Migrating to Java platform

Migration of legacy systems to Java EE technologies for web enabling is a growing need of the businesses. A growing number of legacy systems can now be migrated to the to take advantage of Java EE technologies scalability, security, speed, reliability, cross-platform capabilities along with SOA enablement using web services and Web 2.0 technologies using AJAX capabilities.

We understand that following are the major business and technology drivers for migration & re-engineering of legacy applications to Java EE platform

• Platform Independence: Java platform applications can run on variety of hardware and operating systems including Windows, UNIX and Mainframe systems as Java Runtime Environment (JRE), on which Java platform is based, is available on all popular operating system platforms.

• Java EE Platform Enterprise Application Development Support: Java EE 5 standards provide support, standards, tools and framework for user interfacing, data binding, communications enabling, web enabling, application configuration, application packaging, deployment and ensuring security which constitute the critical requirements for any enterprise application architecture technology.

• Speed in Application Development: EJB 3.0 Component Model serves as the core way in which distributed Java Enterprise Applications can be rapidly built. The Component based model enables Enterprise Software to be developed more rapidly with high reliability.Simplified Enterprise JavaBeans 3.0 and the Java Persistence API supported quicker development.

• Simplifying Application Deployment: Leading Application servers today such as WebSphere,Weblogic, JBoss provide inbuilt application deployment support.Improved IDE's like Eclipse,Sun Studio Builder along with open source scripting technologies such as Ant provide improved application deployment support.

• Enterprise Application Integration: Prior to the advent of Web Services, Enterprise Application Integration was very difficult due to differences in programming languages and middleware used within organizations. The interoperability was cumbersome and painful. With Web Services and SOA technologies, any application can be integrated easily.Java EE 5 technologies such as JAX-WS (Java API for XML Web Services) and JAXB (Java API for XML Binding) APIs, and the web services metadata support simplifies enterprise application integration.

Through Java EE re-engineering and migration service offering helps organisations to consolidate on fewer platforms and integrate applications more effectively. This may involve migrations across platforms, databases and operating systems. You can also re-engineer your applications in response to changes in regulations or other environmental factors.

Some of the key Java EE 5 Migration & Re-engineering Offerings can be listed as follows

• Migration Assessment - Defining migration strategy and migration roadmap identification
• Application Upgrade - Upgrading the OS/ language/ Database/ IDE/ tools versions and product scripting within existing operating environment.
• Application Re-Engineering - reverse engineering,web enabling, re-architecture and redevelopment, post implementation and maintenance support.
• Technology Migration - Operating System/ Language/ Database/ GUI migration
• Application Porting - Transferring the applications to new operating system or database
• Data Migration - Schema translation, data migration and cleansing

your can use a completely tool-based/ partially tool-based/manual approach to re-engineering and migration projects. If you have experience with a variety of tools and techniques to support specific re-engineering activities. Tools are either sourced off-the shelf or built in-house. Well defined methodologies integrate the use of tools to automate re-engineering tasks such as transformation and testing leads to faster delivery schedules and greater accuracy.

you can help reincarnate your legacy application by either integrating your legacy systems with new technologies or by porting applications to more stable Java Enterprise Edition (Java EE 5), which provides platform independence,flexibility, scalability and performance.

With RIA You Can Enrich your legacy software

Have you got bored with using your web application having traditional user interface with lifeless tables & forms?

Are you looking for revamping your legacy web application to give it a new face where people enjoy interactivity & get engaged instantly?

Want to convert your COBOL or FoxPro legacy code to a new RIA technology?

If yes, I have an answer for you:

With the introduction of Rich Internet Applications, it has become easy to break the barriers of lifeless & boring HTML web pages and create a new generation of expressive, high performance & engaging applications. Adobe Flex is one of the emerging technologies for creating RIAs. It offers state transitions, effects, rich skinning and visual component states in delivering immersive end user experience.

Let me put a very real life experience to demonstrate my point: Let’s imagine that you want to purchase a new product from a traditional online e-commerce store. You would first like to browse through the catalogue then see the details for product of your choice, add it to your cart and finally place the order. You have to carry out each of this task step-by-step i.e. the web application require users to either send data to the server or send a new request to the server to obtain more information. This interruption leads to a significant wait and, thus, causes a significant and seemingly unnecessary break in a task flow. Also, the traditional representation of information in form of tables, forms, lists makes surfing the website uninteresting after a while.

Now, you can breathe a new life into your legacy application by providing sophisticated data visualization features, use of various media including text, graphics, animation, video, and sound and seamless communication between client & server without page refresh i.e. without any arbitrary interruption of a user’s task. So now when you surf an e-commerce store, you can browse products, see the product details and update your cart all at once without being interrupted. And that gives you a real-time shopping experience.

You can even choose to bundle your legacy back-end with updated front-end to extend the value of your legacy system without disrupting your data centre.

So, let’s leverage the power Flex for transform the face of legacy applications and convert them into new generation high performance & expressive application. The main target applications are: Rich Media Applications, Data Visualizations, and Business Applications.