The Existing System

The current site was running on a legacy Microsoft web application platform, integrated with the ABC stock fulfillment system, as well as several external payment gateways and voucher systems. The Shop Online had been in operation for over 7 years and so consisted of millions of rows of data that also needed to be migrated to the new site in order to provide a seamless experience for past clients and ABC VIP members.

Migration Considerations

The new site would have a radically different product classification system. New functionality with a structure allowing for complex search queries to be executed as quickly as possible had to be added. The database structure of the site was in need of a major clean-up and refactoring.

This migration had to be done in one quick and seamless transition on launch day.

With all this in mind, reinteractive were tasked with creating an import script that allowed for the existing database to be simply imported into the new structure. The development of this import process began in April and was constantly improved and expanded. It was tested on a weekly and sometimes daily basis, right up until the cutover date.

By putting the migration script through its paces constantly throughout the development of the project, reinteractive were able to create a reliable and thorough import process - one that ran flawlessly on deployment day.

Rapid Application Development

Moving from the legacy Microsoft solution provided ABC Commercial with an opportunity to take advantage of the Rapid Application Development that Ruby on Rails provides out of the box.

Firstly, the speed of development during the main development cycle resulted in many long-desired features being included. This included a full visual redesign of the ABC Shop Online in the closing weeks of the development process.

Secondly, since the release of the new site, new features have been implemented on an almost daily basis. By taking advantage of the zero-downtime deployment process implemented by reinteractive, the development team are able to push new production code, live, many times per day without the need to show maintenance pages or take the site offline except for the largest, most complex feature releases.

Thirdly, as new features can be requested, implemented, and released within a very short period, the ABC were able to service feature requests that had been in the queue for months and years, with little cost and a tight feedback cycle between stakeholders and developers.

Thirdly, as new features can be requested, implemented, and released within a very short period, the ABC were able to service feature requests that had been in the queue for months and years, with little cost and a tight feedback cycle between stakeholders and developers.

Finally, as the ABC Shop online has a very extensive automated test suite, each production release is tested thoroughly before going live, minimising the chance of a bad build making it into production.

Ongoing Support and Maintenance

reinteractive also provide the ABC with ongoing support with our OpsCare® managed hosting service, ensuring that the site was running as expected through our various monitoring solutions and proactive support.

The Ruby on Rails OpsCare service also provides monthly inspection of the production environment to ensure it is operating within specifications. It also provides for ongoing development and consulting required by the in-house ABC team to allow them to concentrate capacity onto required features where needed.