Today, development teams typically need hundreds of person hours to develop an application or to fully integrate a new platform. Prototypes and Proofs of Concept (PoC) also take many weeks (or even months) to develop. If you could significantly reduce these timeframes, you would accelerate time to market and expedite PoCs and rollouts. This advantage saves money and reduces the risk of missing features, late deliveries or inadequate testing.

1. ACCELERATE INNOVATION & PRODUCTIVITY
WITH RAPID PROTOTYPING & DEVELOPMENT
Model New Ideas, Land More Business, Control Costs

2. 1
CONSIDERATIONS FOR ACCELERATING DEVELOPMENT
Today, development teams typically need hundreds of person hours to develop an application or to fully
integrate a new platform. Prototypes and Proofs of Concept (PoC) also take many weeks (or even months)
to develop. If you could significantly reduce these timeframes, you would accelerate time to market and
expedite PoCs and rollouts. This advantage saves money and reduces the risk of missing features, late
deliveries or inadequate testing.
Not only is development an expensive undertaking, but the amount of time invested also limits the amount
of innovation. With shorter development cycles, you gain the time and flexibility to experiment, to model
new ideas, to consider adding new customer-requested features that weren’t in the original plan, and to
continuously improve your applications through rapid prototyping.
Over the past decade, development teams have adopted new programming methods to try to reduce
development time. Today, a new generation of platforms in the application stack is designed to both deliver
a specific layer of functionality and enable rapid prototyping, allowing development teams to focus their
efforts on the value they add and gain time for more innovation.
KEY ASPECTS OF RAPID DEVELOPMENT PLATFORMS
One of the drags against innovation and growth is the time it takes to develop software applications and
customize solutions. Software development is complex anyway, and the many different systems and data
sources that have to be considered serve to compound the challenges. The timeframes required to deliver
software not only limit the creativity of software teams, this aspect also inhibits the agility of nearly everyone
who relies on software. If development teams could significantly shrink schedules, they could contribute to
both the effectiveness and efficiency of their companies and customers.
Over the years, experts have developed models for simplifying and expediting development by focusing on
key aspects: project management, programming processes, design approaches, data standards, etc. Each of
these areas produces improvements, but development and prototyping practices are still far from the ideal
of on-demand assembly from readily reusable objects.
Project Management and Programming Processes
Both software development companies and system integrators carefully measure days required for each
aspect of a project or product release. Accurate estimates and tracking the time are important project-
management tasks. If the schedule starts to slip because of unanticipated issues or a new customer-driven
feature is introduced midstream, the schedule and budget estimates can be impossible to reconcile without
throwing out other features or settling on some other compromise.
A variety of programming methods have emerged, each promising to improve results and shrink schedules.
Development methods such as Rapid Application Development (RAD) and Agile Software Development are
models that attempt to shorten development cycles and improve both the development process and the fit-

3. 2
to-purpose of the application. Still, many companies find that the promised reduction in development time is
elusive, and the newer methodologies introduce issues that can be disruptive as cultures try to adapt. And
even when these methods are ideally implemented, they focus on how projects are planned and developed -
they can’t reduce the complexity of many programming tasks. Focusing primarily on how you program is not
enough to accelerate development.
Design Approaches and Data Standards
Object-oriented design (OOD), service-oriented architecture (SOA), and data standards such as XML and its
derivatives can reduce the complexity and time spent integrating systems and data and allow for reusability.
Many companies lag behind in adoption of these standards. SOA in particular can be difficult to implement
while maintaining older architectures and avoiding disruptions. To succeed with these models and cut
development time, these technologies are best adopted in combination with a rapid or agile programming
process.
Rapid Development Platforms
While project management improvements and modular programming techniques are typically the focus in
initiatives aimed at saving time in development, these aspects cover only part of the complete development
environment. Another area that can dramatically contribute to streamlining development is design
innovations in the platforms that make up critical pillars of applications and solutions. To effectively simplify
development and prototyping, you should choose platforms that include the following qualities:
 A single API so all communication to and from the platform is centralized and consistent
 Flexible data modeling so less upfront planning is required and enhancements are simpler to implement
 Templates, profiles, and workflows so predictable, repeatable tasks can be simplified and expedited by
allowing developers to quickly modify and apply packaged forms. These reusable elements also help
promote best practices.
To ensure the fastest possible development cycles, companies and system integrators should be sure to
include the programmability of each platform when they plan projects and when they select platforms.
The cost of any platform that is not designed for rapid development will ripple across every project that
relies on the platform as long as it is in place. Overlooking this aspect of platforms during a selection
process ultimately means unnecessary costs and delays in innovation. Whether you are comparing
commercial platforms, evaluating build-or-buy options, or considering open source alternatives, you
should be sure to include rapid development as a key consideration.
PROOFS OF CONCEPT AND RAPID PROTOTYPING METHOD
Platforms that enable rapid development also provide the opportunity to rapidly produce prototypes
and proofs of concept. This capability offers benefits to both software development teams and system
integrators. For developers in software companies or IT departments, rapid prototyping allows more
experimentation and demonstrations of ideas. Teams can introduce more innovation more quickly, and
each new capability costs less to produce than with legacy platforms that simply can’t support rapid

