I am presently working with Salmon Limited, one of the most successful and expanding IT consultancies in the UK. My initial remit was as a ‘trouble-shooter’ and I have so far been involved in the technical review of the architecture and design on one of the insurance projects that Salmon is working on, and on the review and analysis of tender bids for the upgrade of a high profile nationally available web application.

More recently I’ve been working as part of the team looking at the architecture and design of a replacement for the Boots online presence. The project is being documented in a UML tool (Enterprise Architect) and is being implemented as a WebSphere Commerce 6.0 installation. This is basically a Struts application running on the WebSphere Application Server. My particular responsibility has been the design and delivery of an ‘Isolation Layer’, sitting between the WebSphere eCommerce platform and the external systems with which it interacts, in particular it SAP/R3 Retail installation and its warehouse management system.

From December 2006 until August 2007, I was working on the design and implementation of the Integrated Asset Management System (IAMS) project for the Glasgow Housing Association (GHA). This is a Service Oriented architecture (SOA) application. My involvement was as follows.

1) A prototype for the first module in the project dealt with the housing assets managed by GHA. This was initially developed using C# for the front-end implementation, with Java web services and EJBs (developed using the NetBeans IDE, hosted in the JBoss application server) in the middle tier if the application, with MySQL being used as the persistence layer. I used Enterprise Architect to document the design in UML, and was then involved in the implementation of the Java middle tier using JSR-181 Web services and EJB 3.0 session beans. Back end persistence involved the use of MySQL database and stored procedure design and implementation. JUnit was used as a testing framework for the Java implementation, and number of test clients for the web services were written in Java, C# (using the SharpDevelop IDE) and using the Adobe Flex Builder product.

2) The implementation was then ported to the Oracle technology stack, using JDeveloper as a Java and PL/SQL development environment, with the middle tier hosted in the OC4J container during development, using Oracle 10i. The database processing was then redeveloped as PL/SQL stored procedures. The second module in the project, dealing with financial planning for the asset management was developed with these technologies. For this module I have responsibility for the vertical development of certain functionality. I am developing the front end using C# with VisualStudio 2005; the Java mid-tier was developed in JDeveloper and the back end was implemented in PL/SQL stored procedure/triggers using both the JDeveloper and SQL Developer products from Oracle.

3) I also implemented a number of small prototypes.

a. A C# front end for a number of administration modules within the system which use Java based web services in the middle tier.
b. A module for the IAMS system that uses the GoogleMaps API and AJAX to allow users to geographically locate properties within the system.
c. A small multi process framework for communicating desktop applications using .Net remoting implemented in C#.

4) I am currently working on the prototype for the GHA Capital Investment module; use case analysis and system design are being documented using UML (Enterprise Architect); implementation was implemented using C#, Java web services and persistence using Oracle PL/SQL.

Subversion was used as a source repository and Bugzilla was used as a bug and issue tracking system. The development methodology can best be described as ‘semi-agile’, with involvement from the business customers, and fairly loosely documented initial requirements. A VPN link to GHA allows some development to be done from my home base.

Between July 2006 and December 2006 I was working on two related projects for the Scottish Executives Improvement Service. The implementation used the Oracle/J2EE technology stack, the JDeveloper IDE deploying on OracleAS with Oracle 10g as the database, using CVS as a source control and repository and JUnit as a testing framework. TestDirector was used as a defect tracking system.

In general within these projects, my expertise and experience was utilised on a number of design and implementation issues. By the end of the contract, I was involved in or responsible for the following sub-projects:

1) I worked on the setting up of the security infrastructure for the Oracle web services used in the projects. This involved the use of the Oracle CoreID product coupled with SAML assertions for authentication, and the OPENssl package to create both X509V3 certificates and keys for encryption and data integrity. This work was carried out within the overall web service security framework present in the Oracle AS 10g.

