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Re: Modernizing legacy stuff

 
Hein van den Heuvel
Honored Contributor

Re: Modernizing legacy stuff

Wim>> Could you give me more details of what you mean ?

Hi Wim. I think that question is in reference to Richard's note.

I think his reference is a soft referral to two extensive replies he wrote today in:

http://forums1.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=1095466
http://forums1.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=1110572

Be sure to check those out.
Hein.


Wim Van den Wyngaert
Honored Contributor

Re: Modernizing legacy stuff

Hein,

OK but re-read my question. Who really did something important ?

Wim
Wim
Hoff
Honored Contributor

Re: Modernizing legacy stuff

And then, who can talk about what they've done in any particular detail?

Put another way, your question isn't one I would or could answer, nor would I expect nor believe anyone else could. Without some idea of the code, it's difficult to predict what might be feasible and reasonable, and how much that effort might cost -- this ranges from zero to infinite, and the use of "billions" and "thirty years old" and other such implies relative values and relative effort rather larger than zero.

The first step here (regardless) is to document what you have in detail, including the current code and your business practices and your current burn rate for maintaining the environment, and -- and this often is the most difficult part of the whole endeavor -- start to nail down the particular project requirements; where you want to be, and particularly where you can get to.

Creeping project requirements or significant unspecified or undocumented or unknown existing capabilities will kill most any software effort.

Once you have some idea of what you have, then you can look at either an incremental upgrade or incremental migration, or if you should be forced into a rather more draconian migration (to a newer application, on or off OpenVMS)... And you'll have a far better idea of the scale of the effort.

The following are related (and high-level) thoughts and considerations:
http://64.223.189.234/node/225
http://64.223.189.234/node/226

DSM (and Cache) are good solutions. There are others. And you can have unmaintainable code in most any language and on most any platform. What you need to do to extricate the business practices and data varies. Widely.
Richard J Maher
Trusted Contributor

Re: Modernizing legacy stuff

Hi Wim,

[Wim> Elan is the company that pays me. I have no further contacts with them but I think it's part of Manpower. So, no idea who Adrian is.]

Adrian was one of the founding fathers of Elan and a nice bloke who stayed a nice bloke after he sold Elan for squillions. Back in the early 90s when VMS was still king, he was the best pimp you could ask for in VMS's European market place. (And pretty technically minded for an agent) Anyway, not important.

[Hein>
http://forums1.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=1095466
http://forums1.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=1110572

Be sure to check those out.
]

Thanks for that Hein. They're definitely worth a read if I do say so myself.

[Wim>OK but re-read my question. Who really did something important ?]

I'm not sure this is the best place to come for customer testimonials, if that's what you're after Wim. But to answer your question directly, in a broader sense, let me just say "I did!".

I have simply come up with the best, most efficient, and easiest to implement, infrastructure for integrating you latest and greatest GUI front end with your rock-solid, high-performance, and secure VMS servers. Doesn't matter if it's Java, .NET, Browser-based HTML/Javascript, or another VMS box.

I've gone further than just joining up the dots and filling in the paint-color numbers for you; I have handed you the Mona Lisa in a frame and all I'm asking you to do is stick it up on your living-room wall for a while and see if it grows on you.

But here you're looking for previous experience(s) rather than potential solutions so I'll leave you to it. I just wouldn't be too suprised if both you and VMS are still there in 5-10 years time. Let's face it, support costs and staff have been reduced to such a level that it is no longer cost-effective to get rid of these VMS systems.

Cheers Richard Maher

PS. Is Belgacom still VMS?
Wim Van den Wyngaert
Honored Contributor

Re: Modernizing legacy stuff

Yes Belgacom is still VMS. And make it 2-10 years (2=managemenet, 10=the old vms guys).

Wim
Wim
Brad McCusker
Respected Contributor

Re: Modernizing legacy stuff

Wim (and others) -

I am aware of a few of these situations from my prior rolw in HP.

Send me mail offline and I can point you at the guy in HP who is very close to a few of these, and continues to work with a few customers doing this sort of effort.

Brad McCusker

Software Concepts International
www.sciinc.com

(mccusker at the domain above)
Brad McCusker
Software Concepts International
Dean McGorrill
Valued Contributor

Re: Modernizing legacy stuff




>>>
I have simply come up with the best, most efficient, and easiest to implement, infrastructure for integrating you latest and greatest GUI front end with your rock-solid, high-performance, and secure VMS servers. Doesn't matter if it's Java, .NET, Browser-based HTML/Javascript, or another VMS box.
<<<
Right on. I've only been on the vms streets
a couple years since not working on vms, but
I've seen a few companies trying to leave
vms. On my last contract, they'd spent
millions on a replacement app that wasn't
working. I suggested they just update the gui. dunno what they wound up doing..
Willem Grooters
Honored Contributor

Re: Modernizing legacy stuff

The MBA adagium: New = Better = Cheaper.

It doesn;t have to be.
Since most businesses do not basically change their field of work, it's quite likely that core business logic will not change. The basic rulkes for banking, insurence, shopkeeping - whatever - are basically unchanged in a few hundred years.
Changes do NOT need to be for the better. It's been tried fairly recently (remember boom dot com?).
What's often referred tp as 'modernize' is actually a matter of 'give it a nice, shiny, funky look'. Or its riding the waves of a hype.

Having said that, it doesn't mean it's all worthless. Most ofen, it requires good thinking in advance: what will you loose? If you do transactions, moving from a single straem of controlled access you have now, to a uncontrolled set of activities, probably, with all consequences in tracking, tracing, keeping thins consistent...Not to forget legal requirements, validation, accreditation, and that kind of stuff (SOX at al).

Working on badly documented systems is hard and costly, and it won't be cheaper if you re-develop the application (inclusing all related testing, validation, accreditation...) and put THAT into maintenance. Documentation will, again, be minimal and be outdated before you blink you eyes. And you're back where you once started.
Willem Grooters
OpenVMS Developer & System Manager
labadie_1
Honored Contributor

Re: Modernizing legacy stuff

[Sorry, this is out of subject]

I do not have a MBA, but I think this book is a very good one
http://www.amazon.com/Managers-Not-MBAs-Management-Development/dp/1576752755/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1217914168&sr=8-6

The company which had the highest percentage of MBA was Enron. A big success, as everybody knows :-)

Wim Van den Wyngaert
Honored Contributor

Re: Modernizing legacy stuff

DSM is expected to finish before the end of the year (Management) or before the end of 2009 (the project team).

In Belgium we also had L&H (speach techno) ...

Wim (no bottles of labadie left)
Wim