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  • Does an IT integrator need an in-house software development team?

    IT integrator with a software team?

    Date: 07.09.2021

    Author:


    There are at least several reasons for an IT integrator to build in-house software development capabilities and skillset.

    Evolution of networks

    The first comes from the evolution of paradigms of networks. Contemporary integration projects, both in IT system or IP networking areas, comprise a growing share of software, applications, and automation techniques.

    It’s a result of software-defined approach and the opportunity to streamline network engineering and administration processes with software.

    Cross-domain projects

    The second reason is the construction of a business model in which the integrator builds their own software-related products.

    Why would one do that? 
     

    • To leverage the cross-domain approach. Let’s take a voice system that needs to connect with a call center. In one of our latest projects, we interfaced both systems by writing a custom software extenson to manage call canter agent in a way strictly adjusted to business requirements our global client had.
    • To deliver projects that require scripts, software tools, and applications.

    Curious to hear more details about our cross-domain projects? Ping us at sales@grandmetric.com!

    Open-source network automation 

    When we look at Grandmetric, one of the areas we use the software in is the edge of network integration and automation. How do we do it? Our Managed Services team uses a whole range of selected open-source tools that we integrate with one another to monitor, notify, and correlate events in the infrastructures we manage.  

    Building our own tools requires a team of different software engineers, starting from architects and backend developers, to frontend engineers, testers, and DevOps.

    Commercial IoT system – Souly 

    A tech-child we’re especially proud of is Souly – a SaaS platform we’re building for a niche market of PRS (Public Rented Sector). Souly is made of two modules.

    The first one is an IoT system that handles mllions of requsts per second through a network of Soulboxes. Soulboxes integrate the Wi-Fi functionality with the ability to manage and control the heating usage within buildings.

    The second module is Souly Booking that automates bookings and administration of buildings and rooms. We would never build and commercialize anhy of these projects without an engaged software development team in-house.

    Solving network problems with Spaces 

    One of our recent projects is also a product we named Spaces. It’s an application that supports management problem-solving, and compliance policy verification in networks of a large scale. What makes Spaces stand out is an intuitive graphical interface, thanks to which network management and troubleshooting is easier than ever.

    Thanks to the fact that we combine our skill set in DevOps, backend, and frontend with the domain experience of network architects, we were able to design and deliver a solution that responds to a particular business need.

    Advanced DevOps in migration projects

    An interesting example of leveraging DevOps in networking projects is what we did for one of our clients – a mid-size production company. The goal was to recognize traffic patterns, and based on that, design policy and security rules for Firewall devices. We approached the challenge writing our own parsers and using open-source libraries to visualize how traffic flows in the network. The results allowed us to predict data flow scenarios and hence, prepare relevant security ruleset.

    The future of IT integration 

    Software development and DevOps will soon become a complementary skillset to system and networking engineering. For companies that, just as Grandmetric, exist to design, migrate, and manage IT infrastructure, sopftware development is a way to gain competitive advantage and open the door to more advanced and demandng projects.

    On the other hand, by using advanced tools and automaton techniques, integrators can attract experienced network engineers and make room for software developers who are hungry to build new tools that change the industry.

    By the way, we’re growing our development team! Find our openings here

    Author

    Marcin Bialy

    Marcin Biały is Network and Security Architect with over 14 years of experience, with Service Provider and Enterprise networking background. He used to work for large service providers, global vendors and integration services companies as Network Architect, Leading Architect and Techincal Solution Manager positions. He designed, implemented and supported dozens large scale projects and infrastructure migrations, solved hundreds of tickets and spent hours with CLI and GUI of many flavors. Marcin is also holding industry recognizable certificates such as CCNP, CCNA, CCSI #35269, FCNSP #7207, FCNSA and more.

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