If you are familiar with DSP standing for digital signal
processing, chances are you'll be a little confused by the world of
hosted services. Here another DSP, the development service provider
model, plays a key role in the outsourcing of the tools and
processes required to support software development.
The DSP market is in its early stages, but already companies such
as Borland and Oracle have outlined DSP offerings, and Butler Group
believes this approach has benefits to offer to development teams.
Several factors have highlighted the need for this type of service.
Software development, as with many other business activities, is
becoming increasingly distributed as companies spread across
geographical boundaries, and the Internet enables collaboration
between remote locations.
Development cycle times have become highly compressed, with the
need to bring e-business applications to market quickly, and to
seize an opportunity before your competitors move in ahead of you.
In response to these changes, software development teams are a more
fluid entity: there are more pronounced peaks and troughs in
development needs, greater use is made of contractors, and
particular projects may bring together smaller groups from around
the world.
Given this environment, project control becomes progressively more
complex, with the need to maintain source and version control,
track project status and tasks, and co-ordinate testing and
documentation, magnified beyond its expected level.
Added to this is the growing trend for "off-shoring", or
outsourcing development work to companies located overseas, where
skills are more plentiful and employment costs are cheaper.
India is the market leader in this field, having invested enormous
sums of money in producing
 | | "The first benefit of a DSP
service is that it provides access to the latest development
technology on a transparent cost basis" | | | | | |
| | Source: Butler Group | | |
|
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computer graduates with the latest skillsets. Even though
off-shoring devolves much of the development responsibility outside
the company, it is still necessary to co-ordinate this development
effort with the in-house project manager, and to pass the code back
to the customer, or to an application service provider (ASP) for
deployment.
DSP services
The DSP offering generally consists of
three components: First, there is an online development workbench,
providing a shared workspace where code can be created, stored and
updated. This will include repository facilities such as
check-in/check-out, version control and secure storage.
In some cases, the workbench includes the development tools
themselves, particularly where the DSP is a division of a tools
vendor. In other cases, developers will use their in-house
Integrated Development Environment (IDE) for actually creating
code.
The second component is a series of collaboration tools that
facilitate geographically dispersed teams working together on a
project. These may include instant messaging, discussion groups and
notice boards, so that developers can exchange ideas on the
project, share source code snippets, and provide mutual technical
support. This enables a virtual community to exist, centred on the
development project.
The third component is a project management capability, so that
project-related tasks can be initiated and tracked by an
administrator. This can include items such as a feature list, a
database of bugs and an audit trail of code changes. With the
necessary authentication, participants in any location can view the
status of either their own part of the project, or of the project
as a whole.
All these facilities are made available to the developer through a
standard Web browser, so that they can be accessed from practically
any location. This allows more flexible working practices,
including teleworking, which may offer a cost-reduction opportunity
for some projects.
Some DSPs have extended the front-end to their service into a
development portal, adding a number of useful development resources
such as code libraries and testing services to their core set of
tools.
The benefits
The first benefit of a DSP service is
that it provides access to the latest development technology on a
transparent cost basis. When developers in different locations are
collaborating on a project, it is commonplace to find that there
are various versions of tools in use, causing additional headaches
for project administration.
It also has the potential for substantial cost savings, because the
company can pay just for the development tools it uses, rather than
having to buy additional developer seats that may not be used once
the project is completed.
Second, a shared development platform makes it considerably easier
to create a virtual development team, which may consist of local
staff working alongside employees from other business units, and
also with contractors.
The team for a particular project can quickly be assembled for the
duration of a particular assignment, with the latest tools and a
collaborative environment made almost instantly available.
Third, organisations may have excellent developer skills but be
lacking in project management and administration skills. The DSP
can offer this expertise as a service to a project team, allowing
the company to focus on its core competencies. It also saves the
company the cost of having to buy the project management tools and
development infrastructure.
Security concerns
Concerns over security are perceived
as the biggest potential drawback of the DSP model. Companies are
understandably protective of their code - they have, after all,
invested a significant amount of time and money to create something
that often represents a vital competitive asset.
DSPs have addressed these concerns in two ways: By ensuring that
the development services themselves are secure, and by offering a
variant of the service that locates the code behind the customer's
own firewall.
Access to the DSP's services from the browser will typically be
secured by password-based sign-on and encrypted using Secure
Sockets Layer (SSL), and can optionally be bolstered by stronger
authentication methods.
Some DSPs also offer a service where either the whole development
suite, or just the source code repository, is located with the
customer itself, protected by the company's own firewall and
security infrastructure.
In this scenario, the customer pays for use of the development
tools as if they were provided as a service, but with the
reassurance that no physical assets are being stored outside the
organisation.
Market analysis
The DSP market is at an early stage,
but several significant players are offering this type of service.
An early entrant was Merant, whose so-called AsaP solution includes
use of development tools, administrative services, upgrades, online
training and documentation, maintenance and support, and
implementation, all covered by a service level agreement
(SLA).
Intel's online services division physically hosts the solution, and
guarantees 99% availability.
Borland is a new entrant to the market with its TeamSource service,
hoping to leverage its traditional base of loyal developers. The
company's DSP offering includes TeamSource Core Service, which
provides the hardware, software, network bandwidth, technical
support and management services; TeamSource Collab Service for
instant messaging, discussion groups and file exchange; and
TeamSource Code Service, which provides storage, sharing and
version control.
Borland has created a sophisticated infrastructure for its service,
which will allow additional development tools provided by its
partners to be added into these core services.
Oracle offers hosted development services in two specific
horizontal markets: OracleMobile Online Studio is an online service
for building, testing and deploying wireless applications. It lets
any developer, systems integrator or independent software vendor
quickly develop a mobile application that can be accessed from any
device.
Oracle Portal Studio is a service for developing Web portlets for
use with the Oracle 9i Application Server Portal. Both services
require nothing other than a Web browser for access, and are likely
to herald more extensive DSP offerings from the Oracle stable.
A number of smaller companies have also entered the DSP market,
often building on expertise gained from the open source movement.
While these companies have technically sound solutions, Butler
Group believes they will find it difficult to attract the larger
enterprises, which will not be prepared to entrust their
development to an unknown quantity.
Conclusions
Butler Group believes the DSP model has
the potential for rapid growth during the next two to three years.
As the development lifecycle comes under greater time pressure, and
involves participants in widely dispersed locations, the effort
involved in creating and supporting a development infrastructure is
increased.
The DSP model offers the latest development environment, available
anywhere and in any location, with the tools to create a virtual
project team almost instantly.
Where there is a stable development team in place, and a
predictable demand for development work, the DSP offering is
unlikely to be cost effective, but this scenario is less common
than it used to be.
In a less constant environment, where demand is variable and
development teams must be quickly assembled from different sources,
Butler Group considers that a hosted development environment offers
significant benefits.
About Butler Group Research and Advisory Services
This
paper is reproduced from Butler Group's Research and Advisory
Services. For more information on this and other technology focused
services, contact Mike James on 01482 586149, e-mail
mike.james@butlergroup.com
or visit
www.butlergroup.com/company/products.asp