SpringSource's modular architecture and design has enabled BlueStar's IT staffers to develop systems throughout the company's enterprise architecture, including Web, database, messaging, business process management and supply chain integration systems, says Tantachuco.
To aid in the software development, Morgan authorized the creation of an application development center in Lima, Peru, in January 2007. BlueStar settled on Lima because there's only a one-hour time difference between it and Chicago, the city has a sizable population of IT professionals, and its infrastructure has improved dramatically in recent years, says Selyn Chavez, a systems architect who works in the development center there.
Keen set an aggressive timeline for the 25-person project team (including the first set of Lima-based developers) to build a new IT infrastructure for the company within a year. The use of the SpringSource framework kept the project moving briskly, since the design of the software enabled the project team members to view each of the system components that their colleagues were working on, says Keen.
But there were difficulties. "Open source always has some thorns in it, but so does commercial software," says Keen. One of the biggest challenges, he says, was simultaneously "rowing, bailing and building the new boat."
The IT organization was faced not only with building a new enterprise platform, but also with maintaining the existing platforms while building a strategic plan to seamlessly migrate to the new system and replace third-party vendors, Keen explains. "Not only did we have to revamp the entire infrastructure, but also revamp all best practices and standard operating procedures," he says. "This required extensive planning, coordination and collaboration with our business team members."
It also required "many early mornings, late evenings, and long weekends, but the results were well worth the time investment," Keen adds.
And that investment ended up being far less than it might have been. Keen says that the aggregate code count for the NextStar system is about 40,000 lines -- a fraction of the 5 million to 6 million lines that one consultant estimated it would take to support BlueStar's business requirements.