UnboltSoft

Please describe your company and your position there.

University College London - Established in 1826 as London University by founders inspired by the radical ideas of Jeremy Bentham.

For what projects/services did your company hire UnboltSoft?

ARACHNE is a newly designed simulation environment in which neural and neuroglial network organisation, optimisation and execution take advantage of the pre-set, optimised parallel algorithms for remote computations, and of a friendly user interface located on a local computer.

In these settings, a neuroscientist without IT background should be able to incorporate the representative variety of biophysical mechanisms pertinent to nerve (or astroglial) cells, within a single network model in which the network complexity is limited only by the availability of remote computing resources, and not by the modelling kernel or its interface.

What were your goals for this project?

The goal was to create IT computation tools for network simulation.

How did you select this vendor?

They were recommended for us at Dnepropetrovsk National University.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

ARACHNE is a newly designed simulation environment for creating and running realistic models of neural networks for untrained users.

The network simulation has hitherto been a task for computing professionals rather than experimental neuroscientists. This is mainly because such networks usually engage substantial computational resources, the handling of which requires specific programming skills.

Here we put forward a newly developed simulation environment ARACHNE: it enables an investigator to build and explore cellular networks of arbitrary biophysical and architectural complexity using the logic of NEURON and a simple interface on a local computer.

The interface can control, through the internet, and optimized computational kernel installed on AMAZON cluster. ARACHNE can combine neuronal (wired) and astroglial (extracellular volume-transmission drove ) network types and adopt realistic cell models from the NEURON library.

What was the team composition?

The project team was about 5 people with IT and math backgrounds.

Can you share any information that demonstrates the impact that this project has had on your business?

We published high impact papers in Plos Computentiaol Biology and Nature communications and have got prestigious European Grant for network simulations studies.

1. Savtchenko LP, Bard L, Jensen TP, Reynolds JP, Kraev I, Medvedev N, Stewart MG, Henneberger C, Rusakov DA. Disentangling astroglial physiology with a realistic cell model in silico. Nat Commun. 2018 Sep 3;9(1):3554. doi: 10.1038/s41467-018-05896-w. Link to Pubmed

2. Aleksin SG, Zheng K, Rusakov DA, Savtchenko LP. ARACHNE: A neural-neuroglial network builder with remotely controlled parallel computing. PLoS Comput Biol. 2017 Mar 31;13(3):e1005467. doi: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1005467. eCollection 2017 Mar. Link to Pubmed

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

The project management was perfect to finish the project in time

What did you find most impressive about this company?

two advantages: they are professionals and are ready to work 24 hours a day. always ready to help with the project, even after its completion.

Are there any areas for improvement?

I would like more professional mathematicians.

Please describe your company and your position there.

Managing partner

For what projects/services did your company hire UnboltSoft?

Performance optimization and code refactoring

What were your goals for this project?

Achieve horizontal escalation of complex algorithms

How did you select this vendor?

We were looking for scientific software developers and researchers. They participated and achieved excellent results in the selection process

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

They provide support to our technical leads and senior developers, and participate in some development and QA tasks

What was the team composition?

They provide resources on demand. There is a fixed team of highly-skilled senior developers and then others on demand.

Can you share any information that demonstrates the impact that this project has had on your business?

Their work with our SCRUM teams has allowed a performance improvement of more than 10 times in our most complex algorithms

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

They participate actively in our SCRUM ceremonies and work effectively with our technical leads, POs and SCs

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Their deep knowledge of frameworks and methodologies stand out.

Are there any areas for improvement?

No

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a lead software architect for a SaaS company. We build products for the B2B operations between hospitals and vendors that sell products and equipment to them. In my role, I take the concepts that have been conceived and find ways to implement them as software. I lead a team of developers to make that vision become realized.

What challenge were you trying to address with UnboltSoft?

UnboltSoft is one of our resources for finding talent. They fill up our team with members to help create and deploy our product, for example, test engineers. They’ve played a large role in helping us get started.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Aside from me, everyone who’s on our team is a contractor. UnboltSoft is helping us build our team. They’ve brought on three individuals, but currently, there’s only one working from UnboltSoft.

We needed people who had expertise in Java and Spring Boot. We also needed someone to help us with testing to make sure our product, which is very dynamic and data-driven, was able to test all the different ways it behaves given different sets of inputs.

UnboltSoft’s engineers are from Europe, however, we work in my time zone. We try to have an intersection with our team members from the Europe area as well as the rest of the team in other time zones; that way we have enough time to connect as a team.

How did you come to work with UnboltSoft?

I found them through a web search.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our partnership started in October 2018, and the work is ongoing. I’m hoping they’ll continue to provide us with great talent. We’re creating a product that’s a service to the healthcare industry, so there isn’t a stopping point. There will always be more work to do.

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

We’ve been pleased with the work so far. The people who came at the beginning were great and allowed us to move very quickly. We were able to reach a proof of concept and got some quality people from UnboltSoft. They got the ball rolling, and we’ve been able to maintain that momentum. The testing engineer has been able to help us with meeting our objectives as well as proving and vetting that our product delivers what it promises to deliver.

UnboltSoft doesn’t specialize in a specific area of software development. They try to find people who meet our criteria and like to focus on more scientific-type software. They have their own vetting process and let the developers do self-scoring. I like to interview their candidates, and it works out for us.

How did UnboltSoft perform from a project management standpoint?

Project management depends on the person. The capabilities of the individual depend on how they perform a task, so it varies.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They found an engineer who helped us get off the ground. We got a launchpad-type product that was a database management tool that allowed us to build everything off of it. We pushed that out in two months, a very short timeline. It was a prototype proof of concept. Our team learned a lot from that experience. We were able to collaborate with a high level of intensity and develop something that was great. They gave us a quality developer from the very beginning.

Are there any areas they could improve?

The one criticism is that the same developer suddenly decided to leave, and we didn’t get any notice, nor did UnboltSoft. It was a frustrating experience for both of us. I wish we had more time to handle that transition because it shook things up. However, we can’t control what people do.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

UnboltSoft will scour a variety of countries for you, so you’ll get a very diverse set of candidates depending on your circumstances. Make sure you have concrete criteria on what kind of person you’re looking for. That’ll help UnboltSoft with the search. Be sure to compare the candidates and measure their aptitude. Also, make sure you can communicate with your team members.