4. 3
prototyping. And companies that use the innovations can enhance their competitiveness and appeal to
customers. The rapid prototyping capability also facilitates practical evaluations of products that are
under consideration for purchase or new deployments.
For system integrators and solution providers, rapid prototyping can make the difference in winning
business and building a deeper relationship with customers. When you can build a proof of concept in
just a week or two instead of a month or two, you can quickly establish the value of your team and the
technology you are recommending. Customers will value your ability to prove you can deliver quickly
and are likelier to award additional business to your firm.
BENEFITS OF RAPID DEVELOPMENT AND PROTOTYPING
At first blush, system integrators may regard rapid prototyping as a tremendous benefit but rapid
development as a threat to the business model. Rapid prototyping can of course make the difference in
winning business. But developing and delivering the finished product faster might seem to benefit the
client but not the system integrator. While each project will involve fewer coding hours than a similar
project done with a traditional platform that lacks rapid development, the benefits far outweigh the risks.
Rapid development improves your ability to deliver projects quickly and predictably, and that can help
you build a deep relationship with customers, develop repeatable competencies and expertise to scale
your business, and gain enthusiastic references and referrals. Customers will reward you when you
differentiate your firm with high-quality solutions delivered much faster than they are accustomed to. You
also can feel more confident about schedules and bid integrity.
RAPID DEVELOPMENT FOR INFORMATION-DRIVEN APPLICATIONS
When your application depends on access to information, you can gain the advantages of unified
information access platforms in place of legacy search engines. Information access platforms extend the
reach of search engines by retrieving data and media as well as unstructured content. This extension of
legacy search ensures that all relevant information is included, which means insight and decisions are
more complete and achieved faster. Some information access platforms, such as Attivio’s Active
Intelligence Engine® (AIE®), offer features that enable rapid prototyping and development. You can also
use the AIE universal index to aggregate access to disparate systems, including, for example, multiple
content management systems.

5. 4
Examples of information-driven applications and solutions that benefit from inclusion of information
access platforms:
 Content- or data-intensive web portals, such as:
o eMedia portals
o Consumer portals, such as career sites, dating sites, real estate sites
o Collaboration portals, both internal and cross-enterprise
o Internal portals
 Intelligence-gathering and decision support applications, such as:
o Market Intelligence
o Voice of the Customer
o 3600
view of patients
o Crime prevention and terrorist detection
 Corporate governance solutions:
o E-Discovery
o Anti-money laundering
o Data privacy protection
o Intellectual property policing
Because unified information access platforms allow unique functionality in addition to legacy search,
you can also use these platforms to build innovative solutions and offer greater interactivity. For
example, because some unified information access platforms let you submit simple, natural language
queries to retrieve data, you can easily allow users to see different results in a chart or other object by
selecting various dimensions.
AIE FEATURES
Attivio’s Active Intelligence Engine® (AIE®) is an example of a platform that is designed to accelerate the
development of applications and solution. AIE is a unified information access platform that extends
enterprise search capabilities across documents, data and media. AIE can replace or co-exist with legacy
search. Core features of AIE include:
 All structured data and unstructured content are indexed and maintained in a single, universal
index so you can analyze all relevant information together.
 AIE’s unique JOIN feature extends across structured data and unstructured content to JOIN any
two objects that share a common property. AIE extracts data at index time and then JOINs data
and content dynamically on any field or dimension.
 AIE offers state-of-the-art linguistics capabilities and comprehensive language support
 Workflow and alerts automate processes and notifications
 AIE supports real-time data streaming and incremental, field-level indexing so fresh data is
immediately available
 AIE’s Dynamic Facet Generation automatically recommends the most relevant facets and the
order in which they should be displayed, improving navigation and discovery

