Country: Spain
Industry: IT
Customer Profile
Nominalia is a leading domain name registration company in Spain.
Business Situation
The company had incorporated IT tools into its infrastructure to help manage domains for clients. But the infrastructure was expensive to maintain and it was not easy to add new functionality.
Solution
Nominalia is using Web services it created using the Microsoft庐 .NET Framework. Uptake of services has increased, particularly from clients non-resident in Spain.
Benefits
Reduced costs Cheaper to integrate services with clients00applications Standard protocol widens access to prospects Customers manage domains themselves Mature development environment 00eb services developed with the Microsoft .NET Framework allowed us to make considerable savings in the cost of integrating our services with our clients00applications and processes.00/font>Jordi Hinojosa, Director General, Nominalia
Nominalia, a leading Spanish Internet domain name registration company, is attracting customers from outside Spain by using Web services developed with the Microsoft庐 .NET Framework. Its customers include ISPs that frequently sell add-on products, such as ADSL or hosting services, to their own customers as well as traditional offerings. But to do this, they need to rapidly integrate services into their own systems. The Nominalia solution enables them and their customers to include Nominalia Web services in their own applications with minimum modification. Today, users can integrate applications irrespective of their technological architecture or applications 00including Linux.
Situation
Registering domain names and supporting Internet services companies is a high profile activity on the World Wide Web. If a server goes down, it is transparent to all. Using stable technology that integrates well with other systems is vital in this marketplace.
Nominalia is a leading Internet domain name
registration company based in Spain. Its customers are divided into two main groups: small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and larger companies or providers who sell on domain names. The SMEs access the company00 Web site anonymously to find out if a particular domain name is free and, if so, purchase it. The other companies sell on domains to their customers with add-on services such as asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL), a new technology that allows more data to be sent over existing copper telephone lines, or hosting services for Internet service providers (ISPs), wholesalers and businesses.
In 1999, Nominalia incorporated two customised IT services 00an extranet and a database solution 00 into its existing system to help it manage client domains. The extranet provides a range of functions such as searching for free domain names, billing and statistics as well as processes available to Nominalia00 own employees via the telephone in the business intranet.
By using the database solution, customers could access the Nominalia database directly without going through the extranet. The database solution is encapsulated in a common gateway interface (CGI) program running on a Silicon Graphics machine using Irix, a flavour of UNIX. The solution involved the business logic that affected the domain register concerned.
But maintaining both solutions was expensive and it was complicated to make changes or add new functionality. Spenta Consulting is the IT partner for Nominalia. Managing Director Jordi Plana says: 00he result was a system that could be described as a monster. The number of lines of code, functions and methods needed to manage it were truly horrendous, not to mention the procedures required whenever a new domain appeared on the market.00
Jordi Hinojos, Managing Director, Nominalia, agrees: 00he functionality of the system operated well for customers for whom domain management was a marginal issue. But customers handling several domains could see the limitations and asked for more services and functionality, including customisation, which we couldn00 offer with our existing systems.00
Solution
Nominalia and Spenta Consulting looked for the technology to resolve the problem. Hinojosa says: 00e needed a technology that would support Nominalia00 presence in new markets. We wanted the management tools for flexible administration and low-cost maintenance that would enable us to offer a quality service.00
The chosen solution was a domain management system based on the standard protocols provided by Web services and created using the Microsoft庐 .NET Framework. The .NET Framework is an integral component of Windows庐 operating system that provides a programming model and runtime for Web services, Web applications, and smart client applications. Plana says: 00he case for using a Web services-based solution seemed very strong, particularly after we found that TuCows in Canada, one of the leading domain registries in the world, had built a system based on proprietary protocols. We decided instead to use the power of Web services and standards.00/font>
After a thorough analysis of the Microsoft .NET Framework, Nominalia and Spenta Consulting technical managers decided that Web services could help the company00 business model in four ways:
00Provide a robust, easy-to-use management system that could be integrated with various technological platforms. This would encourage the use of Nominalia services via new wholesalers, particularly those outside Spain.
00Reduce the costs associated with wholesaler support, leading to more competitive pricing while increasing the profitability of providing services.
00Avoid the costs and management problems of using customised developments for wholesalers.
00Provide customers with new functionality via the extranet and integration with internal systems.
