Database and Application Migration
Our goal:
Provide ourselves and our customers with smooth migration strategies and tools that make sure we leverage existing investments as much as possible as well as ensuring that new investments will continue to be leveraged into the future.
Our philosophy:
The true value of our current applications is locked within our minds and source code. We will unlock this value by using and creating reusable models, components and standards. Your current source code might make you money today but is largely useless when you need to build the next incarnations of your systems.
The first step is recognizing the problem and deciding how to deal with it. The aim is to prevent making the same mistakes again.
The next step is to keep on reading and consider using some of our services.
Here's an example of what we mean: Many reports are either hard coded or built using report writers that use a proprietary format to store their definitions. We will make use of SQL Server Reporting Services which stores report definitions in a standardized XML-format called RDL-files. This way the actual report definition can always be read and migrated into new formats or tools, seriously reducing maintenance costs in the future. We provide our customers with services and tools to migrate existing report solutions into the RDL standard.
Software Objectives can migrate your reports for you delivering tested reports built using SQL Server Reporting Services or sell you the tools to do the migration yourself. Migrating reports from ReportPro into RDL can be done for as low as $99 per report.
Database migration: Using our data access tools and classes for Visual Objects you can migrate existing legacy dbf-data into a modern SQL Server 2005 platform. We also support DB2, Oracle and Sybase. This can be a side by side migration; you can keep your existing applications largely un-altered as our classes are highly compatible with VO’s standard dbServer classes.
We have already migrated large applications like this, some in as little as 4 weeks with only two people working on the project. After such a migration a world of new possibilities is available to you immediately.
You can have replication of data between remote systems, new interactive reports (we integrate SQL Server Reporting Services Reports into VO-applications), make use of triggers and stored procedures, a much more reliable database without index corruption and a framework for accessing business logic and data from within Microsoft Office applications.
Modern technologies like the Windows Workflow Foundation, advanced data mining, Web Services and document management are now within reach and easy to implement using our shared tools, samples and tutorials.
Some of our tools:
SQLMaster
A tool to mange, create and modify databases, tables and other SQL objects in a familiar GUI environment. You can import and convert DBF tables, create SQL scripts and objects and retrieve or edit data. It even generates VO, C# and VB code for you. You will thus be able to port all your tabular data into the SQL world with minimal effort.
SQLClass library
The SQL class library is a wrapper around SQL statements and ADO. It allows you to use existing DBF syntax without limiting your access to the more advanced SQL concepts of stored procedures, triggers and views. This extends the life of your DBF code into the future.
ReportPro 2 RDL Converter
A tool to assist you migrating ReportPro .rpt files to into the open RDL standard. This is another example where we can help you leverage existing code and resources into your future projects.
Reporting Services Report Viewer dialog for Visual Objects
This is the easy way to integrate Reporting Services reports into your existing VO applications. (see SO ReportRuntime)
Microsoft Office Integration Framework
We have written the code for you to integrate MS Office Word, Excel and Outlook into your applications. This means that you will be able to call and control MS Office from your application or have MS Office call up your business logic and data. We have ready to use add-in templates for VSTO to kick-start your integration processes.
The Web Service Framework
Extend your Win32 application and its data immediately to the web or consume existing web services within your VO application now. We provide the interface code and implementation tools to allow you to leverage your current application out into the wider world or re-use supplied business logic from external web services.
VO-Documentation generator
To assist you in protecting your investments it is paramount to document existing and new code in a standardised way. Our generator allows you to document VO code using XML-standard documentation and automatically generate the same docs from VO as you get from MS-Visual Studio.
Manatee
A class library written in C# with many familiar VO-functions to give you a jump start into .Net and C#. This has two benefits. Firstly, if you can't remember what the StrTran() equivalent was in .Net, you just use StrTran()! But secondly, if you wish to find out what the .Net equivalent is, you have the source code as real examples for you.
Our services:
We provide a wide range of services to support this process. Whilst there is a wealth of free documentation and tools, we can also provide consultancies to support turn key projects, migration tools, documentation, redevelopment strategies and training for your staff. What we often do and prefer is to coach you on-site. We come in, make an analysis and prepare the migration strategy for you. In parallel with this process, we train your staff and create project specific documentation and models. Typical scenarios take around 4-8 man weeks to get up and running and require around the same amount of work from internal staff finishing what we started. We are available for support using phone, email and instant messaging for the duration of the project and come in for an evaluation every other week.
We can also provide project management for you and report to management about progress. This will create a pool of external experts for your organization to fall back on when extra capacity is needed in the future. You will also profit tremendously from the documentation and models we create in the process, unlocking the true value of the business process your application supports.
Our existing clients include organisations where data and process security was paramount. Thus we are very comfortable with confidentiality requirements and can help the client protect this when extending themselves into the web environment.
Our training, support and tutorials:
We have written many tutorials to help guide you through the process. All you need to do to gain access to these valuable resources is to register on this site. This will also give you access to our collaboration website and support forum. Many tutorials have expanded into one day workshops that can be combined into several days of training. We provide special programmer retreat events where we dedicate a few days in a quiet location and relaxing atmosphere to optimize the learning experience. On request we also can come in for in-house training session if you prefer. Keeping costs as low as possible we can keep the groups we train at once very small. Typically we train a maximum of 8 people at a time with two trainers, one presenting the material, the other coaching the students. For most training events we only need a group of 4 students to make it cost effective. Students use their own laptop to connect to our network and servers. These have been setup to specifically to maximise training value and allows us to create small projects that can be taken home after training and put to immediate use.
When we train 4 people or more from the same company we can use the data and software you provide to not only create a familiar model to work with but also deliver results you can use right away. This option may require an extra day of setup and analysis for one of our trainers charged to the customer.