The Porting Process
Phase 5. Acceptance
The Acceptance – or QA - phase is the final step before full deployment. It is carried out by the customer with Dataline in support to debug and fix the defects reported by the QA team.
Defects can be logged directly by the customer into our issue tracking system via a customer project portal set up specifically for the purpose. We can also exchange documentation and code releases using the same mechanism.
The output of the QA Phase is an operational Microsoft .NET application and not just the end of the porting project, but the beginning of its new life.
Working together
Dataline’s porting methodology is flexible and adapts to the unique needs of each customer and each project. The goal is to complete the best possible conversion at the lowest possible cost in the shortest possible time. The Ice Porter solution costs less than any alternative not because it is done on the cheap, but because the focus is on the technology, automation and collaboration.
We understand that the customer has a unique knowledge about its systems and we want to reuse that resource to the maximum. Our porting engineers are developers who have also worked on Gupta applications that Dataline has built for its customers.
We also know first-hand what it means to have an application that has been developed over a long lifecycle and that contains very valuable business knowledge. The code in the original application is the product of hours, weeks, months and years of programming and testing and to throw it all away and restart from beta 0.1 doesn't make sense for us or the customer. Our phased approach allows for the cooperation between your resources and ours necessary to exploit the expertise and experience each can bring to the project. The goal is to reduce the external costs and to maximise existing knowledge.
This is how we achieve our goal:
- During the Analysis phase Dataline collaborates with your IT team to ensure that we have an accurate picture of the system. One of the outcomes of this phase may be a list of simple changes that can be applied to the source applications and that will reduce the overall cost and complexity of the project.
- During the Preparation phase Dataline collaborates with your IT team to prepare the source code for translation and to achieve the desired partitioning of the system into modules.
- During the Translation phase Dataline may re-translate the same code several times and collaborate with your project team until the best possible translation is arrived at.
- The Finalisation phase is where Dataline collaborates with the customer the most. We will need to seek your input into the best implementation of unsupported features and resolving remaining issues.
- The Acceptance phase requires the most input from the customer. Dataline’s job is to quickly address any issue that you report and to ensure that each issue is investigated thoroughly to reduce QA time and avoid having to address the same problem in different areas of the application. This will be an iterative process and we may provide several updates of the migrated solution to you during this phase.
When the project has been completed, you will receive the full PPJ source code as part of the maintenance agreement. ITG continue to maintain and enhance the PPJ Framework (the compatibility library) to ensure that all known defects are addressed and that the library is up to date with all new .NET releases, ADO.NET drivers, and Windows versions and ensure that your on-going development is as rich and rewarding as possible.
Summary
Changing the underlying technology of an application is not an easy option because of the many risks it carries. At Dataline we believe that we have the best technology and the most flexible methodology to achieve a virtually risk-free migration. Most importantly, you are provided with all the tools, information and milestones to allow you to make the right decision and to arrive at the best outcome for your investment.