Hinojosa says: 00ormally, ISPs sell other products, such as ADSL or hosting services, as well as their traditional offerings. This new solution will enable them to integrate Nominalia Web services into their own application with minimum modification. Web services will make our prices more competitive for companies that do not need all Nominalia customer services.00
The new Microsoft .NET-connected solution was created in just six weeks and launched at the end of 2002. Hinojosa says: 00he development time was truly sensational, especially when compared with our other, earlier applications. We had to allow several years to get them fully operational and performing at their best.00
Nominalia then implemented Web services technologies that operate as a higher layer of the CGI application. They also act as an interface for users accessing Nominalia services through open, standard protocols. When customers submit a request via the standard XML simple object access protocol (SOAP) to Nominalia Web services, the service passes the request to the CGI.
Plana says that one of the most important aspects of this new solution is that it has given Nominalia Web services without affecting business logic. Plana says: 00ll customers who use customised development to integrate Nominalia domain management into their own systems will not have to change anything at all because the communication interface remains exactly the same.00
The medium range objective is to migrate all business logic resident on the CGI system gradually to the Web services system. At the moment, the new system supports nine basic operations for domain management, including uploads, downloads, consultation of free domains, hosts and contacts management. But the number of functions will be increased in the second phase. Hinojosa reports: 00he response from customers who have already integrated Web services into their systems is very positive, encouraging us to expand these services during mid-2004.00
But Plana says there are still many customers who are reluctant to integrate Web services because they do not want to develop the internal applications needed just now. 00ome of them have already told us that they prefer to leave it to later. However, I believe this is because potential users might not have experience of the Microsoft .NET Framework and Web services or know about the incredible facilities that can be developed. Customers who have integrated Web services have been surprised at how easy and quick it is,00he says.
However, Nominalia is confident about the future of these technologies. 00hey are already widely accepted and we believe all our large customers will integrate Web services during 2004.00
Benefits
Scalability Attracts New Clients Non-Resident in Spain
Plana says: 00ominalia began with a relatively fixed architecture and proprietary applications that were difficult to integrate. By using the Microsoft .NET Framework to develop Web services, it has robust, scalable services that are easy to integrate with others.00/font>
Hinojosa says: 00ith Web services, our clients no longer need to access different applications when selling their own services such as an ADSL, a domain name or hosting facilities to an end user. Just one application enables all these services to be made available, which saves costs and increases productivity.00/font>
Reduced Costs
The Microsoft .NET Framework includes the Common Language Runtime and standard class libraries of code that can be reused by programmers for common tasks. This means that applications are easier to build, deploy and integrate, which often has a knock-on effect in terms of business benefit. 00e have increased the uptake of services with new clients, particularly those not resident in Spain,00Hinojosa says.
Ease of Integration
Today, Nominalia is publishing services that were previously only available through proprietary protocols. By using Web services created using the Microsoft .NET Framework, the company has demonstrated that it can integrate a range of technologies. Plana remarks: 00ne of the first clients using the system accessed Nominalia Web services from PHP scripts running under Linux.00
Hinojosa sees other benefits as well. 00eb services enable us to reduce the cost of integrating our services with our clients00applications and processes,00he says.
Strengthens Brand Image
Nominalia is sensitive to the demands of its clients for confidentiality and the desire to keep their own brand image strong. Plana says: 00ith the new system, an ISP00 end user can automatically manage its own domains without needing access from the ISP to the Nominalia extranet to do this. The client doesn00 know that Nominalia is providing the end service: the whole operation takes place via a corporate interface from its own ISP, which provides these services under its own brand.00
Nominalia believes it is currently a step ahead of competitors in terms of technology and the new products and services it can develop. This will help clients to grow their businesses. 00e can provide a reference point for our clients,00says Hinojosa.
Nominalia is keen to continue developing new Web services using the Microsoft .NET Framework. Plana says: 00n my opinion, the Microsoft development environment for Web services is vastly more mature than those of other manufacturers. Microsoft Visual Studio庐 .NET has proved to be the best development tool for us for creating XML Web services.00nbsp;
Microsoft .NET Framework
The Microsoft .NET Framework is an integral Windows庐 component that supports building and running the next generation of applications and Web services.
For more information about the .NET Framework, go to:
download Internet Company Gains New Customers with Web Services
