p2j isv broch

8/16/2019 p2j Isv Broch

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Progress 4GL

to Java

Conversion

For Independent Software Vendors

(ISVs)

Progress 4GL to Java Conversion

is a service offering which uses a proven

methodology and unique tools to automate

the process of converting a Progress 4GL

application into a functionally identical pure

Java application. The database schema is

converted and all data in the Progress database

is migrated into the relational database of

your choice. The converted application

looks, behaves and processes exactly as the

original. While the source code is re-factored

and transformed into a completely different

form, the users of the application cannot tell

the difference. This allows for a drop-in

replacement without user retraining or other

adverse business impacts.

Using high levels of automation allows Golden

Code to offer this service at a reasonable fixed

price and with an elapsed time to completion

measured in months rather than years. As a

result, this unique service offering

profoundly changes the economics of

switching away from the Progress 4GL.

It is now feasible for all Progress 4GL ISVs

to quickly and permanently increase profit

margins by eliminating all payments to

Progress Software Corporation.


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The “Catch-22”

There are many reasons driving ISVs

to leave the Progress environment. But

with a huge investment in 4GL tech-

nology, the corresponding switching

costs have often been large enough tokeep organizations captive. Until now.

Golden Code’s unique service offering

profoundly changes the economics of

switching. The high level of automation

and the proven track record virtually

eliminate the risk of switching. For ISVs,

switching away from Progress is now

the best choice.

Preserve the Huge

Investment in a Custom

Software Product. Large soft-

ware products (such as ERP applica-tions) can take hundreds of person

years and decades of elapsed time to

build. The millions of lines of source

code encode an immense amount of

knowledge upon which a business is

based. Hundreds or thousands of cus-

tomer organizations are trained for and

are dependent upon your application.

The value of such a software product is

enormous.

Shed the Language

“Handcuffs.” Expert knowledgeembedded in a software product has

been encoded in the Progress 4GL, a

form not easily transported. The soft-

ware product is the basis for a thriving

business but its dependence upon the

Progress language environment can

come with a very high annual cost.

Despite a large financial incentive, most

ISVs cannot justify the cost and risk of

moving to an alternative environment

using traditional approaches. Many

organizations are held captive by their

investment in this major asset which is

locked into a proprietary environment.

Remove Artificial Limits on

Profits. Most large Progress 4GL

applications are licensed and main-

tained with an embedded 4GL runtime.

This usually translates into a require-

ment to share a percentage of applica-

tion revenue with Progress Software

Corporation. For this reason, there is

a permanent percentage of an ISV’s

revenue which can never be claimed by

that ISV. For large ISVs this percentage

can run into millions or tens of millions

of dollars annually. While the applica-

tion is dependent upon the Progress

4GL runtime, such fees represent a

significant and permanent reduction in

net income.

Move to a Modern Language.

The core design of the Progress 4GL

was made in the early to mid-1980s.

That design pervades all aspects of the

language despite incremental improve-

ments made over time. A language’s

design not only defines what an applica-

tion can easily do, it likewise defines

a set of limits and constraints. Compli-

cating this problem, the Progress 4GL

language was not designed to be easilyextended:

● While it is possible for third parties to

provide APIs in Progress, it is neither

easy nor does the result appear as a

natural part of the language.

● Progress Software Corporation

(PSC) has incrementally added to

the language over time, but every

such attempt has taken the language

further away from the promise of

English-like syntax without ever

breaking out of the core designlimitations.

Bridge the Technology Gap.

Since a single vendor controls Progress’

evolution and maintenance, the envi-

ronment simply cannot keep pace with

more modern environments like Java,

which enjoys industry-wide support.

Java has a more modern design and

has always provided a very extensible

environment. Its evolution is managed

by an open process known as the Java

Community Process, whose member-

ship ranges from large multinationals

to individual, independent develop-

ers. Java has attracted over 5 million

developers. It runs on a huge range of

hardware platforms. There are countless

libraries, tools, books and other facilities

available, with the majority coming from

organizations outside of Sun Micro-

systems. Since Java now has an open

source (GPL) reference implementation,

it is a completely non-proprietary

Increase Profit: Permanently eliminate all

payments to Progress

Software Corporation.

Gain Freedom:

Realize complete

independence from

Progress Software Corp.

Improve Technology:

Re-factor / modernize the

application and move to

the Java platform which is

a significantly more vibrant

technology ecosystem.


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environment. There is an entire industry

investing actively in Java. By com-

parison the Progress 4GL ecosystem

is small. Every day, the technical gap

widens.

Eliminate the Soft Costs ofPlatform Captivity. Improve-

ment of a Progress application over

time is artificially limited. External data

access and application integration is

difficult with Progress 4GL, especially

when compared with Java. PSC has

control over what technology is available

and how partners can compete in the

ecosystem. Opportunity costs to an ISV

of missing features or integration are

usually measured in lost sales, but this

can be hard to quantify.

Enjoy Comparable or Better

Long Term Productivity. Many

long time Progress 4GL developers

claim that the Progress environment is

the most productive application develop-

ment environment. As a rule however, it

is the quality of the development team

-- not the language -- that yields the

best result in the shortest period of time.

