Spring empowers Java developers

SAN MATEO, USA: SpringSource, the enterprise Java leader has announced that Cornell University’s Lab of Ornithology has decreased development time and costs by implementing Spring software to develop applications on one of its flagship websites.

The website facilitates the Lab’s mission to interpret and conserve the Earth’s biological diversity by engaging birders through regional website portals to collect scientifically meaningful observations of birds across North and South America.

Before turning to Spring, the de facto standard platform to build, run and manage enterprise Java applications, the Lab’s five person development team manually coded each application for eBird and its portals without any application framework.

“As Cornell University’s Lab of Ornithology demonstrates, Spring is the key for turning complex applications into streamlined projects that maximize every dollar spent on development,” said Rod Johnson, CEO of SpringSource and founder of the Spring.

“No one can afford to spend weeks manually developing and managing applications. Spring empowers Java developers to streamline lifecycle development and get on to the more important business of tailoring their applications to meet their customers’ needs,” added Johnson.

The results were lengthy development cycles, longer bug fix times and impaired overall functionality. After implementing Spring, the website’s portal development time was reduced from four weeks to one day.

Paul Allen, assistant director of Information Science at the Cornell University Lab of Ornithology said: “We had to build and run separate Java applications for each portal, that was not sustainable. When there was a critical change, we had to rebuild and redeploy all those applications. It became a nightmare. We ran into this problem several times.”

“With Spring, we are able to focus more on the advancement of the site as opposed to the technical aspects of deploying the portals,” aded Allen.

For Lab developers to run and manage the main site and its portals, Spring introduced a single Java Web application preventing them from spending days manually performing individual customizations and bug fixes.

Instead, the singular Spring- based application provides a custom look and content for every individual portal, as well as fast feature updates. By decreasing the development time invested into individual portals, the Lab has maintained the lowest development costs possible.