The Facts about Migration

As businesses round the corner into the 21st century, many are faced with unprecedented technological challenges and obstacles. How they respond to these challenges will be a critical factor in determining their long-term success.

Knowledge Systems Corporation answers one of the most daunting questions facing organizations today: How do we preserve our investment in the high-quality current software systems at the heart of our business while keeping pace with the speed of change? A good rule of thumb is to keep what works and change only what doesn’t -- that is the principle that underlies migrations.

What is migration?

Migration is a process that allows companies to relocate existing production software to a more desirable language and/or environment. Generally much less expensive than re-developing complex software systems, migration preserves an organization's existing development investment and the software’s functionality and reliability.

What factors drive the need for migration?

There are a variety of reasons why an organization would consider migrating a current production application or system. In addition to preserving the integrity and tremendous financial investment of the existing software systems, migration provides solutions to challenges facing programmers and IT Managers.
Challenges that drive the need for migration include:

1. Dwindling Vendor Support Services
   As a software or hardware platform loses market momentum, the resources allocated by the vendors to support it are reduced. Company programmers and professionals begin to lose confidence and wonder where they will turn if parts of their production software systems go awry. It then becomes necessary to investigate alternative solutions that will provide solid, long-term vendor support.
2. Standardization Decisions
   Migration transforms non-compliant applications into systems that conform to sweeping language, tools and platform standardizations within an organization.
3. Expert Staffing Shortage
   As the marketplace introduces new languages and tools, many programmers are drawn towards the new technologies. As a result, companies have difficulty finding resources to maintain staffing levels for existing production software systems.
4. Continual Run-Time Expense
   Many vendors charge ongoing run-time fees for using their languages and applications. Migrating current production software systems can cut company costs by eliminating these fees.

What types of migrations does KSC perform?

For over 15 years, Knowledge Systems Corporation has demonstrated a keen understanding of and strong belief in the value and effectiveness of Object Technology programming and software development. Today, this understanding enables KSC to perform the following types of migrations successfully:

• Smalltalk to Smalltalk
• Smalltalk to Java
• Java to Smalltalk
• 2-tier architecture to 3-tier architecture

Other migrations are also available; please contact Knowledge Systems Corporation with your specific needs.

What are the benefits of a KSC migration?

Benefits of a Knowledge Systems Corporation migration include:

• High-quality, dependable, measurable results by KSC’s expert staff
• Minimal strain on your company’s resources
• Maximal utilization of your company’s resources
• Preservation of existing investment in system and user training
• Reduced completion time compared to re-development
• Reduced risk compared to re-development
• Reduced cost compared to re-development
• One-year warranty and support

How does KSC perform a migration?

Knowledge Systems Corporation ensures a successful migration by following these steps:

• Review and discuss your migration requirements
• Perform sizing estimates on the existing application
• Develop a schedule and determine the fixed project cost
• Negotiate contract terms and confidentiality agreements
• Perform migration development and migration system testing with KSC’s  location
• Communicate progress through weekly project reports, conference calls and/or on-site milestone reviews
• Release migrated software system for your acceptance testing
• Support migrated software system with one-year warranty

Why choose Knowledge Systems Corporation for migration?

KSC has provided technology transition and development services since its inception in 1985. KSC's migration staff alone has over a century of combined expertise in Smalltalk and Java software development.

• KSC migrations require far less of your budget, your time, your technical resources and your exposure to risk
• KSC provides a fixed price for your migration - no hidden charges!
• KSC performs all migrations and testing at KSC facilities, reducing your facility and staffing obligations.
• KSC provides a one-year warranty for each and every migration.
• KSC will educate your critical resources in the new language and/or environment, so they can continue maintaining the software system in its migrated form.

For more information, please contact sales@ksc.com or call 800 348-8323