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Transitioning from Net.Data powered UI to standard JSR 286 portal interface
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Republic Indemnity, a wholly owned subsidiary of Great American Insurance Group (Stock Ticker: AFG) was forced off the “Net.Data” stack that was running its Agent’s web access system to its ISeries. IBM had sunset this technology and was unwilling to offer extended support. There were close to a thousand user interface screens that had to be re-produced on a more modern technology stack. Our client checked with some large System Integrators and off-shore companies. They all proposed an army of programmers, consultants & project managers. The budget and timeline ask was daunting. That’s when Streebo, a leader in Software Automation, was approached to apply parametric modeling and determine common denominators. Streebo took a radically different approach – it applied lean manufacturing concepts & designed a wizard of models that would in-turn automate the migration of these Net.Data screens to JSR 286 compliant Rich User Interface. The novel approach was enough for Republic Indemnity management to immediately on-board Streebo as a strategic technology partner.

With the objectives clearly defined as above, our Automation specialists quickly set up the assembly lines and soon the portlet factory set-up was churning out large number of standardized user interfaces. Like CNC machines, the portlet factory tooling was producing standardized parts and solutions. Further, the new user interface had a fresher Web 2.0 look. Dojo and AJAX technologies were included out of the box in the Portlet Factory tooling and that gave the agents a rich enhanced web experience. All code was automated using IBM supported builders. Customer simply ordered new portlets and we shipped them a package (including source code) with all functionality completed migrated, tested and deployed – all in a matter of days & weeks. All portlets/widgets were developed using IBM provided Factory automation parts, thus ensuring standard compliant (JSR 168/286) & scalable code artifacts. Streebo provided design, manufacturing, installation and knowledge transfer around the entire Portal solution.

On-Site Training for RI-Net IT Staff (RPG)

Post deployment, our lab automation engineers visited RI-Net’s development site in LA and provided on-site knowledge transfer. Streebo trained over 12 RPG programmers in Portal and Portlet Factory in customized on-site lab based setting. During these training sessions we gave the staff specific enhancement use-cases on their new agent portal. This ensured that their internal staff were confident and understood every nut and bolt included in the migrated solution. Thus we could easily transition the ongoing enhancement to RI-NET staff and today they continue to migrate other legacy applications towards both internal and external facing portal. They continue to leverage the automated approach and continue to reap benefits from a technology that IBM provides out of the box (portlet factory). Today, RI-Net has successfully sunset their NET.Data stack.

Technology Stack: IBM WebSphere Portal, Web Content Management, ISeries AS400, IBM DB2, WebSphere Portlet Factory

Streebo Solution Package: Legacy Application Migration Package (link to the package)

Key Highlights
  • Initial assessment ensured that we identified common UI and integration patterns and designed about a dozen core models that would in turn automate portlet creation across the entire legacy application
  • Assembly Line Approach to Migration with strict quality (functional and performance) standards
  • Process Oriented approach to solution delivery with clearly defined metrics that all parties can track to measure progress at any time during the course of the project.
  • New Portlets are JSR 168/286 standard and are compliant with Service Oriented Architecture
  • Use of Dojo, AJAX technologies bundled in with IBM Portlet Factory was used for all Rich User Interface creation – automated interfaces ensured minimum operational and maintenance cost.
  • As compared to manual migration estimates, Portlet factory allowed our customer to deliver the solution 4X times faster.

Are you embarking on application migration? Whether you are transitioning a few RPG screens to the Portal or exposing legacy J2EE or Domino applications to the Mashups or Portal as a Widgets or Portlets – we can show you a faster way.

Software automation and IBM’s Portlet factory can save you thousands of dollars in development and maintenance costs. Talk to us – let us understand your needs – We can more share success stories & plans that have worked at large migration projects at customers like AT&T and Citibank.

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