2) The design and implementation of a Spring MVC web application. This essentially service oriented work involved the creation of a web tier using DHTML, JavaScript, Ajax and JSPs using JSTL, a middle tier implemented using POJOs and Spring DAO components with a back end implemented in Oracle 10g. This back end tier involved database design, the writing of PL/SQL stored procedures and triggers and the use of Oracle object features.

3) The design and implementation of a number of web services using both Axis and the OC4J/Oracle frameworks.

4) The design and implementation of a Swing based web service client to allow the building and relay of various XML payload messages to target web services. The work depended heavily on the use of XML processing using DOM parsing technology coupled with XPATH document navigation.

5) The refactoring and restructuring of the project code base within CVS.

6) The design and implementation of a continuous build system for the projects related to the Improvement Service. This has involved the use of a combination of Ant (writing custom ant tasks), CVS and JDeveloper, Checkstyle and the Clover coverage tool. Some of this development was done in a Linux bash shell environment.

During the period May 2006 to July 2006 I was working on the National Accounts project within the ONS. This is an enterprise Java application using the Oracle/J2EE technology stack backed by the Oracle 10g database. The work involved the creation and maintenance of Java components within the system.

Development was done using Oracle JDeveloper with deployment to the Oracle AS. The system itself uses the Spring framework, and stateless EJBs.

The Rational toolset was used throughout the project; any design work was done using Rational Rose, Clearcase was being used as a source control system, and Clearquest was used as the issue and defect tracking system.

At Intelligent Finance I was working as a designer/developer within the team that is producing components for the IF 'Gold' project. The management/methodology is based on the scrum approach, with daily meetings and short iteration delivery of incremental functionality. This functionality is aimed at the next major release of the 'Gold' system. The components I'm working on are web services developed with Apache Axis, operating within an overall service oriented architecture. The work makes extensive use of a number of bespoke frameworks, with component definitions being held as XML documents.
The specific technologies used in the project are
• Together as a rapid model and prototype code generation tool.
• Eclipse + MyEclipse plugin as a development environment
• JUnit as a testing framework
• Ant as a build and deployment tool.
• Weblogic application server as a J2EE and Web container
• Harvest as a source control repository.

During August through to October 2005, I was working at the Dunfermline Building Society as a Java developer on their flagship ‘Destiny’ project. The remit was to provide some remedial assistance to the development team in term of introducing a more focussed and quality driven approach to the development, including the use of JUnit tests where appropriate. ‘Destiny’ was a Java Enterprise application built using a framework similar to Struts and involved the use of JSP/Servlets as well as EJBs. The client side was constructed using JavaScript and DHTML. The work was done within the WSAD/Eclipse development environment to run on a WebSphere Application server. Oracle was used as the back end database, accessed via JDBC.

During this period I was working in the Country Services division within the Forestry Commission (FC) Headquarters in Edinburgh as a Technical Lead/Senior Designer I was working within a small team of contactors which has been assembled in order to deliver the ‘Grants and Licences Delivered Electronically’, i.e. the Glade project. This is an administration system mainly internal to the FC and used by the three separate countries, Scotland, England and Wales. It supports one of the FCs main business functions of administering both EU and nationally funded grants for forestry activities within Britain. The project involves both spatial as well as non-spatial information.

It is a use case driven design and development involving detailed architecture and object oriented modelling activities. The tool used for the modelling was the Enterprise Architect product from Sparx Systems. This has allowed investigation of an agile, MDA approach to the design and development using use case diagrams, class models and activity diagrams. Source code has then been generated from these diagrams. The design stage had involved the use of XML and XSLT along with the UML.

The development activities I was involved in included the design and development of components implemented as Java classes, EJBs and web services. The development and deployment of the system was done using the Oracle JDeveloper IDE integrated with the OC4J J2EE container. The web service components were developed using the Apache Axis package. The persistence layer of the application had involved me in the detailed use of both the Hibernate object relational mapping tool, and the Oracle TopLink object relational mapping product. The Oracle 10g database was used as the persistence store, and I was responsible for some data modelling and schema generation from the UML models that were developed. I used Oracle Spatial to store and manipulate spatial information within the application.

