure alignment of activities across all parties.

The complex environment consisted of multiple, concurrent and co-dependent product development efforts across multiple teams that included both the client and Three Pillar Global staff. Three Pillar played an active role in coordinating and managing the product activities in all phases of the development life cycle.

Products under development include content management systems, video portals, complex web platforms, single sign-on user management systems, and educational platforms. The development and operational environments for these products is the Amazon AWS cloud and consists of over 60 virtual machines under management. The applications are developed specifically to take advantage of the special capabilities that this cloud environment offers such as operational scaling through automated capacity management utilizing the ability to add and remove servers based on load.

The Three Pillar team continues to work across two major divisions of the large media broadcasting corporation and often acts as the coordinating element for technology architecture alignment between the two organizations.


 DoD APPLICATION

Three Pillar Global provides database, engineering and .Net software development support for a Department of Defense (DoD) application. From a recruit's first sign of interest, the infrastructure we've engineered and the software we've developed supports the tracking and documentation of that recruit until they make it to boot camp. This application is a complex, robust document management repository for all recruits. Read More

Three Pillar is the sole provider of systems and database engineering for the whole of the infrastructure that comprises the application. This includes F5 BigIP load balancers, front end web servers, clustered SQL databases and an EMC SAN. Our developers are in key positions and we make up about one third of the development team.

Three Pillar personnel were instrumental in the design, planning and implementation of a complete hardware refresh. This included analysis of the existing infrastructure, capacity planning based on current and planned user base, gathering quotes from trusted vendors, complete infrastructure design and implementation.

The application is mission critical and requires 24x7, 365-days-a-week up time and support. Three Pillar Global supports and maintains this critical uptime, and team members hold key leadership roles in both development and infrastructure support.

Because the Three Pillar team presence crosses all architectural and functional areas (systems, data base, and development) of the application, we are able to provide significant depth and insight on the micro and macro levels. This allows us to deliver a level of support not often found in most applications or system environments.

Three Pillar Global utilizes or provides support in the following relevant areas: .Net application development, IIS, Windows 2003, Clustered SQL 2005, BIGIP Load balancers, EMC SAN, system design and optimization, leadership.

Three Pillar Global led the effort and conducted the migration and implementation of BigIP's. This provided increased performance and greater control of the data. The BigIP's allow for robust fault tolerance and increased control and reporting of the network traffic. The new SAN was configured for greater performance by utilizing RAID 10 on the disks that key data bases reside on. Additional the SAN was configured for optimal data base growth and expansion.

Because of our past performance excellence, the Prime contractor continually turns to Three Pillar Global when they need development or infrastructure support. In the past year Three Pillar developers have added significant new functionality for enlisted and officers in the areas of scheduling, training, reporting and continue to provide general application development support. All this was done in an environment with constant requirement change requests and on very tight schedules. We were able to overcome these difficulties by staying true to our collaborative methodological principles that puts a high premium on communication and understanding.


 LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

This website was launched as a part of the New Visitor Experience (NVE) project spearheaded by the Library of Congress. The project's goal included delivery of a state-of-the-art, interactive, technologically compelling solution designed to re-shape how visitors view American History. It brings historical treasures contained within the walls of the Library to life. Visitors are now able to experience many great treasures in an interactive form. The information is offered online through the http://myloc.gov website and on on-site kiosks driven by Windows Presentation Foundation. Read More

Portal Solutions was chosen by Microsoft to implement the custom Microsoft Office SharePoint (MOSS) 2007, based Content Management System (CMS). The CMS system is capable of storing and organizing information about the Library's many artifacts, and exposing this information through to users via the web services endpoints for utilization by the interactive kiosks in the Library. Initial project implementation went from 10/30/07 to 06/27/08. Support and enhancements have been ongoing since.

The project relies on SharePoint content types and stores information in many categories, including both exhibit objects and information about the physical exhibit spaces. Additionally, a number of the exhibit objects leverage Silverlight 1.1 and Flash applets for a rich interactive experience. The standard set of SharePoint columns was extended with custom types capable of storing many-to-many relationships to organize and group related artifacts. The custom data types also allow content contributors to relate objects to hierarchies of choices.

Since many artifacts contain associated high resolution imagery and videos, a separate BLOB asset store was implemented to provide rapid and optimized retrieval of assets located outside of SharePoint content databases. In addition, a management user interface allows staff to add additional content with ease.This website uses the latest AJAX technology to support interactive features that include exhibit object bookmarking and is compliant with the XHTML 1.1 Transitional profile. In keeping with profiles and the Library's established track record of providing highly accessible online resources, a separate emphasis was placed on Section 518 and WCAG 1.1 compliance during the implementation phase of the site's master pages, page layouts and individual controls.

The website has an extensive role-based security baseline supporting content authoring and publishing processes. The site extends the custom security providers developed for the general public access and grants content editing and publishing rights to internally registered users.


 GLOBAL MANAGEMENT CONSULTING FIRM


Retained by a leading global management consulting firm, Portal Solutions implemented a highly visually driven and interactive intranet and knowledge management solution built with MOSS 2007.

This was a large scale SharePoint 2007 development project that also featured multiple custom web parts including a news ticker, profile highlight, rotating story articles with images, weather, interactive map, organization chart, and RSS reader with tabbed view. Read More

The main areas of functionality and customization included:

• Custom branding of Sharepoint UI giving MOSS a web 2.0 look and feel
• Color palettes for portal sites
• Custom page layouts / site templates
• Silverlight integration
• Enhanced navigation system with fly-out menus and custom styling
• "Facebook" look and feel providing advanced profile management and active directory integration
• Advanced search using Google Search Appliance and custom developed integration with MOSS (people, document types, wikis & blogs, and all content)
• Knowledge management
• Document upload and classification against multiple taxonomies
• Auto suggestions of document classification during upload process
• Document preview
• Engagement Tracking and Management
• Engagement life cycle workflows
• Documents and record submission against client engagements
• Knowledge dashboard of current and past client engagements including tagging
• Status and history of document submission against an engagement
• Advanced document search with parametric search results and document preview and commenting capabilities
• Resource management
• People search with photo, profile snapshots including basic information, skills & expertise, resumes, authored materials, and current and past projects
• Mobility manager for staff
• Resume management