CodiLime

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am a Solution Architect working on customer requirements and projects enabling a new business areas for our products in telco routing space

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire CodiLime, and what were your goals?

We looked at a partner who can help us prepare the final product for a larger system integrator with deep knowledge of networking and DPDK development who can prepare good documentation and CI/CD integration with sets of automated tests. Also, we required KT sessions for our partners using that project.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

I found them at a conference and after a short discussion, we decided to start cooperation

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

They designed a DPDK driver for FPGA-enabled full-offload vRouter and integrated it with a larger system available as an open-source project. They delivered driver and open-stack orchestration and helped supporting first field trials. They also made verification of FPGA bitstream delivered by our partner and worked in a black-box mode that they reported many issues to FPGA bitstream vendor

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

There were 13 people

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

We were able to show a nice demo and make complex field trials with first customers using a very challenging environment,

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.

The project management was in good share, especially when guys with technical backgrounds joined the management team. we used mostly e-mails and status presentations. Also, test plans were created first to agree on the scope of milestones. Management prepared milestone proposals and they organized sessions where they summarized progress and job done. They proposed workarounds and early reported any delays and difficulties that they see.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

Their work was impressive and very good communication and designs and tests documents. They also prepared blueprints for the opensource upstream process. They were knowledgeable in complex network routing areas what was very helpful. I learned a lot from them.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

their code required some code review to make sure that the code was not a POC quality at the start of the project. Next, after discussions, the quality was improved very much. They should work on reporting issues earlier.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I was a senior project manager at an IT services company headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. The company also had a customer experience center in Silicon Valley.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with CodiLime?

We needed a development partner for our innovation group to work on projects that created new services for our customer base. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

CodiLime’s first project with us included architecture, design, and development work. Back then, my former company focused on Java and Perl scripting, and we were working on a proof of concept (POC). Since it wasn’t a finished product, my team was given a small budget that we had to make the most of in three months. 

In 2015, I took over the management of a data center that internal entity developers used as a sandbox. CodiLime provided us with some admin level engineers who were versed in environmental and virtual servers as well as networking. They offered two resources from Poland who initially worked remotely during California business hours. They managed all of our daily tasks, including deploying or decommissioning servers, creating virtual local area networks (VLANs), getting into firewalls, and setting up security within firewalls. 

I asked CodiLime to work as an administrator for a VMware vSphere-type virtualized server environment. It was a unique requirement that came from a customer who needed a terminal server with a specific version of Linux on it. I delegated the task to CodiLime, and they figured it out. 

In 2016, I took on a project building some cybersecurity services that would complement the global operation of our security operations center services. Since we were once again doing software development, I needed a wide array of skills: QA testers, developers, architects, and data scientists. CodiLime supplied all of our resource needs. 

How did you come to work with CodiLime?

We were doing software development at a new orchestration system, and someone from my company who had worked with CodiLime recommended them as a partner. I needed to hire an engineer and architect, and they provided both within a very reasonable time. 

How much have you invested with them?

Our quarterly spending was anywhere from $250,000 to multi-millions of dollars if we were doing full software development on a service security project. 

What is the status of this engagement?

Our partnership lasted from February 2014–August 2020. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement? 

The projects we worked on were innovation-based, and we never tracked their ROI. However, I can say that from a development standpoint, CodiLime provided resources at half the price of what was typically paid here in the US. 

During our partnership, I even tried a team from Salt Lake City, and they were twice the cost and hassle because they were not as efficient and effective as CodiLime. After a quarter, we quickly regrouped and realized we didn’t need any other team to help us. Our current partnership worked, so we stuck with CodiLime.  

How did CodiLime perform from a project management standpoint?

I was always impressed that CodiLime provided project management at no additional cost, whether I requested a team of one or 22 engineers. If I had issues or additional requirements, I would take them straight to the project manager. We would have daily checkups, and I could follow up on my requests through them. By the next day, I could tell that my concerns had been communicated and the results and the changes were already in effect.

In my opinion as a seasoned project manager with 20-plus years experience, they had excellent project management skills. These guys were top dough, and they were very cost-effective.

They were very flexible with our needs, given that they worked within our schedule. They assisted us in finishing the project on time and within the budget that we had allocated. Our projects were MVPs, and they were successful.

They worked remotely, and I managed them with daily stand-up calls and a Kanban board to assign tasks. When I showed up the next day, I could see through their updates exactly what they had accomplished. We chatted in the morning and determined the day’s agenda and any challenges we might encounter. 

CodiLime’s team was very efficient and effective. I was also impressed by their skillset. We never went back to them because someone didn’t match what we needed. They always provided the suitable resource for the right cost. I didn't have to spend time training or bringing any of these guys up to speed — they were able to do that internally.

The resources they provided were trilingual and, even though English was not their first language, they were good communicators. Communication was never a problem.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I was impressed with their ability to provide the right resource with the exact skills that we needed. They never had to go back and backfill because they missed the mark.

The skillsets of CodiLime’s resources were impressive, too — they were much more skilled than what I’m used to here in Silicon Valley. Their engineers had a broad range of skills, and they were experts in many areas,  — not just on what we asked them to do. They were very well-rounded and well-skilled. It was amazing that they were so young, yet they had all of these skills and experiences.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I honestly can't think of anything that they lacked.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be willing to listen to their opinions. Instead of treating CodiLime as a body shop, treat them as a consulting agency. Tell them what you’re trying to build and what your expectations are, and ask for their opinion and feedback — there are different ways to come up with the right solution. In the past, CodiLime helped us make great decisions as well as changes to our original thought process and design.