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Ask the Experts about VB6 to .NET Migration
With Kyle Krauss and Ramon Miranda
Visual Basic (VB) has been around, in various forms, for years and is one of the most popular programming languages available. The language itself has evolved with each successive version-adding, removing, or modifying its deep capabilities in one aspect or another.
But you don't have to be a developer to have a handle on what your organization can get from Visual Basic .NET, the latest edition of the Visual Basic programming language. This version delivers enhanced visual design functions, increased application performance, better deployment options, improved database access, and a powerful Integrated Development Environment (IDE) to fast track application development. It's further supported by the .NET framework, which gives developers access to many powerful features not found in previous versions of VB. Benchmark tests have shown that upgrading from VB 6.0 to .NET can lead to a performance increase of at least 200% in standard applications.
At Avanade, we’ve fielded many questions from our customers about migrating from VB 6.0 to VB .NET. Here, we’ve posed some of those questions to two of our VB experts. Application Development Solution Kyle Krauss, Manager based out of Avanade’s headquarters in Seattle, WA, and .NET Practice Director, Ramon Miranda, based out of Spain’s DevCenters.
Why are most customers interested in migrating?
What advantages does VB .NET offer over VB 6?
Are there times you recommend against migration?
What value do code-conversion tools have?
What value does Avanade bring to a migration?
What are important issues for clients to understand before migrating?
Why are most customers interested in migrating?
| Ramon: |
Many customers are searching for ways to improve their current technology. Some have new technology guidelines that require better performance. Some customers have legacy systems that need to be integrated with current systems. Others have determined that their business needs are dictating that their technology be more flexible-in the sense of cost efficiency, as well as a more flexible structure for the usability inside their IT systems.
When companies understand .NET and they see the advantages-when they see how their old applications can improve with .NET features-then they decide to migrate.
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| Kyle: |
When customers find challenges to their business that can't be solved with their current systems, they become interested. Maybe it's that their systems don't share data and business logic easily, or that every time they find a new opportunity, they have to start from scratch to find ways to connect and get the job done. They might have unplanned downtime that impacts their productivity. Or maybe their current systems can't scale effectively which will limit their growth. There is always a business reason that causes a customer to think about migrating.
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| What advantages does VB .NET offer over VB 6? |
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| Ramon: |
VB .NET is the easiest, most productive language and tool for rapidly building applications for Windows and the Web. Developers can build high-performance, scalable, reliable applications more quickly than ever. They can also construct powerful Windows-based applications and support for XML Web Services and numerous additional controls. The VB language itself is far better than what it was. It's now a fully object-oriented language that allows for more robust, reusable and more maintainable code.
Another area where .NET has a huge advantage over VB 6.0 is deployment. The .NET framework actually allows both Windows and Web applications to be installed by just copying them to the target directory. And you don't have to stop or reboot your Web server to deploy Web apps.
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| Kyle: |
The .NET environment allows companies to have additional features. Some of them want to take advantage of things like Smart Client or they want to start utilizing web services. Another important advantage is the increased number of security features .NET has over the VB 6.0 environment.
.NET allows you to gain improved functionality in your old applications and improves integration of applications.
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| Are there times you recommend against migration? |
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| Kyle: |
We don't promote migration for the sake of migration. Microsoft has announced end-of-life for VB 6.0. But, we don't take the position that you should migrate for end-of-life reasons alone. You want to migrate because you have an application that is important to the enterprise and you need to add functionality to it. We promote migration for enhancement, not just strictly migration of an existing application. As with any type of IT investment, you must be able to make a basic business case for an application migration.
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| Ramon: |
One of our biggest customers in Spain is Telefonica. Although they got into .NET, there were some applications that we felt they shouldn't migrate. Their current customers and users were satisfied with the performance of those applications and they could buy direct support from Microsoft for them until 2008. They were planning to replace the applications before 2008 with bigger, more powerful apps. So we recommended against migration.
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| What value do code-conversion tools have? |
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| Kyle: |
There are a lot of code conversion tools out there that are intended to automate the migration of VB 6.0 code. A lot of companies go into a migration thinking it's going to be simply a matter of running one of these tools and the .NET code comes out the other end. Yes, some of these tools can convert a lot of code, but there is still a lot of work that has to be done beyond what the conversion tools can accomplish.
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| Ramon: |
One of the reasons to migrate older applications into the .NET environment is to add structure and more architecture to the applications. That is something a lot of our customers are looking for from their migrations. A code conversion tool is not going to do that. It's just going to take spaghetti code and convert it into new spaghetti code. You won't get the advantage of re-architecting the application into the new environment.
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| What value does Avanade bring to a migration? |
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| Kyle: |
We have a vast amount of experience, we have proven processes and we have a depth of knowledge of .NET that's really unmatched by anyone else.
Our migration methodology, which includes a full Application Migration Assessment, ensures that customers get the most value from their Visual Basic-based applications and leverage .NET Framework features to upgrade their application functionality.
Our Industrialized Migration Process helps us and helps customers identify the business logic in an application and determine what pieces are right to extract out and move into the new environment and what pieces would best be re-written in the new environment. After we segregate the business logic we use ACA.NET (Avanade Connected Architecture for .NET) to build the new applications in the .NET environment, cutting delivery time and decreasing risk.
We have a tremendous depth of knowledge of the .NET environment. For a lot of customers, this may be their first move into .NET, which means they may have a bunch of skilled VB 6.0 developers but probably lack skills in the .NET environment. Avanade brings those essential skills to the party.
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| What are important issues for clients to understand before migrating? |
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| Ramon: |
1. Know the limitations of your IT professionals. What kind of NET experience do they have? If your staff doesn't have adequate experience, or it's their first time working in the .NET environment, they may not know all of the issues they're up against.
2. Be involved in the process and strive for open communication with your migration partner. Share your business goals and objectives with them. Take part in defining the target architecture. Do you want to keep the target architecture as similar to the source architecture as possible? Are you looking to take advantage of a Service-Oriented Architecture? By defining the target architecture, you can achieve the benefits of the new application models that .NET offers.
Make sure your partner knows what you're planning for each application that you expect to migrate in the future. Identify for them the type of user for each application or the environment the application will operate in.
3. Have a good understanding of your current applications' problems and constraints. Are there deployment issues? Performance issues? Are there problems integrating with web services? To establish a base of architecture in .NET application migration, this kind of information is crucial for success
4. Be completely knowledgeable in the costs and benefits of the migration. Your migration partner should help you understand the features and benefits you'll get out of the .NET framework. They should tell you what kind of improvement you can expect in performance, security, scalability or whatever benefits you're looking for. They should give you a roadmap on how to migrate effectively and show you the costs. You need to have an understanding and a plan for it all at the beginning. Otherwise you run the danger of getting halfway down the path and discovering you're paying a lot of money for something you don't really want or need. When we do an Avanade Application Migration Assessment, we provide a migration plan, including a timeline, project plan and a complete set of deliverables so there are no surprises.
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