Apparatus Helps Publisher Streamline Development With Team Foundation Server

Client Profile

Over the past fifteen years, self-publishing giant Author Solutions Inc. (ASI) has helped more than 90,000 authors publish nearly 140,000 titles. Headquartered in Bloomington, Indiana, ASI comprises numerous brands, including AuthorHouse, iUniverse, Trafford Publishing, Wordclay, Xlibris, Inkubook, and Palibrio, an imprint for Spanish-speaking authors. Additionally, AuthorHive serves both self-published and traditionally published authors with integrated marketing services.

Challenge

ASI and Apparatus have enjoyed a long relationship, with Apparatus providing technical leadership and support to meet ASI’s infrastructure needs. Along the way, Apparatus has provided a breadth of technology consulting expertise providing a one-stop shop for ASI, including the ongoing management of a virtualized cloud infrastructure.

Recently, Ryan Steele, Global Director of IT Operations, approached Apparatus with a desire to leverage Microsoft Team Foundation Server (TFS) 2010 and TFS Lab Manager to streamline the testing of new products across multiple web platforms. “Apparatus brought to the table a rare capability: TFS expertise at the architect level,” said Steele.

Solution

Apparatus proposed a standardized TFS 2010 infrastructure for all of ASI’s business units to diffuse the cost and increase overall efficiency of server management.

At the time, ASI’s various business units used several different infrastructure platforms. By upgrading from TFS 2008 to TFS 2010 across its business units, Apparatus enabled ASI to fully leverage the capabilities of TFS 2010 and TFS Lab Manager, which runs on the Microsoft Hyper-V Server, and realize the benefits of standardization.

As part of the project, Apparatus also upgraded ASI from BizTalk 2006 by designing and building a new implementation of Microsoft BizTalk 2009 Enterprise Edition. BizTalk enables companies to integrate, manage, and coordinate automated business processes by exchanging information between disparate applications within or across organizational boundaries. Finally, the Apparatus team educated ASI’s developers on the new TFS and BizTalk implementations so they’d be able to migrate their proprietary applications to the new environment.

“That’s one of our key services,” said Apparatus Chief Evangelist Casey Watson, “being able to provide clients with the education to manage these new products.”

Results

With a newly standardized infrastructure, all of ASI’s units are now running on a common platform, with a common version and common best practices.

“It was the right solution,” said Steele. “Our infrastructure is much more robust, and now we have only one platform to manage instead of four.”

Apparatus’ Watson takes pride in the breadth of expertise the company brings to the table and its ability to function as a “technology executive,” guiding clients such as ASI in their selection of infrastructure products and strategies.

“Not only does Apparatus implement and manage solutions,” said Watson. “We design the solutions from the ground up.”