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CASESTUDY

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T

he federal trade commissions

longlist of responsibilities includeshandling consumer fraud com-plaints, the National Do Not CallRegistry for marketers and iden-tity theft cases. Until recently, thecommissions IT systems handled

these different types of complaintsseparately without communicating

with one another.But that all changed when Bluedog, a systems

integrator and software developer based in Dublin,Ireland, helped bring to fruition an SOA (service-oriented architecture) that modernized the FTCsCIS (consumer information system). The $1.2 mil-lion upgrade involved bringing open standards anda Web-based architecture to the core system.

OCTOBER 2006

INTEGRATOR AND SOFTWARE DEVELOPER BLUEDOG

HELPS THE FTC STREAMLINE ITS IT SYSTEMS

By Lynn Haber

With a reputation as a problem solver, Bluedoggot involved in the project after it was alreadyunder way.

We were called in to jump-start the SOAproject that had been in the hands of anothersystems integrator but was going poorly, saidTom Termini, managing director at Bluedogs

U.S. subsidiary, in Silver Spring, Md. We gotthe remainder of the budget and 90 percent ofthe work.

The project, however, was no walk in the park,Termini conceded. The budget was adequate, butthere were serious time constraints and manydisparate pieces of technology to link together.Bluedog dedicated most of its U.S.-based staff tomake it all work, Termini said.

The engagement began [CONTINUED ON PAGE 14]JUDG

UITTEAU

Bluedogto the

rescue

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in August 2005 and concluded in June2006 with the deployment of a dozen Webservices and six management portlets,

according to Termini.Before the SOA upgrade, the CIS wasan Oracle client/server application thathad been in place for at least 10 years. AnSOA employs functions, or services, thatinteract with one another when called onto execute certain processes. Each servicehas an interface, and each interaction isindependent.

The client/server application the FTCwas using no longer could handle thecommissions growing workload as thenumber of users accessing it grew rapidly.By migrating to an SOA environment,

the FTC gained scalability to deploy moreusers at its call centers or on the Web,as well as easier data management, theability to make system access availableto other agencies and futurecost savings via the use ofreusable standards-basedcomponents.

We looked at movingfrom a client/server-basedarchitecture to SOA andworked with a couple of inte-grators to figure out whatwould work best for us, said

FTC CIO Stephen Warren inWashington. The first con-tractor helped us figure outwhere we should go and howto restructure our architec-ture going forward. Bluedogput the pieces together andshowed us that SOA technol-ogy worked.

Getting with the timesthe ftc was created in 1914to preventunfair methods of competition in com-merce. The government agency has a long

tradition of maintaining a competitivemarketplace for both consumers and busi-nesses. Over the years, Congress passedadditional laws giving the agency greaterauthority to police anti-competitive prac-tices.

The FTCs work is performed by thebureaus of Consumer Protection, Com-petition and Economics. That work isaided by the Office of General Counsel

and seven regional offices.A core enterprise application within

the FTC, the CIS drives the businessprocesses for the group that handles con-

sumer fraud complaints, the National DoNot Call Registry and the identity theftcomplaint process. Whether a consumeris registering a business or a fraud com-plaint, or law enforcement officers arequerying the system, all inquiries go backto the CIS. However, the various systemswerent tied together.

The thinking behind crafting a new,SOA-based enterprise model was toaccommodate moreusers and facilitateconsumer accessto the FTCs com-

plaint processes viathe Web. Players atthe FTC also knew itwas time to update

the commissions technology, accordingto Termini.

The client/server architecture wasnt

supporting the number of users thatneeded to access the FTC services, Ter-mini said. The FTC has 200 call centerusers and 300 internal FTC users to handleconsumer fraud complaints, the NationalDo Not Call Registry and identity theftcases. The agency receives 3,000 to 5,000complaints daily on the Web.

Bluedog got its foot in the door at theFTC about two years ago while working on

CASESTUDY

another government project. At the time,we were working on an enterprise portalproject for the Department of Justice,Termini said. Back then, I had a brief

meeting with the CIO at the FTC, whowas concerned about how long their SOAproject was taking.

It was after this meeting that whatTermini calls a low-key strategy came inhandy. Bluedog, he said, gets the word outquietly to CIOs that the company special-izes in problem solving, an approach thatTermini said has proved effective.

It certainly worked with the FTC. By the

summer of 2005, Bluedog

was engaged with the CISupgrade.

