Automated BizTalk Platform for Cost-Effective SaaS Service Delivery

Summary

A European SaaS provider's IT department was manually performing most of its featured services — hosting, customer registration, order processing, and more — causing delays and high operational expenses. INNERLUXES designed and built a fully automated, multi-level Service Delivery Platform on an enterprise service bus (ESB) architecture, helping the Client reduce maintenance costs, speed up service delivery, and easily add new services.

About the Client

The Client is a European SaaS provider.

The Challenge

The Client's IT department was manually performing most of the featured services, including hosting, customer registration, order processing, and others. This caused delays and increased operational expenses. The Client decided to implement a fully automated web solution to reduce maintenance costs and improve customer service quality.

The Solution

INNERLUXES proposed a Service Delivery Platform — a multi-level solution covering service retailing, administration, and support activities. The core of the system, which handles general order processing, was built according to the enterprise service bus (ESB) architecture, with MS BizTalk Server 2009 and the MS BizTalk ESB Toolkit 2.0 as key components.

In the new system, all external services and platforms are interconnected via the ESB, so MS BizTalk Server ensures the interaction between the order management system and the front-end systems. Web-enabled services perform service management, and the order-handling service layer acts as an interface between the front end (a web portal) and the SDP core.

To communicate with foreign suppliers and service providers, the web-enabled services interact with a number of hosted services through the hosting messaging and collaboration platform, as well as unique self-developed services. This architecture enabled the Client to introduce additional services with minimal development effort.

The Results

• Thanks to faster service rendering, the solution helped the Client attract more customers and achieve significant cost savings.
• The Client is now able to expand the system and provide extra services on a customer's demand.

Technologies and Tools

.NET Framework, WCF, MS SQL Server, MS BizTalk Server 2009, Microsoft BizTalk ESB Toolkit 2.0, MS HMC 4.0, MS Active Directory, MS Exchange Server, MS Office Communications Server, MS SharePoint Server, Microsoft Dynamics CRM Server.