ADS specializes in using Ruby on Rails to build advanced, scalable, database-backed web sites for organizations of all sizes. Find out more at our website.

Most of the time when we hear about Ruby on Rails and its uses, we hear about Rails shops helping entrepreneurs launch new sites quickly. A great many of the sites we hear about - Yellowpages.com, 43things, ODEO - are consumer focused. While consumers are a huge and lucrative market to go after (and some might argue fickle), what about using Rails for business applications? Aside from 37signals’ suite of online applications we don’t hear much about business’ use of Rails. I wonder why that is, as behind the firewall is a great place for Rails to live.

We’ve done numerous internal applications for clients including Chrysler, Camber Corporation, and Hilb Rogal and Hobbs, and more. We’ve had great success working with these companies, streamlining internal process, moving them from paper to digital, and developing software that allows them to focus on what they do not how they do it. My philosophy is that software should help you perform your job better, not get in the way by bogging you down by its use.

Benefits of working on internal apps

Scrum
A majority of the time we work with IT or a product owner that understands their problem domain to a great degree. If we can work with both all the better. We’ve found that using agile and Scrum with these folks works well as they “get it” very quickly.

Infrastructure
With two-week development cycles producing potentially shippable product, ensuring that code we produce integrates with existing code is a must. This requires version control and automated testing. Many of our clients IT departments are set up with subversion, a ticketing system that integrates with subversion, continuous integration servers, and test servers. Not having to maintain that infrastructure ourselves allows us to focus on producing business value.

Scalability
Scalability is important for any application, whether used by consumers or business. Clients want to know that a site won’t crumble under a load. However, a majority of our clients are not worried about their site handling hundreds of thousands or millions of simultaneous requests. Scaling an application is always a requirement, but less of an issue with internal applications.

Business Value
This is a big one for me. The entire reason a company develops an internal application is to provide business value. The more we add to the application the more value is achieved. Using Scrum and a two-week development cycle, a company sees business value sooner.

Conclusions

I’d like to hear more about people’s experiences working on internal applications for clients or for their company. How was your experience? What roadblocks, if any, did you run into? What were your challenges?

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