INNOV-8:%20Partner%20Evolution%20

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INNOV-8 Partner Evolution Real Results with
OpenEdge 10
David Crisafi - Progress Software Guy Anderson -
Progressive Solutions Inc Adrian Wilson - Orchard
Information Systems Ltd Brice Busselman -
Precision Computer Systems
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Goals for this Session

• Showcase results of real transformations,
  delivered by the technology leaders themselves
• Highlight different approaches to transformation
• Provide opportunity to Ask the Experts

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Agenda

• Application Transformation Status Update
• Partner Transformations
• Progressive Solutions
• Orchard Information Systems Ltd
• Precision Computer Systems
• Panel QA

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07 Application Transformation Status Update
06 Success By The Numbers (Partner data)

• 200 Partners completed or in process of
  transforming,132 currently transforming
• 162 increase in partners selling more
  competitive applications between 05 06
• 63 unique partners have completed 1 or more
  projects
• 30 total rev increase for Partners completing
  1st AT project in 06 (vs. 05)
• 16 total rev increase 06 over 04 for 63
  transformed Partners (vs. 5 partner business)
• 12 license rev increase for 63 Ptrs (vs. 4
  ptr business)

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Moving Through Transformation Milestones
Milestone 4 Selling
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Getting to Real Results with OpenEdge 10
Progressive Level of Effort Returns

• Upgrade Leveraging new capabilities without
  changing one letter of code
• Migrate Leveraging new capabilities without
  changes to architecture
• Transform Leveraging new capabilities to change
  Architecture
• DEV-17 Benefiting from OE 10 Without Disrupting
  Your Applications Lifecycle
• Wednesday, 10am, Pinnacle Peak 1

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Progressive Solutions Inc.

• Lumber Track

Guy Anderson
VP Technology
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Todays Objectives

• Who is Progressive Solutions
• Business challenges and objectives
• Technology options
• Technical Solution
• Results

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Company Overview

• Founded in 1989
• 145 employees
• Offices in USA, Canada, United Kingdom
• Working with Progress since PSC V4
• Premier Software Solutions Provider in Forest
  Products Industry
• 200 customers
• Customers range from 10 users to over 1200 users

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Lumber Track

• N-tier partitioned application since 1999
• User Interface
• Business Logic
• Data Access
• One code base supports Progress, Oracle and
  MS-SQL Server databases via Data Server
• 500 Tables, 8000 fields
• 15,000 programs

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Business Challenge

• We have a functionally rich, mature business
  application
• Windows 95 look and feel. Application looks old
  and tired.
• New competition entering market with modern UI
• Loosing deals simply because of the dated look
  and feel.

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Technical Challenge

• Require a brand new, modern UI
• Retain all existing functionality without making
  any changes to the business logic or data access
  layers
• We need it right now!

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Solution Approach What are the choices?

• Minor changes to UI, alignment, colors, etc while
  still using the OpenEdge GUI. Re-arrange the
  deck chairs approach Just not good enough.
• Complete re-write with current .NET technology.
  Limited in-house skills made it expensive and
  time consuming.
• Replace OpenEdge UI components with modern
  ActiveX components. Some internal training
  required, but relatively quick and still makes
  extensive use of ABL (4GL).

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We chose Active-X integration

• We replaced the UI on a 100 user internal system,
  using the CodeJock Xtreme Suite Pro for ActiveX.
• Needed to achieve two main goals
• Can the UI be replaced without sacrificing any
  functionality AND retaining existing business
  logic?
• Is the performance acceptable and is the
  technology stable and scalable?

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How to proceed?

• PSDN whitepapers Making the OpenEdge GUI More
  Competitive by Frank Beusenberg.
• Met with Frank, Jiri de Jagere, and Bernard
  Bresser at Exchange last year and finalized our
  plans for the UI migration.
• UI swap was made a lot easier because we had
  already separated our business logic from our
  user interface.

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What worked and what didnt

• Read the documentation!
• PSDN whitepapers.
• Understand how OpenEdge supports ActiveX
• Progress Software consultants
• CodeJock provided an excellent level of support
• Re-use as much S/W as possible
• It is possible to swap out the UI without an
  n-tier architecture, just not as easy.
• Support for Oracle and MS-SQL DataServer
  technology was retained.

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Architecture
Application Container
Re-usable custom Smart Objects with embedded
ActiveX controls
CommandBar.w
ActiveX Smart Objects inserted into windows at
design time
ReportGrid.w
TabFolder.w
Application Window (.w)
Application Window (.w)
SUPER attached at run time
Application Window (.w)
Super procedure supports application window
access to the ActiveX properties and methods
Application container uses procedure, widget, and
HWND handles to control individual application
windows
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Old UI Before Conversion

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New UI After Conversion
Command Bar

Report Grid
Folder Tabs
Report Grid
MDI Container
Docking Panes
Navigation Pane
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What did it take?