What Bluedog broughtto the table was experi-ence providing Web-basedsolutions quickly andcost-effectively. In busi-ness since 1998, Bluedoghas 12 full-time develop-ers in the United Statesand 20 employees at its

headquarters in Dublin. The companybuilds J2EE (Java 2 Platform, EnterpriseEdition) Web services, portlets and Web

applications for government agencies,nongovernmental organizations and com-mercial businesses.

Bluedog quickly outlined its approachto the FTC project: to promote a designbased on a coherent platform from whichto build composite applications.

Within 30 days, or by the beginningof November 2005, Bluedog put togethera proof of concept by building a labo-

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FTC FROM PAGE 12

OCTOBER 2006

The FTCs systems that handle

identity theft, consumer fraud

complaints and the National

Do Not Call Registry did not

communicate. That changed

once Bluedog updated the

agencys technology.

Case data

The problem A decade-old client/server application nolonger could handle the rapidly growing number of users

accessing the FTCs CIS

The solution The FTC decided to upgrade the system with

an SOA

The result The FTC gained scalability to deploy to

more users, easier data management and the ability to

enable other agencies to access the system

Budget $1.2 million

Duration 10 months, August 2005 to June 2006

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CASESTUDY

ratory production envi-ronment to demonstrateto the FTC how it wouldachieve its objective. In

addition to emulating theSun Microsystems Solarisequipment that was in useat the FTC, the integratorintroduced Linux applica-tion services.

We learned a lot ofthings about SOA technol-ogy and what it brings tobear, said Warren.

Getting a green light tocontinue its work meant that Bluedog hadto win over other IT contractors used by theFTCin particular, database administrators

who needed reassurance that moving toservices-based architecture wasnt going tocost them their jobs.

There was a lot of friendly conflict,but, at the end of the day, there werentany problems, said Termini, adding thatthe DBAs were allowed to focus on whatthey did best, and Bluedogs work was tofocus on processes.

The FTC also reacted positively to anSOA demonstration using the NationalDo Not Call Registry. The demo showedhow telemarketers who, up to that point,had to download the registry

nightly to stay up-to-date onentriescould simply log onusing the proposed new sys-tem, submit a telephonenumber query and get ananswer in real time.

The team then dovein with a pilot proj-ect. According toBluedog, the teamconsisted of 11 people:eight of its employees andthree FTC representatives.

Making headwayalthough bluedograllied to meet thetwo milestones of the projectthe infra-structure build-out, completed in February2006, and the development of a dozen Webservices, which were rolled out in 30-dayincrementsthe company faced a numberof challenges along the way.

For starters, the FTC handed Blue-dog notes, high-level requirements and

a small integrator who focuses only onthe number of projects we can handle,he said. For the FTC project, Bluedogcommitted about 80 percent of its U.S.

staff. In addition, Termini said, the com-pany is highly specialized and tight-knit,with staff having worked together since1998.

By June 2006, Bluedog had completedits mission, introducing an SOA plug-and-play architecture combined with Unixand J2EE. Ease of component integrationenabled the FTC to swap services andconnect and use them easily. In addition,the SOA was scalable and redundant andmade use of open standards.

In the time since Bluedog completedits project, Warren said the FTC has

taken what it learned from its first SOAproject to make decisions on future ITneeds. One of those decisions is based onthe good results of the CIS project. Weasked ourselves where to go with SOAtechnically, Warren said. The answerthe FTC came up with, he added, is tobuy SOA as a service rather than buildit in-house.

Lynn Haber is a freelance writer in Norwell,Mass. She can be reached atlthaber@comcast.net.

a bunch of infrastruc-ture products that hadalready been purchasedfor the project. The main

products included SonicSoftwares Actional XMLSecurity Gateway and ESB(Enterprise Service Bus),M2M Holdings Onyx Soft-ware, Ilogs JRules, AppleComputers WebObjectsand Plumtrees CorporatePortal 5.0.

At first, Bluedog wasntsure it was given the right

set of tools to do its job. We didnt wantto have to shoehorn these products tomake the project work, said Termini.

But having had previous experienceworking with Sonic, Actional and Ilog,the integrator knew the solutions wereenterprise-class and fit the bill for theFTC job.

Another challenge was winning overinternal users with the proof-of-conceptdemo.

And, while Termini said the budgetproved adequate, the projects time framewas tight. But thats our advantage as

Warren: The FTC is considering

software as a service.

Bluedog

Headquarters Silver Spring, Md.,and Dublin, Ireland

Number of employees 12 full-time

in the United States, 20 in Dublin

Years in business 8Yearly revenue $12.2 million in

2005; estimated $18 million in 2006

Web site bluedog.net

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