Our core competencies
Open Source
Open source is deeply rooted in our technical DNA. As long-standing contributors and evangelists in the open source community, we can navigate the software landscape and the associated market with confidence, leverage its diverse resources and are very familiar with its principles. For us, open source is more than just making code freely available online. Open source requires constant commitment and maintenance. We are familiar with the democratic structures and governance requirements and, as members of the Eclipse Foundation, we are also involved in numerous projects that maintain and further develop the basic technologies for standard market application software.
We use our many years of experience in the commitment, use and maintenance of open source ecosystems to advise our clients on all aspects of this topic. In addition to the concrete use of specific open source solutions, we pass on our knowledge in order to plan the strategic use of open source in organizations, communicate concepts relating to the topic and also help to reduce reservations among stakeholders inside and outside organizations.
For our customers, we act as a knowledge transfer agent on the subject of open source and as a proxy between the organization and the open source community. This enables an organization to return certain contributions to the open source community through us, even if the know-how or corresponding own resources are missing.
Modular Architectures with OSGi
OSGi is an architecture model which, with its specifications and implementations, provides a vendor-independent state-of-the-art complete solution for distributed, modular and dynamic software applications and infrastructure. The advantages of these distributed architectures include
- Modularity
- Service orientation
- Dynamics in distributed service-based systems
- Good maintainability with appropriate application
Our software architects have been significantly involved in the further development of this standard at a strategic and operational level for many years (e.g. Chair of the OSGi Working Group Steering Committee). Thanks to our in-depth knowledge, we are able to develop and improve innovative and long-lasting software architectures or convert existing architectures to the OSGi standard. We offer workshops, consulting and training for such processes, but can also provide support as developers during implementation.
OSGi is a widespread, often invisible and underestimated basic technology that is used in many systems, especially in the Java world. For this reason, there is a stable open source ecosystem of implementations and tools with which applications can be developed sustainably.
Typical OSGi applications can be found in the following areas:
- Process-oriented clustering
- Multi-tenant applications
- Rapid prototyping
- Model-driven development
- Backend for web and mobile clients as well as rich desktop applications
- Applications with zero-downtime requirements
- IoT / embedded applications
- Event / message-driven process architectures
- Container-based packaging
- Minimal dependencies / small application / memory footprint
Modeling and Model-Driven Software Development
The philosophy behind the development of many application scenarios follows the model-driven approach. Data and process modelling are generally a central challenge in digitalization processes. Our modeling approach serves as a common language and basis for specialist departments and software development.
It is the fundamental first step in methodically examining organizational structures and processes so that they can subsequently be transferred to a software solution, for example. We use UML (Unified Model Language) and the EMF (Eclipse Modeling Framework) to take this step holistically and comprehensively for the context of the respective field of application. Thanks to the model-driven software development approach, we are able to transform data and process models into innovative and flexible software solutions that help to link technical and non-technical areas as seamlessly as possible.
Thanks to our development team’s many years of experience with this approach, we are able to provide both advisory and operational support at every step of this process and use our expertise to guide you through every step of the agile software development cycle. We also offer opportunities to bring this approach to specialist departments and transfer the corresponding know-how. In this way, we enable organizations to carry out further developments independently to a certain extent without technical development work.
Java
“Write once, run anywhere!”
Even though this former unique selling point of Java is now also shared by other languages, we are still convinced of the flexibility and versatility of Java as the basic programming language for our applications. It fits in with our principles of modularity and interoperability and enables us to quickly and easily implement use cases from the IoT sector with microdevices as hardware. Our devs speak and dream Java fluently like their mother tongue and are able to analyze, modify or completely rewrite existing code with pinpoint accuracy. We use our Java skills in particular for intensive error analysis to solve even the most difficult problems.
Service Focuses
Digital Transformation and Change Processes
Digitalization is a core challenge facing public and private sector players today. It is not just a matter of translating analog processes and data into digital, but rather of rethinking existing processes with the help of digital opportunities.
With our expertise and experience, we help organizations to take this step. Our core objective is not only to connect technical and non-technical areas as sensibly and sustainably as possible, but also to integrate them holistically into the target organization. Therefore, the organizational cultural and procedural ecosystem and environment, as well as the people and their interactions in organizations are always at the center of our strategy. We approach complex contexts and systems with process and architecture models as well as modularity and expandability. In addition to comprehensive consulting and implementation support, we also offer holistic knowledge transfer. This enables the target organization to use the newly acquired skills in the long term, to develop them further as independently as possible and to design and live its processes itself with our support.
Smart Cities and IoT
We have been applying our expertise in the field of smart cities, urban data and the Internet of Things (IoT) in general for many years. Among other things, we are an implementation partner of the City of Jena for the realization of use cases from the “Model Projects Smart Cities” funding program of the Federal Ministry of Housing, Urban Development and Construction. Within this framework, we have already brought various components to market maturity and developed a number of other open source applications. Our paradigms of modularity and interoperability of distributed systems are the basis for a fast and targeted solution to challenges, especially in this field. We are able to either integrate or extend existing systems or translate completely new, previously analog applications into meaningful digital processes that create added value for municipal administrations and citizens. In addition, we have experience in implementing such projects in accordance with the current project funding guidelines at federal and EU level as well as other public tendering guidelines.
Here, too, we use the model-based approach. This makes it possible to connect existing systems without having to change them extensively. We strive for a high level of interoperability with our components so that they can be integrated into existing smart city architectures or platforms. This also includes compatibility with specifications such as DIN SPEC 91377.
Data Protection
Data is our business and we automatically take data protection into account. We are convinced that fair and sustainable, GDPR-compliant business concepts are possible. We are happy to support you in extracting these and hardening them accordingly. As a technology company, however, we also see it as our duty to provide technical tools, for example to provide data protection officers with decision-making and analysis support. We view this field holistically as an amalgamation of technical and non-technical data protection.
Our team includes TÜV-approved and certified data protection officers who are familiar with both the legal basis and the practical implications of data protection and data transparency. They can advise and audit organizations of all kinds or act as external data protection officers themselves. However, our philosophy is that data protection does not have to happen “on top”, but can be integrated organically into systems and solutions. Using our model-driven approach, we have therefore developed a solution for the technical support of data protection measures - the MPAT (Model-Driven Privacy Analyzing Tool). This makes it possible to check data models or their instances for possible relevance to data protection or data transparency and to derive appropriate measures from the reporting.
Tender Consultancy
As a service company with over a decade of experience of working in the public sector and an equally deep technological know-how, we offer comprehensive advice on the design of tenders for the acquisition of software, hardware, development or consulting services. Our services include, for example, requirements workshops. We know how performance criteria must be formulated in order to be presented with the desired range of offers in the tendering process and use our expertise to conduct market surveys in advance. Once tenders have been obtained, we make our specialist knowledge available in order to comprehensively evaluate the performance features on offer and enable the tendering body to carry out an informed evaluation that matches the existing performance requirements.