• From 4 hours to 2 days per window depending on
  complexity
• 3 developers for 3 months for initial pass
• Balance of application converted over next 6
  months
• Most of the complexity / heavy lifting contained
  in the Super Procedure
• Framework was the bulk of the effort
• Application container
• Custom Smart Objects
• Super Procedure

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Results

• Immediate increase in Sales
• 8 new deals directly as a result of the new UI
• Re-energized the product marketing effort and the
  sales force
• Provided a significant compelling event for
  customers on older versions to upgrade

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For More Information, go to

• PSDN
• Making the OpenEdge GUI More Competitive by
  Frank Beusenberg.
• Documentation
• ActiveX Control Support section of the OpenEdge
  Development Programming Interfaces documentation

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Orchard Information Systems, Ltd

• arcHouse Plus an evolution

Adrian Wilson
CTO
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Agenda
arcHouse Plus an evolution

• Who we are and what we do
• The need for change
• The technical challenges
• Current architecture
• Results

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Who we are what we do
Business background

• Founded 1979, largest private company in sector
  (5 main suppliers)
• 130 employees 60 in RD, application development
  and technical services
• Primary market is social housing target
  organisations are those managing gt 2,000
  properties
• Social housing is a complex area the
  applications to support the customers are the
  same
• The market is driven by legislation but is
  becoming more market savvy although customers
  are not for profit, dominant players are emerging
  via mergers

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The need for change
An emerging vision for the future - 2000 onwards

• Browser for ease of deployment and accessibility
• Contact management through multiple channels
  the customer is king
• Process flexibility move away from complex
  multi tabbed processes allow much greater
  flexibility using workflow
• Support local data definition and access to any
  3rd party data sources
• Web services integration
• Retain customer investment evolution not
  revolution have an out of the box offering

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The technical challenges

• 20 housing functionality modules across 3 main
  areas
• gt 1,800 DB tables
• gt 30,000 individual programs
• gt 3,000 GUI screens
• gt 1,250,000 properties under management
• gt 130 live customers
• 130 customers, active user population gt 150 avg.
• No option to radically redesign DB without
  starting from scratch causing re-implementation
  issues
• GUI programs bind UI with business logic a
  character hangover
• Highly parameterised

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Example visualisation
1990 V6 Progress Character single procedure per
screen
1997 V8 Progress GUI multiple processes/launch
points per screen
2007 Orchards IDE Java Swing on OE10 DB A
service architecture
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Current GUI architecture
OE Enterprise db
arcHouse Server
arcHouse Server Code (Character, Batch)
arcHouse db
OpenEdge Client
db Triggers
arcHouse GUI Client
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Service Architecture
Optional ESB / Message Hub
SOAP
WSI API (Housing, CRM and workflow functions)
openadaptor
Enterprise Data Repository (EDR)
Rules Based Event Manager
Core System Functions (Note 1)
OE AppServer
JDBC
DB Adapter

• Note 1
• Case and contact management
• Expression builder
• Security model

Other DB (Oracle, MSSQL, etc)
Housing (orchhms)
CRM (uwm)
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Lessons
Some of the challenges along the way

• Establish use a formal testing regime
  functional and performance / scalability
• Configuration and release management
• Offshoring / outsourcing can assist
• GUI if only wed used AppServer......
• Memory re-use issues in the AppServer
• JDBC update performance huge improvements with
  DataDirect drivers in OE10

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Results
Where are we today?

• 15 customers live on arcHouse Plus
• 30 customers implementing (new and existing)
• Largest social housing provider in the UK
  implementing system
• Scalable and performant system
• Out of the box solution yet completely flexible
• Combining the resulting technologies, whilst
  painful at times, has created a market leading
  proposition OE10 provides the backbone

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Precision Computer Systems

• Vision Transformation

Brice Busselman
Software Architect
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Precision Computer Systems (PCS) Overview

• Community Banking Software
• Two core software packages
• BAIS - COBOL-based (ChUI only)?
• Vision - Progress-based (ChUI and GUI) 500
  customers
• Purchased by Fiserv, Inc. in 2003

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Business Challenges

• Sales Challenges (2005/early 2006)?
• Excite sales team
• Excite PCS employees

Salespeople are going to lead with the solution
that gives them the best chance of getting the
deal with the least amount of effort.
Anonymous Sales Manager
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Technical Challenges

• Technical Challenges
• Transform 2000 GUI programs
• Co-exist with non-transformed OpenEdge GUI
• Communication of hardware requirements
• Terminal Services/Citrix environments
• Design for future UI evolution
• Ease workstation deployment
• Existing customers

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First Steps

• Progress Global Field Services
• Jan 2006 Assessment
• Transformation Options
• .NET WinForms (Smart Client)?
• OCX Facelift
• Web
• Platform Decision .NET WinForms
• .NET 2.0
• C language
• Infragistics suite of 3rd-party controls

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Proof of Concept (PoC)?

• Began March 2006
• Deadline End of May 2006 (Exec Seminar)?
• 2 Progress programmers
• 2 .NET programmers
• Focused on inquiry functions and reports
• PoC considered successful

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Transformation Plan

• Transform Vision over 2½ years (5 releases)?
• Not a separate product
• Gradually replace OpenEdge GUI programs
• Dedicated .NET programmers
• Involve entire company
• Generic front end

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Architecture
Bi-directional Socket Communication
Windows Client
VisionGUI.exe (.NET 2.0 Executable)
prowin32 (10.1A)
AIX Server
Fat DB Client Connection
Appserver
Proxy Calls
Vision Database (OE 10.1A)
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Architecture

Bi-directional Socket Communication
Windows Client
VisionGUI.exe (.NET 2.0 Executable)
prowin32 (10.1A)
WinForms
Progress Communication
New ABL Programs
Data Access Layer
Legacy ABL Programs
Appserver Calls
Appserver Calls/Fat Client Connection
Proxy Calls Over Appserver
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Phase I

• Began summer 2006
• Menu system and Inquiry
• May 2007 release
• Included non-transformation projects
• 4 .NET programmers
• 10 OpenEdge programmers

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20/20 Hindsight

• Memory requirements
• Terminal Services/Citrix impact
• Load testing
• Feature creep
• Communication issues

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Results

• Phase I shipped to 500 customers
• Satisfied over 150 customer requests
• Increased functionality
• Excited existing customers
• Excited sales team Increased new sales

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Panel QA
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Thank you foryour time
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