In a Porting Project you as a customer and we as Premium Porting Partner work closely together from the beginning. Each takes on responsibility for the relevant task areas.

As a Premium Porting Partner we possess wide-ranging knowledge about both Gupta and the .NET platform. We are especially qualified on account of over 15 years’ experience as a Gupta partner and a consulting and development company. We not only have knowledge of dealing with the IceTeaGroup’s porting tools, we know all their tricks.

You as the customer take wide-ranging decisions concerning your ported applications right from the start. We show you all the possibilities of a “Porting Project” and support you into the .NET world. Decisions concerning the architecture, for example, are decisively influenced by you. You can track porting progress at any time because you have access to the time schedule, milestones, source code and task lists at all times.

During the evaluation we put you in a position to make the right decision. Everything is laid out: which targets should be achieved? Within what period of time must the porting be completed? How high are the costs? Subsequently we make a record of your Porting Project’s key data. The evaluation in detail:

Phase 1: Information
You receive an information pack from us. It contains extensive documents, white papers and reports on The Porting Project. You and your development team thus receive a direct insight into what to expect. We would be pleased to present The Porting Project to you on site or online. Ask us also about related topics such as technology selection or alternative migration approaches.

Phase 2: Rough analysis
In order to gain an initial insight into the complexity and the time and effort required for a Porting Project you can have us compile a rough analysis free of charge. We do not even need your source code for this. With the help of the IceTeaGroup’s Porting Project Inventory tool you perform an analysis of your source code and supply us with the result. We thoroughly dissect these results a second time, bring in our experience from other projects, and then compile your personal rough analysis. Time and effort, time frame and costs are thus envisaged: in our experience the fluctuation range lies between a maximum of 10 to 15 percent.
Have we already said this? The rough analysis is free of charge.

Phase 3: Detailed analysis
The detailed analysis is the deluxe version of the rough analysis: here, we evaluate your source code in detail. All modules and reports are examined for possible problems; every observation is recorded in a report and is of course available to you at the end. The detailed analysis is performed by the most experienced employees of the Porting Factory business unit and lasts between 4 and 6 man-days, depending on the size of the project. The detailed analysis is billable. With the detailed analysis you also receive a fixed price offer which clearly shows effort, time and costs.

The greatest part of the work takes place in Porting. Your application is ported to the .NET platform.

Phase 4: Project Setup and Partitioning
As part of a kick-off meeting, final open points are clarified and the project is started. We then prepare the applications for automated porting.

Phase 5: Code Generation & Completion
In this phase we begin with automated porting with the help of the Ice Porter. We examine the result after each porting, perhaps adjust the Ice Porter’s endless parameters or slightly alter parts of the SAL source code and repeat the process until we are satisfied with the porting result. If necessary we subsequently correct the ported .NET source code, so that it can be compiled. The result of this phase is compilable C# or Visual Basic .NET program code or reports converted to Crystal Reports.

Phase 6: Code Finalisation
The finalisation gives your Porting Project the last touch. Specialists implement non-automated portable code, check all screens, dialogs and reports for correctness and perform fundamental function tests.

The three last phases of a Porting Project mark the successful completion of the project and demonstrate how the future of the ported application could look.

Phase 7: Approval
Successful approval is preceded by user tests which you as a customer normally perform yourself. Any errors which occur are eliminated by us or our development team, depending on which constellation was defined in phase 6 – the finalisation.

Phase 8: Training
Your developers will get to know new topics on their way into the .NET world. No matter whether you already have experienced .NET professionals in your midst or this is your developers’ first encounter with the .NET world—we have the right training for everyone: from a .NET basic course on the Porting Project Framework through to further topics such as architecture advice or agile software processes. You can, of course, acquire additional support by concluding support agreements.

Phase 9: Further development
Nothing is as certain as change. This also applies for your applications. In the maintenance and further development phase your developers get to know the new programming language’s numerous possibilities and that of the .NET Framework. We help you to save valuable time and show you the right things to do and how to avoid pitfalls. How can the maintainability of applications be improved? How can the applications be made available, how on mobile end devices? You learn all this and much more from us on the topic of further development.