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 AIE provides for all common office formats, email, text, PDF, CSV, RDBMS, HTML, XML, graphics,
audio, video, OCR and more. All information is secure and controlled with user access rights.
 AIE can scale as data and query volumes increase or performance requirements change. This
add-as-you-go model means you buy only the hardware you need today without risking costly
upgrades, lengthy re-indexing and downtime. The footprint of AIE’s core product is under 20 MB
– less than 20% of legacy search engines.
AIE makes rapid prototyping and deployment possible with these core design principles and features:
 Single Application Program Interface (API) that simplifies coding
All client communications with the AIE engine are managed through a single, simple API. This
same API is used for sending new content for ingestion, sending and retrieving queries, and
issuing administration commands. This single API architecture allows greater flexibility and
reusability of workflows and sub-flows.
 Schema-less data model
The schema-less data model simplifies flexible data modeling at all stages of development and
enhancement and streamlines the processes of loading data and running queries
 Configurable workflow model to control all system processes
AIE’s customizable workflows integrate the process of searching for information and acting on
the results. Workflows can include linear processes, conditional logic (branching), loops for
handling embedded objects (e.g., email attachments), multiple destinations for a message, and
other features. Time-consuming steps can be offloaded or run in a batch to avoid slowing
Performance.
USING QUICK PROOFS OF CONCEPT TO WIN MORE BUSINESS
Attivio’s Rapid Prototyping Method (RPM) enables developers to produce a functional proof of concept
or prototype in less than half the time this process usually takes. This capability has already helped
Attivio’s system integration partners win business. It also helps Attivio’s sales engineers establish the
power of the platform’s functionality and the proof of how rapidly development teams can produce
results.
This account provides an example of the advantages of RPM:

7. 6
A STORY OF RAPID PROOF OF CONCEPT DEVELOPMENT
From a blog entry by Dave Voutila, an engineer at Attivio:
Unlike legacy enterprise search solutions, AIE does not rely on pre-built taxonomies or
hard-wired configurations. This allows engineers to target their content and easily
start ingesting it into the AIE index. If the content is stored in files, then the engineer
can just point the file connector at the target content and start ingesting the files. If it
is in a database, then the database connector is simply told where the database
resides, provided authentication to the repository and then told which tables contain
the content of interest.
Our process does not require that the user be over-burdened with a host of up-front
questions about what types of queries would you like to see run, what results are you
looking for exactly or what types of content do you want to see displayed on the
front-end.
AIE uses a dynamic schema. Our faceted navigation is built automatically and based
off of the content that resides in the index.
To give you an example of a recent proof of concept (POC) that was built by one of
our engineers for a prospect, I'll give you an overview of the timeline of events from
initial contact through delivery and the demo of the POC. This process illustrates how
Attivio is agile and responsive to our prospects and customers.
Day 1
The initial call is held with the prospect to introduce Attivio and discuss a high-level
overview of their requirements. They have a lot of research documents in PDF and
MSOffice formats as well as a database containing statistics. They want a search
solution for their site that enables users to find exactly the reference material they
are looking for, while also guiding them to other content of interest related to their
search topic. By the end of the call the prospect is impressed by what they've heard
about AIE and would like to see a POC using their content.
They want to be able to search across:
 All text
 Author
 Title
 Other fields

