XTRM - Case Study

XTRM – Application Development Case Study

Client

XTRM is a powerful online action sports network that connects promoters, sponsors and participants allowing easy registration, sponsoring and promotion of/for action sports events that happen anywhere in the world.

Through XTRM.com, participants can register for any action sports event online, check out their competitors, build their sports profiles, win awards in their online accounts and connect with sponsors and promoters. Event organizers, promoters and sponsors can also stay connected with each other and organize/promote/sponsor/advertise events regardless of their venues through online event automation and promotion, online payouts, sponsorship awards and advertisements.

Challenge

The client posed numerous challenges to Dot Com Infoway’s development team and insisted on building XTRM.com as a powerful, user-friendly and functionally-effective online sports network in the internet world.

Some of the key challenges put forth by the client:

Millions of transactions: The network should facilitate millions of transactions in a hassle-free manner.
Heavy loads: The network should have the capacity to withstand heavy load of users at the same time without crashing.
Conduct sports events online: XTRM.com should allow event organizers to register, promote and conduct action sports event online. The network should facilitate participants/promoters/sponsors/advertisers to participate/promote/sponsor/advertise and follow up on an event’s progress right from start to completion, irrespective of the event’s venue.
Data load: The site should support and handle stressful situations of heavy data or information load. Security and secrecy of data passed on to the site should be maintained and the site should be completely hacker-proof and risk-free.
Usability: The client required the site to be user-friendly, facilitating easy navigability and information access.

Solution

Dot Com Infoway devised a two-phased strategy to meet client’s requirements.

Phase I:

Phase I comprised mainly of analysis, planning and framing of action plan. Dot Com Infoway’s software team adopted the following methods to arrive at an action plan for development process:

Analyzed client requirements and gauged resources required
Conducted competitor analysis and measured other networks in terms of technology/features
Decided on the technology to be deployed for the site
Framed step-by-step action plan based on waterfall development model for building the site

Phase II:

Phase II involved execution of the action plan framed in Phase I. The development team implemented the action plan and met the heavy load/transaction challenges through the below means:

Technology: Microsoft .NET (2008), SQL (2005), ASP.NET 2.0., C# .NET
Site runs on Windows 2003 server
Conducted Load Testing and tested the application under heavy load
Tuned application’s performance and achieved success in load testing after 4-5 iterations
Improved site usability through expert usability re-design/re-engineering

Result

Dot Com Infoway successfully implemented the action plan and met all the challenges put forth by the client. Thanks to Dot Com Infoway’s performance tuning and load testing measures, XTRM.com has been triumphantly running the Ford Mammoth Event for the past two years (2008 and 2009) under heavy loads and millions of transactions. The development team came up with a re-designed prototype for improving site usability. (However, the prototype is yet to be integrated into the site.)

The client was impressed with the output and praised the development team’s meticulous efforts at building such a complex sports network.