Application Assessment

Custom Application Development

Rencata's Custom Application Development practice focuses on the architectural and development expertise of our industry-recognized software engineers by delivering systems that solve our customers’ unique business problems.

Custom Application Development Solutions

Rencata's Custom Application Development teams are unique in the industry, because a large percentage of our team members are established technology authors and community leaders. Instead of relying on a small group of senior developers and supplementing them with average talent, we built a team that consists of skilled thought leaders and experienced software engineers. Our staff includes consultants with industry-leading experience and a track record of success developing Service Oriented Architectures (SOAs), Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) and rich desktop applications.

Rencata also delivers the technologies, tools and applications for a wide range of eCommerce and content management solutions.

Modular Application Design

Many years ago the move began towards object-oriented application design, where an application dealt in objects such as Customer, Order, Home Page and so on. As applications become larger and more complex they are split into different projects which are then linked together. The challenge is that the end result is many dependencies between projects. Before long the large number of projects itself becomes unmanageable.

There are several techniques for addressing this complexity, which fit under the banner of Modular Application Design. Microsoft has several frameworks to simplify modular application design and provide support for the core tenets of dynamic discovery of features, separation of concerns and loose coupling.

Rencata has many experts on the use of these frameworks and in modular design in general. In fact, many of our consultants are often asked to deliver talks on the subject at industry events. The development and management of complex applications can greatly be simplified using these techniques.

Rich Internet Applications – the New “Mainstream” for Web Development

A few years ago it was acceptable to create a web application by creating some ASP.NET pages with some dynamic content and linking them together. When the user submitted changes, these were sent to the server and a new page returned. This was a jarring experience that made the web feel different from using a desktop application such as Microsoft Outlook.

Today expectations have moved to the point where users expect a seamless web experience that feels very much like a desktop. This is the age of Rich Internet Applications – the foundation of which is often called Web 2.0, or NextWeb.

To take advantage of this new wave, developers need to not only have a deep knowledge of ASP.NET, but also deeply embrace technologies such as AJAX, which allows for complex interaction scenarios between the client and server. When a highly interactive experience is required, Microsoft Silverlight allows .NET developers and designers to come together to build highly evolved user experience that was only possible previously by pulling together many different platforms and technologies.

In order to keep such an experience manageable, we leverage technologies such as the ASP.NET MVC Framework. This simplifies the organization of user interface elements by creating a clean separation between user interface and data services, making for a more modular, more maintainable web development experience.

Finally, “rich” does not simply mean having a rich user experience inside the application. It also means making the application accessible to search engines. It takes considerable expertise to balance a highly interactive user experience with the need to have the site content be fully indexed and searchable.

Rencata's Security Expertise Helps You Assess Security Vulnerabilities

IT organizations typically focus on securing operating systems and networks from attack. However, it is equally critical that custom software running on these infrastructures is protected against such threats. Rencata understands this and has designed robust security checks and countermeasures into our development processes.

In many enterprises, no countermeasures are applied to custom software, which exposes significant defensive weak points. A number of attacks are now targeting known vulnerabilities in custom software, such as SQL Injection attacks, buffer overflows, cross-site scripting and canonicalization.

As with most security threats, these issues can be addressed through proper processes, procedures and up-to-date information. Rencata helps assess security vulnerabilities in existing software applications, recommends or implements solutions to address these vulnerabilities, and provides processes and procedures to keep these vulnerabilities from appearing in the future.

Rencata builds flexible systems tailored to your needs while leveraging our collective expertise. Rather than prescribe a specific architecture or toolset that must be followed for all solutions, we start with a series of architectural considerations that make certain all issues are properly addressed. In addition,Rencata uses specialized tools and class libraries for speeding the development effort.

Flexible Skills, Microsoft Focus

Rencata consultants have expert-level knowledge in every Microsoft development tool and platform. Our broad knowledge of development techniques enables us to leverage a wide range of the latest Microsoft technologies, yet provide expertise that extends beyond traditional custom software development.

As early adopters and industry thought leaders, Rencata developers and consultants are constantly evaluating new and upcoming technology. We participate in product review sessions at the Microsoft campus and are often called upon by Microsoft to lead training events. As a result, you are ensured a trusted, proven, Microsoft partner that guarantees optimal solutions.

Best-of-Breed Partner Solutions Complement Our Efforts

When necessary,Rencata works with value-added partners to deliver the best possible solutions for client needs. Our partnerships are based on one over-arching philosophy – put client needs first and perform at the highest level of competence and integrity. We also complement and extend your own development and IT teams. And, it's not just about augmentation. We will mentor and guide your own staff, as necessary.

Rapid, Productive Solutions Development

Rencata leverages a variety of Microsoft development solutions, as well as other technologies, to help our clients create powerful applications quickly and effectively and span any platform or device. The technologies and architectures we employ include (but are not limited to):

Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2010 helps us dramatically increase developer productivity while developing new business solutions for the web and Windows platforms. Visual Studio .NET 2010 is the only development environment built from the ground up to enable integration through XML web services. By allowing applications to share data over the Internet, XML web services enable developers to assemble applications from new and existing code, regardless of platform, programming language or object model.

A new innovation in Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2008 was the introduction of LINQ (Language Integrated Query). Using this technology, we are able to use one model for querying data from many sources, be it in a database, XML data or even business objects. Having a single model for any query or data manipulation means faster development and fewer design constraints.

Rencata is also a leader in building rich desktop applications. Microsoft Office has set a high bar for how applications should look and function on the desktop. Using Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2010 and the latest techniques in modular software design, we build rich desktop applications that can take full advantage of today’s powerful desktop computers.

Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 allows for development of connected applications, networks and web services. Windows Server 2008 R2 provides a secure IT infrastructure and application platform for quickly building connected applications and information worker infrastructures that enhance communication and enable anytime, anywhere collaboration.

The Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 platform also have a new virtualization technology called Hyper-V 2008 R2 and VM Ware, which allows one server to host multiple virtual server environments, allowing you to maximize your hardware investment while you scale up. Our consultants are intimately familiar with virtualization, as they all use virtual servers every day to mimic our customer’s production environments while creating solutions for them.