| Have you recently received an
urgent mandate to Web-enable your legacy application? Feeling a little overwhelmed by the
task of getting your legacy applications to the Web? Or have you already started only to
find your solution rigid and manually intensive. Relax. Take a moment to read about Legacy
to Web 1-2-3. You'll be glad you did. Legacy to
Web 1-2-3 is not a Forecross invention. Rather, it's an analytical dissection of a
universal problem broken down into three logical, manageable solution parts. Any company
faced with the challenge of making a legacy application available to the Internet is
subject to the same theoretical distinctions of each of the steps. Even if you don't
choose Forecross, the solution model will help you organize your own efforts. |
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 The Forecross
Approach |
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We at Forecross recognize that there is no silver bullet
solution that can be applied to all companies wanting to take their legacy applications to
the Web. In our opinion, we see three main choices that companies have:
- Buy an off-the-shelf solution to replace existing applications
- Write a new application from scratch
- Re-use a legacy application through modernization
A careful analysis is required to determine the pros and cons
of each approach (see Forecross' XML Quickstart),
but in general we apply the following basic rule of thumb:
- If the legacy application no longer fits the business, buy or
rewrite
- If the legacy application does fit the business, re-use
through modernization
The Forecross solution is targeted for those enterprises
whose legacy applications are adequate and wish to re-use through modernization. The
Forecross solution is automated, testable and, to the best of our knowledge, the only
second generation solution available on the market today.
| Middleware vs.
Native XML |
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Before going on to describe the Forecross solution for each
of the steps, I would like to take a moment to distinguish the difference between a
middleware solution and a true, native XML solution. Web-enabling legacy applications has
become big business of late, especially with the adoption of XML and advancing B2B server
technology. There are a flood of products available on the market today, some of which are
quite popular and do adequate jobs. However, we consider the technology behind the
majority of these products to be first generation solutions. We see their primary function
as little more than complex converters placed between legacy applications and B2B servers
that translate XML documents into flat files, and vice versa. The main problem with this
approach is that not only does it add to the maintenance burden (if the XML document or
flat file change, the middleware needs to be adjusted as well), but more importantly, it
does nothing to address the underlying structural issues within the application itself,
which is where much of the value of adopting XML derives in the first place.
The Forecross approach is different. We offer the first second generation solution. Our
approach is to modify the application itself to natively process XML documents, regardless
of where the document came from. As you can see, this approach has many benefits, namely:
- It is a permanent solution that makes the application process
native XML
- It eliminates the maintenance of middleware, much of which
might be proprietary and be subject to customer service frustration
- It is flexible towards future change
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Step 1:
Hodge-Podge Legacy to Normalized Legacy