Partners

RDA has established partnerships with the following organizations:

Microsoft
K2

As an additional resource, we have included Recommended Links at the end of this section.

Microsoft

As a partner in Microsoft’s Solution Provider program since 1993, RDA maintains the highest level of partnership available from Microsoft. RDA is a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner in Business Process and Integration, Custom Development (Application Infrastructure and Web Development), Data Management (Business Intelligence and Database Management), and Information Worker (Performance Management, Portals and Collaboration, and Search) solutions. The Gold Certified Partner Program identifies companies that have demonstrated proven expertise and commitment in one or more specialized Microsoft technologies. Only a handful of top Microsoft partners in the U.S. have achieved this.

This strong working relationship with Microsoft results in top quality software development expertise from RDA and the highest level of product support from Microsoft for our clients. RDA is dedicated to providing an exceptional range of business and technical skills using Microsoft technologies and platforms. We even work directly with many of the Microsoft teams developing these products.

RDA has been named Microsoft Partner of the Year four separate times: for Microsoft's East Region in 2007, for Microsoft's Southeast District in 2007 and 2005, and for Microsoft's Mid-Atlantic District in 2004. This award is presented to the partner having the greatest impact on Microsoft’s business with metrics based on partner services revenue, engagement volume, and team satisfaction. We also received Microsoft’s distinguished Integration Solution of the Year Award for a project involving Microsoft BizTalk for Rydex Investments. This award is presented for providing outstanding value in a customer solution based on Microsoft technology.

Microsoft NSI Partner

RDA has attained National Systems Integrator (NSI) status in Microsoft Corporation’s U.S. Partner Group, recognizing RDA’s expertise and impact in the technology marketplace. As an NSI partner, RDA has demonstrated expertise with Microsoft technologies and a proven ability to meet customers’ needs. The Microsoft NSI designation was established for elite Microsoft partners to elevate their marketing and delivery strategies across multiple geographic and product segments. Microsoft NSI partners receive greater alignment and engagement of Microsoft field resources, collaborative marketing efforts, deeper product team engagement and executive sponsorship, giving them a competitive advantage in the channel.

RDA Part of Microsoft Virtual Technical Specialist Program

RDA is a part of Microsoft's Virtual Technical Specialist (VTS) Program for Business Intelligence (SQL Server and PerformancePoint) and Enterprise Application Integration (BizTalk). The VTS team is composed of individuals from various partners that have great architectural, development, consultant, and customer facing skills. Members help evangelize the business value of the Microsoft platform and drive net new software revenue for specific Microsoft technologies. They provide pre-sales technical support to enable customers to develop, deploy, and support Microsoft solutions through product capability presentations, application design sessions, and proofs of concept.

Microsoft Patterns and Practices

RDA regularly leverages Microsoft Patterns & Practices in its solutions. In addition, RDA has supported Microsoft in the development of a variety of its Patterns & Practices tools.

Web Service Security Guide and Security Webcasts

RDA recently partnered with Microsoft’s Prescriptive Architecture Group (PAG) to develop the Web Service Security Guide, along with a series of webcasts related to Web Service Security Patterns:

MSDN Architecture Webcast: patterns and practices Live! Securing Web Services with X.509 Certificates in WSE 3.0 (Level 300)

This webcast shows how to implement message layer security with X.509 certificates in Web Services Enhancements (WSE) 3.0 to provide authentication and secure communications between client applications and Web services. It explores design-level decision criteria that help determine when to use X.509 certificates, and finishes by taking a look at an implementation strategy. The team demonstrates how the solution works and walks through the implementation’s code and configuration.

MSDN Architecture Webcast: patterns & practices Live!: Securing Web Services with Kerberos in WSE 3.0 (Level 300)
This is an in-depth look at implementing message layer security with Kerberos in WSE 3.0 to provide authentication and secure communications between client applications and web services. The webcast starts with an overview of Kerberos, explores design-level criteria that would lead to the decision to use Kerberos and finishes by walking through an implementation strategy. The presenters explain how the solution works and then walk through code and configuration of the implementation. The presentation team also had a chance to answer questions from viewers during the last ten minutes of the webcast.

MSDN Architecture Webcast: patterns & practices Live!: Authentication to Web Services with UsernameToken in WSE 3.0 (Level 300)
This webcast provides an in-depth look at authenticating with a web service using the WSE 3.0 UsernameToken and how to secure the communications with X.509 certificates. It starts by exploring design-level criteria that would lead to the decision to implement UsernameToken authentication and finishes by walking through the implementation. The team explains how the solution works and then walks through code and configuration of the implementation. The presenters also discuss extensibility points in WSE, such as using a custom UsernameTokenManager to validate credentials presented to the web service in a UsernameToken against various identity stores and authentication services.

SAML Application Block

Application Blocks are reusable source-code components that provide proven solutions to common development challenges. They can be integrated as is into applications, or they can be extended or customized. Microsoft Patterns & Practices Application Blocks address specific recurring problem domains such as data access, logging, user interface process, and composite user interfaces.

RDA worked with Microsoft to develop an application block for an XML Security Token Service using the Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML), an XML standard for exchanging authentication and authorization data between systems (between an identity provider and a service provider). SAML is a widely recognized security token format that allows for a greater degree of interoperability, because it is not bound to a specific technology or platform. SAML also provides an extensibility mechanism in its security token format, allowing SAML security tokens to be leveraged for a variety of security features beyond authentication and authorization. RDA also provided an implementation pattern as part of this effort that describes how to use the application block as a solution for a scenario. This pattern compliments the security patterns that RDA developed for the web service security guide.

Enterprise Development Reference Architecture

RDA also supported the creation of Microsoft’s Enterprise Development Reference Architecture (EDRA), which provides architectural guidance that an organization can use to standardize the development of distributed systems and overcome the challenges of complex data, multiple simultaneous users, varying business requirements, heterogeneous platforms, and complex interdependencies between distributed applications. EDRA follows specific design objectives to help ease the transition from tightly coupled distributed objects to standards-based, loosely coupled services.

Web Service Software Factory

RDA is also helping to develop a set of implementation patterns for Windows Communication Foundation, referred to as Web Service Software Factory. Service Factory confronts many of the challenges that customers face when developing connected systems, such as instrumentation and management; service design and versioning; lifecycle and deployment; and security. The vision of Service Factory is to enable customers to baseline and develop the most common types of .NET-based services at a high quality, consistently and with minimal effort. Service Factory provides guidance that leverages existing Patterns & Practices deliverables and automation to help customers build end-to-end services in accordance with proven practices.

User Interface Patterns

In addition, RDA worked with Microsoft’s Smart Client Guidance group to create User Interface Patterns as part of the Smart Client Baseline Architecture project for Patterns & Practices.

Microsoft Go-To Partner for Enterprise Service Bus Offerings

RDA is a Go-To partner for Microsoft's Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) offerings. In this role, RDA serves as a primary partner to help customers adopt and implement ESB-based solutions. This opportunity came about through RDA’s membership in and involvement with Microsoft’s Virtual Technical Specialist program.

K2

RDA is recognized by K2 as one of its premier partners in the United States. Over the past several years, RDA has developed several quality human workflow solutions using K2 products for a wide range of clients and industries. In addition, RDA has conducted numerous proof-of-concepts (POCs), product evaluations and comparisons, private training sessions, and seminars on K2 products. (K2 is a business unit of SourceCode Technology Holdings, Inc.)