And when considering Java’s object ori-

ented programming model, code reuse

capabilities, tools, and the broad range

of third party libraries and open sourceprojects, the Progress 4GL productivity

claim is much less certain. Furthermore,

any 4GL application of real complexity is

likely to be harder to maintain over the

long term than the equivalent in Java:

● 4GL syntax is significantly morecomplex than 3GL syntax.

● 4GL syntax is often inconsistent,in many cases it is arbitrary orconfusing.

● The large amount of implicit behaviorcauses many material aspects of a

program to be hidden.

● Lack of modern features for structur-

ing and/or reusing code causes heavy

reliance upon shared variables, cut

and paste, the preprocessor and

other techniques which increase

maintenance effort.

Due to these factors, developer pro-

ductivity in Progress 4GL over the long

term arguably is no better -- and may be

worse -- than in Java.

Options for Switching. Over

the long term, the costs and limitations

of the Progress 4GL are significant,

leading organizations to reach their own

individual “tipping points” where they

find that making a switch is preferable to

“doing nothing”. Each such organization

must choose from one of the following:

● Traditional Option: Rewrite the

application using a dedicated

development team.

● New Option: Automated con-

version of the current Progress

4GL application to a functionallyequivalent pure Java version.

ComparingSwitching Options

Traditional Option:

Rewrite

A parallel development team writes the

replacement while some number of

additional development resources main-

tain the current application. Completinga functionally equivalent application

requires 5+ years. Development costs

for larger applications may be $40MM+.

The replacement application is not com-

patible (in user interface and behavior)

with the original, so there is a huge effort

and barrier to customer upgrades. Such

projects are open ended and success

cannot be determined until after the proj-

ect is finished. There is a very high rate

of failure due to the extreme complexity,

long lead times and often remote nature

of the development team (for offshore

resources).

A NEW OPTION:

Automated Conversion

Golden Code Development (GCD)

has invented the technology and

methodology to enable the auto-

mated conversion of arbitrarily largeapplications from a closed/propri-

etary language into an open and

modern language (such as Sun

Microsystem’s Java). GCD has also

implemented a set of conversion

rules and a completely compatible

runtime environment to fully handle

90%+ of the Progress 4GL language

features. The remaining features

are being added over time based on

client requirements. The resulting

application contains all the unique

business logic and an identical look

and feel such that it is a “drop in”

replacement for the original applica-

tion. From an end-user perspective,

there is no difference! The depen-

dence upon the original proprietary

environment is completely elimi-

nated while all business functionality

and behavior is preserved. All data

is retained and taken forward for the

replacement application. As part of

the service, the database structure

is converted and the data itself ismigrated from the proprietary envi-

ronment into the client’s choice of

open/standard database.


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Benefits ofAutomated Conversion

Greatly Improved Profits. The

conversion costs are fixed and one-time

only, but the elimination of fees to Prog-

ress Software Corporation is perpetual.

This yields a potentially huge permanent

boost to net income.

Quick Turnaround. The automated

process and tools allow a team to

handle a large conversion project in as

little as 6-12 months.

Fixed Price. This greatly reduces risk

to the client.

Retain Existing BusinessProcesses. No expensive business

re-engineering projects get in the way of

selling customer upgrades.

No User Retraining. The users are

unaware of the transition.

Seamless Cut-over. Customers see

no disruption during implementation.

The old system continues running until

the new system is in place. The switch

can occur literally overnight.

Technological Freedom. Propri-

etary language and platform limitations

are eliminated. Any relational database

can be used. The client obtains the eco-

nomic benefits of an open and vibrant

ecosystem.

Vendor Independence. Included

with the project is a source license to the

Progress-compatible runtime environ-

ment created by Golden Code. There

are no ongoing fees associated with the

use, distribution or modification of the

runtime. There are no tie-ins to Golden

Code or any other vendor.

Database Independence. Through

the use of Hibernate and Java Database

Connectivity (JDBC), even the back-

end relational database choice is now

open. All popular databases (and many

less popular ones) are supported, from

proprietary to open source. No source

code changes are required to change

relational databases. The choice is one

that can be made at the time the appli-

cation is implemented in production.

Lowest Cost Alternative. Auto-

mated conversion costs significantly less

than a rewrite.

Technical Improvements.

(partial list):

● The programs are re-factored (to the

extent possible while maintaining full

compatibility) to separate UI, busi-

ness logic and data access.

● Dead code and dead files are re-

moved. Duplicate code is removed

in some cases. All code is emitted in

a more consistent format. There is

reduced reliance on implicit behavior.

Golden Code Development Corporation

5450 McGinnis Village Place, Suite 101

Alpharetta, GA 30005 USA

TEL: 770-360-9755

EMAIL: [email protected]

WEB: www.goldencode.com

Copyright © 2006-2007, Golden Code Development Corporation. Golden Code and the GC logo are registered trademarks of the Golden CodeDevelopment Corporation. Visit us at www.goldencode.com.

Progress is a registered trademark of Progress Software Corporation.Java and JDBC are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc.

● A compatible schema is maintained,

but some improvements are made

(e.g. relational integrity is added).

● The application gets a single,

common, standard directory-based

security and configuration model.

● The runtime security model is signifi-

cantly stronger than that possible with

Progress 4GL.

● Standardized runtime facilities

provide deep visibility via auditing

and logging. This may be important

for initiatives such as Sarbanes-Oxley

compliance.

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