8. 7
They want to be able to sort on fields by:
 Relevancy
 Subject
 Freshness
 Title Name
Day 2
The prospect sends Attivio a sample of their content via FTP, which consists of a set of
PDFs and MSOffice documents representing the research reports and appendices as
well as a copy of the database tables that are relevant to the content. These tables
contain metadata and statistics related to the content within the documents. This
might have posed a problem except that ingesting content from PDFs and Office
documents, as well as from databases, is not an issue using AIE. Once the content is
uploaded to the FTP site the engineer restores the database and copies the files onto
a virtual machine.
Day 3
The engineer configures the ingestion process to pull in all of the files and database
table contents into AIE. The content of interest to the prospect is author, title and all
text. This content is ingested and fields are created in the index related to these
requirements. In additional, a database connector ingests all the content from the
database that is relevant (IDs and statistics). A default feature in AIE also allows for
using a dynamic synonym dictionary mined from the content in the prospect's
database.
Day 4
Attivio demonstrates the POC to the prospect and highlights that all of their content is
present in the index. JOIN queries are used to demonstrate a search across both the
PDFs (unstructured) and the database (structured) content, all of which reside in the
AIE index. The automatically generated facets display navigation options by Subject,
Section, Author and Associated Titles, all without any intervention from the engineer.
In additional, synonym expansion and spelling suggestions are provided, again, with no
effort needed by the engineer to construct the dictionaries.
This rapid prototyping process is not unique to this particular prospect. This is common
for many Attivio engagements. An interesting footnote is that this particular
engineer — ME, Dave Voutila — has been with Attivio for less than two weeks and had
no prior experience working with the Attivio Active Intelligence Engine.

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CONCLUSION
Rapid prototyping and development offer significant advantages: more time and flexibility for innovation
and lower cost for development. The quest for faster prototyping and development should include as
many aspects of the development process as possible: project planning, development model, data
standards, and the design of acquired platforms and components. When you select platforms and
components, you can ensure faster coding experiences when you look for features that support rapid
prototyping and development. These features can also contribute important factors in decisions about
whether to buy or build functionality and in assessing the true costs of implementing open-source
alternatives.
For software development companies and value-added resellers, coding activities are entirely an
investment, so the ability to shrink the schedule without sacrificing results is an unmitigated victory. For
system integrators, the ability to predictably deliver both PoCs and finished solutions much faster than
your customers expect can be a powerful differentiator, ensuring more business with each customer,
development of repeatable competencies and expertise to scale your business, and enthusiastic
references and referrals.
Next Step
This paper focuses on the rapid development capabilities of the Attivio platform. To learn more about
how you can gain the advantages of unifying access to all types of information today, please explore
these additional online resources:
 A white paper that explains unified information architecture: “Agile Enterprises: Accelerating
Information-Driven Business Processes”
 A webinar, “How 6 Companies Transformed Information Management with UIA,” featuring
Enterprise Strategy Group Senior Analyst Brian Babineau with Attivio’s CTO Sid Probstein and
Solution Architect Reid Craig
 A short video featuring Forrester Research's Matthew Brown, VP and Research Director, and
Boris Evelson, Principal Analyst, explaining the business benefits of unified information
architecture and why companies need to take steps now

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ABOUT ATTIVIO
Attivio’s Active Intelligence Engine® (AIE®), redefines the business impact of our customers’ information
assets, so they can quickly seize opportunities, solve critical challenges and fulfill their strategic vision.
Attivio correlates disparate silos of structured data and
unstructured content in ways never before
possible. Offering both intuitive search capabilities and
the power of SQL, AIE seamlessly integrates with existing
BI and big data tools to reveal insight that matters,
through the access method that best suits each user’s
technical skills and priorities. Please visit us at
www.attivio.com.
Attivio, Inc. • 275 Grove Street • Newton, MA 02466 USA
o +1.857.226.5040 • f +1.857.226.5072 • info@attivio.com• www.attivio.com
© 2013 Attivio, Inc. All rights reserved. Attivio, Active Intelligence Engine, and all other related logos and product names are registered trademarks of Attivio in
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