The mission was critical, and the task complex: Ushering a print publication like Rolling Stone, a Bondi publication, into the digital age by providing them with a turnkey solution to present their print magazine archives online, for viewing on high resolution-connected devices of all shapes and sizes. Unlike other digital versions of magazines on the market, the new platform would allow the publisher to monetize its own unique brand through the years.

The Challenge

AIS needed to address multiple technical areas to provide the most viable solution for Rolling Stone and other archives.

  • Speed
  • Scale
  • Security
  • Continuous Delivery
  • High-Definition Presentation

Rolling Stone’s existing solution (‘print to digital’) only supported 100 issues, and AIS was challenged to multiply the output tenfold while reducing management costs and allowing Rolling Stone the freedom to design their interface in a way that matched and enhanced their other digital presences.

Solution

AIS implemented a multi-tier solution in the creation of the Bondi Archive Platform. The platform we built consists of a flexible, scalable website architecture using HTML5, JavaScript, ASP.NET MVC and SQL Azure. The system allows viewers to see exact replicas of the original print issues, something not offered by any other platform. Users can navigate using a mouse, keyboard or touch and can zoom in or conduct complex searches. Bookmarking inside the archive is available as is print, based on the publisher’s preference.

Results

The new archive platform has allowed Rolling Stone to join the online revolution and bring their print content online in its original format and context, thereby retaining copyrights. By serving the content directly from their own website or from the cloud, the company can avoid content restrictions and fees imposed by third-party aggregation platforms and app stores. The project and platform has been an unequivocal success. Rolling Stone chose to enhance its print subscriptions by offering the full digital archive at no extra charge. By tightly integrating their online content with the digital archive, a deeper level of interaction with readership has been realized.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) CTO Werner Vogels offers this great piece of cloud advice: “Treat everything as a programmable resource, including data centers, networks, compute, storage and load balancers.”

In other words, automate every aspect of your (cloud-based) infrastructure.

Given AIS’ years of experience with SharePoint, we are always looking for ways to make the underlying infrastructure more cost effective, scalable and robust. Fortunately, the benefits of automation apply equally to a SharePoint 2013 farm hosted in the cloud — whether it’s the ability to dynamically provision a SharePoint 2013 farm on the fly, or the ability to scale up and down based on load, or the ability to make the SharePoint 2013 farm more fault-resilient.

We’ve written about two automated deployment approaches to SharePoint 2013; one for Amazon Web Services and one for Azure. In case you missed them…

Our AWS-based SharePoint 2013 script and source code can be found here.

Our Windows Azure-based SharePoint 2013 script and source code can be found here.

Our work with Rolling Stone and Bondi Digital Publishing is yet another example of how AIS can develop technology that creates new revenue streams for publishers. We built a digital distribution platform to usher print publications like Rolling Stone into the digital age – by providing them with a turnkey solution to deploy print magazine archives online for viewing on desktops, laptops and mobile devices. For Rolling Stone, the initial launch included more than 1,000 issues from 1967 to the present.

Click here to read more about the distribution platform and how we customized it for the Rolling Stone archives. 

Our client, The National Football Players Association (NFLPA), approached us regarding the development and implementation of a new player management system called PA.NET. AIS accomplished this project by managing the engagement in two phases: An envisioning phase to gather and define requirements and develop a roadmap for the reengineering initiative, followed by an implementation phase to support the development of a PC, tablet and mobile phone application design to ensure accessibility across multiple platforms and increase mobility and efficiency.

Click here to read more about this project!

At AIS, we’re committed to delivering transformative solutions and outcomes, and that’s exactly what we’re doing for Healthcare Receivable Specialists, Inc. (HRSI). Everyone knows that data redundancy can be a productivity killer, so we’re utilizing a cloud-based hosting solution via Amazon Web Services (AWS) for their new custom application that will help eliminate that problem. The AWS hosting option will also keep costs down without sacrificing performance and positioning for HIPAA compliance. Additionally, our solution provides a self-service means to access the status of their applications throughout their entire business process.
Custom application development is one of AIS’ many strong suits, and we’re constantly expanding our repertoire. Recently we successfully delivered a custom-designed scorecard and dashboard, as well as a SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS) data cube, which provided self-service Business Intelligence for one of the nation’s leading pain medication monitoring organizations. Ameritox’ senior management required a user-friendly solution that was consumable on a variety of mobile devices like Apple iPads and other tablets. Our experience in Microsoft BI, .NET development and mobile solutions enabled us to deliver a solution that allows the organization to effectively track their specimens on a daily basis.

Click here to find out exactly what we did to ensure success on this project!

Is your organization in need of a cutting-edge, custom-developed mobile application?   AIS is quickly becoming the go-to organization by developing innovative solutions like KCI Technologies’ new Windows 8 UI application. The application will enhance the efforts of the organization’s initiative to further develop its mobility program, and will support field inspections in both network connected and network disconnected environments. AIS is currently preparing for this exciting endeavor and expects the application to move into full production in early 2014.

Head over to our website for a more detailed look at what we’re doing… 

A global law firm gained a planning and billed-hours edge with a new custom SharePoint application, incorporating an intelligent data dashboard, developed by the experienced team at AIS. This custom-developed solution continues a rich history of success, as the firm views AIS as their IT project partner and a long-term extension of their team.

Background

The long-time AIS client is a top law firm with household name clients in the technology, financial, healthcare and retail industries. They staff more than 1,000 lawyers and offices in 12 cities in the United States, Europe and Asia. This client offers comprehensive legal capabilities for intellectual property, tax issues, real estate, bankruptcy, environmental, corporate law and more.

The Challenge

AIS was initially brought in to build the firm’s global intranet. The project, a SharePoint intranet application, was very successful and user adoption exceeded expectations. Around the same time, the firm hired another company to build a resource application for its main legal practice areas. But because of poor user feedback and bad performance, the application never made it to production. After nearly three years of time and money spent, the firm turned to AIS for help.

Click here to read the full case study.