Background

The client is the region’s premier multi-list provider, serving the residential property listing needs of the Greater Denver Metropolitan area. The organization’s mission is to provide comprehensive information, superior service and meaningful applications of technology to its customers in the real estate community. The organization provides dial-up and Internet based access to a listing database that supports over 25,000 daily searches. The systems are housed in a data center at the main office location. The Denver Metropolitan area, and the real estate industry have all grown rapidly during the past few years. Additionally, the demand for availability of information has increased, and the client must respond accordingly through proactive planning and regular assessment of its application functionality and information delivery systems. 

Challenge

The core property listing systems presently reside within a legacy infrastructure built specifically for the organization approximately ten years ago. These applications have served the membership well but, due to their age have become costly to maintain and difficult to enhance. Furthermore, as technology is becoming central to the daily transactions associated with real estate, and because the Internet has become an expected method of transacting business, additional features and services are required in order to maintain its leading position in the market. The client launched an initiative to replace its legacy application architecture with a newly designed suite of applications over the next two years. Not only will the core MLS application need to be redesigned, all dependent applications will be reviewed for sustainability and re-engineered/replaced prior to the NextGen release.

Solution

The Spitfire Group engaged with the client during the initial planning stage of the effort. The Solutions Team worked closely with the client’s stakeholders to derive the vision and high level strategy for NextGen. The team’s charter was to architect the application and dependent systems in a way that would allow the utmost flexibility as the market demands change. Additionally, the new system must co-exist with the existing application so that new functionality that expands revenue generation opportunities may be introduced as quickly as possible. In response to this directive, a master plan was compiled that would help the client navigate this monumental undertaking. Each Phase in the construction effort was organized to accommodate the business priorities and market cycles with core system construction and dependent system integration.

Results

A Service-Oriented Architecture was designed using Spitfire framework components and code generation tools that would speed delivery of the baseline components. This approach enabled the team to introduce new functionality so the client could provide expanded services within the existing system during construction. Furthermore, Spitfire’s Agile development methods were adopted and a blended development team, based at the Spitfire Solution Center, was put in place to promote a high degree of collaboration and maximize productivity. Phase I of the initiative was delivered in just 13 weeks (2 weeks early) and included additional features beyond what the stakeholders had originally anticipated. As a result, the client was able to premier the system in time for the busy summer real
estate season.