The presentation layer of the application was developed using Apache Struts and Apache Tiles. I was responsible for the implementation of a number of presentation layer components.

A further responsibility was as the technical lead in the design an implementation of the Land Information Search (LIS) system for the FC. This was a web client-server application that allowed the public to search for and retrieve information on land use that the FC holds. It was implemented as a JavaScript client working with a Java servlet based service oriented middle tier. The persistence used a spatially enabled Oracle 10g database. The GIS component of the system was implemented using an ArcMap server from ESRI.

During the first six months of 2004 I worked in the Business Systems group in the Northern Rock corporate headquarters as a Senior OO/J2EE Designer/Developer. The project primarily involved the design of one of the systems to be incorporated in the work that Northern Rock was doing in line with new mortgage regulation legislation. The design was documented in the UML with use case analysis and the design being documented using activity and sequence diagrams. This work was done using Rational Rose (Enterprise Edition) and Poseidon CE. The approach to the design and development followed the RUP, with delivery of timed increments, according to a use case ranking.

There were two implementations of the system that I was responsible for, one Java, the other .NET. Both implementations of the design involved the use of XML and XSLT. The Java implementation used web services and enterprise beans. The development was done with the WebLogic platform, both the server and WebLogic Workshop runtime. The .NET version involved coding in C# and VB.Net using .Net remoting. I also worked on various bridges between Java and .Net application using the Ja.Net product. All of the work was done on XP Professional desktops.

Until the end of 2003 I was working in the E-Commerce group in the Scottish Widows corporate headquarters as a senior analyst programmer. The project involved the development and maintenance of some of the web applications that Scottish Widows use for interfacing with IFAs. The development environment was a mix of NT desktop and Solaris running the bash shell. The applications were MVC based Java web applications running within WebSphere Application Server (version 4 in the production environment), and the work involved the use of Enterprise Java components, XML and XSLT. The main tool for the development was WebSphere Studio Application Developer (Version 5). The source control and build system for the applications involved the both CVS and PVCS and Ant, integrated with WSAD.

The work involved some shell scripting on Solaris, but the bulk of the development was done within the NT environment. A pilot study was undertaken to investigate the instrumentation of enterprise applications running in WebSphere Application Server using the integrated JXM Server. Within the applications, the middleware was WebSphere MQ and some work was done using JMS and its interface with WebSphere MQ.

As the build control manager the work undertaken at N-Power Ltd. initially involved the design and development of an automated build and deploy system for the enterprise application under development.

This system involved the integration of the chosen N-Power Java development environment, IntelliJ IDEA (JetBrains, Inc) with the Ant build tool (The Apache Project) and the CVS version management system for controlling the development environment and build cycle. This development was all done on NT desktops. The build components are then deployed to the Oracle9iAS/OC4J container running on Solaris to provide the finished applications. Developing the build system involved the writing and testing of a number of custom Ant tasks to allow the manipulation of the contents of the project deliverables, .jar, .war and .ear files. This work involved the use of Java, XML and XSL.

The role involved giving some technical direction and mentoring to other less experienced members of the development team of nine developers. Although there was no official team leader appointed for the team, this role, at least partially, fell to me.

Once the build system had been set up, I moved on to development on the main application itself as a senior developer. This consists of a distributed application running on hand-held computers (running PersonalJava) communicating with a server via GPRS software. Once on the server the data is passed via a WebSphere MQ implementation of JMS to Message Driven Beans housed in the OC4J container. These beans process the data (persistence being provided by an Oracle9i back end database). The persisted data is then accessed by a number of enterprise applications, involving web components (HTML/JSP/Servlets), enterprise components (EJBs) and Java desktop applications.