Presentation for Eclipse Summit Europe 2008

1. Smooth transition to
Eclipse in practice
Ludwigsburg, 20.11.2008
Heinz Drews (Cenit AG)
Alexander Schleif (Deutsche
Bausparkasse Badenia AG)
Smooth Transition to Eclipse in practice
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2. Agenda
1. Introduction Badenia
2. Initial situation 2006
3. Strategy Decision Process
4. Reasons to use Eclipse
5. Project Methodology
6. System Architecture
7. The slightly different Deployment scenario
8. Lessons Learned
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3. Introduction
Deutsche Bausparkasse Badenia AG
Germany‘s fourth largest private building & loan association
Member of AMB Generali Group
1.2 million costumers
800 employees in head office in Karlsruhe
70 employees in IT department
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4. Initial Situation 2006
Overview
BADOK: VisualBasic based DMS started 1996
Key facts: 500 users, 20.000 new documents per day, 35 Mio. documents at
all
Databases: Filenet IS, Oracle, Host (via Entirex Middleware)
Client Concept: Independent exe-programs, Modal Dialogs, Complex UI
VB runs out of maintenance!
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5. Initial Situation 2006
System Architecture Visual Basic
VB Fat Client
x.exe
y.exe z.exe
Filenet IS Oracle Host
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6. Strategy Decision Process
Management presettings:
Function set should be kept
Noiseless migration from VB to Java (with few user training costs)
SOA-ready architecture
Strategy papers with 2 external partners:
No standard software avalailable for that purpose
Both .NET and Java migration possible (any is complete
redevelopment)
No .NET experience in Badenia, but Java
Filenet Strategy was not determined that time
Result: Project Mission „jBadok“
One-to-One Migration (GUI and function set) to Java
SOA-ready 3-tier architecture
Smooth transition: Each milestone should go live
Code quality & developer education as significant project goal
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7. Reasons to use Eclipse
Modularization (OSGi)
Existing Know-how
Cenit ECLISO
Other projects
Many technologies out-of-the-box
JFace
EDB
Internationalization
...
Future proof Platform
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8. Project methodology
Mixed Team
Badenia
Cenit
Andrena Objects
Average 7 Members
Scrum
Pair Programming
Important targets
Know-how transfer
Software Quality
Consistent test strategy (Unit-, DAO- and Acceptance-Tests)
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9. System Architecture
Java
jBadok RCP Client
bundle bundle
bundle bundle
Application
Servers
-Spring
- JPA (Hibernate)
Filenet IS Oracle Host
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10. System Architecture
VB and Java
VB Fat Client jBadok RCP Client
x.exe http
Jetty X
y.exe z.exe
Z Y
Application
Servers
-Spring
- JPA (Hibernate)
Filenet IS Oracle Host
Smooth Transition to Eclipse in practice
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11. System Architecture
VB and Java on the Client – Smooth Transition
VB2Java jBadok RCP Client
VB Fat Client Bridge
x.exe z.exe Jetty X
http
y.exe properties
Start Y
z_vb.exe Z
process
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12. The slightly different deployment scenario
Integration into existing deployment platform (Novell)
Eclipse Update mechanism not used
Separation of core and application bundles
jBadok RCP Client
config.ini
app
core core app bundle
bundle app
bundle bundle_ 1.1.0
bundle
3.3.0 3.3.0 1.0.0 1.0.0
core core
bundle app
bundle bundle
3.3.0 3.3.0 1.0.0
Local Drive Network Drive
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13. Lessons learned
In General
Positive Negative
Early Proof-Of-Concept because Integration and Testing with
of „Smooth transition“ concept VB-Application causes costs
New possibilities with automatic
Costs (developer days!) were
testing
SOA-Enabled Architecture estimated too low
Expose Spring Services as „Old-fashioned“ Navigation and
Webservice Look&Feel is reimplemented (but:
Improved Monitoring and User Acceptance!)
Bugtracing facilities with Java
System stability
Methodology was kept although
costs increased (code quality &
education)
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14. Lessons learned
With Eclipse
Positive Negative
Extensibility and Modularization Considerable costs for Client
with Eclipse Framework to migrate the VB-
Many technologies out-of-the-box dialogs to Java
Efficient deployment scenario SWT has some disadvantages
client communication via http (vs. Swing)
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15. The End...
Thanks for your attention... !!!
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