Migrating applications from Lotus Notes to Microsoft Platform

System Account — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 10:20:14 GMT

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Lotus Notes and Domino are software products that pre-date the commercial software development era. These products were created to address two fundamental needs: communicating in real-time and sharing notes and documents. Here’s a brief history of the product: Release 1.0 in 1989 of Lotus Notes had features like replication and application development. The tool was flexible and allowed end users to create applications that they wanted. With Release 4.5 in December 1996, Lotus Notes server products were separated as Domino. This release also featured an interactive Web Application Server. Release 6.5 was a major release that integrated various IBM products with Lotus Notes. From Release 8.0, Lotus Notes is based on Eclipse platform.

Lotus Notes, though a solid product from technical standpoint, had many usability issues, especially on the Windows environment. For example, Notes’ default shortcuts were different from Windows’ standard shortcuts. This led to frustration for business users. Lotus Notes restricted technology adoption alternatives, since partner ecosystem was not diverse. It is difficult to maintain and enhance Lotus Notes applications since engineers with experience in Lotus Notes are hard to find. Consequently, businesses began moving to the Microsoft platform and factors such as change in Enterprise IT technology strategy hastened the move.

Typically, migrating from Lotus Notes/Domino involves migration of the mail servers as well as applications to other platforms. Typically, migration of mail servers is easier compared to the migration of applications.

Microsoft has come up with a process—Application Analysis Envisioning—to migrate Lotus Notes applications to Microsoft platforms. In this process, following criteria are considered while classifying any Lotus Notes application for migration:

Data-centric: Applications that are related to collection and storage of data. For example, survey questionnaires.
Process-centric: Applications that are workflow based. For example, expense reports.
Template-based: Applications that are based on standard templates in Lotus Notes. For example, discussion databases.
Custom: Applications that are created from scratch or applications that are created from templates and modified later to accommodate additional functionalities.

Of these categories, both data-centric and template-based applications can be migrated to Sharepoint. Custom applications and process-centric applications are recommended to be migrated to ASP.Net.

Out-of-the-box tools are available for automated migration from Lotus Notes to Sharepoint/.Net. Our experience is that these tools are not enough for complete migration in most cases. A process-based hybrid approach has to be followed, where a judicious mix of appropriate tools and checklists have to be used along with some amount of hand coding.

I recommend a four-step process that can be broadly summarized as Analyze, Strategize, Migrate and Review.These processes should be automated as far as possible using tools like Notes2Net™.

The analyze phase includes discovering Lotus Notes applications and detailed analysis of various artifacts. An analysis report should contain user activity information, statistics on data and the complexity of the application.

The overall migration strategy is defined in the strategize phase. The output of the analysis phase is used as an input for this phase. In the strategize phase, the decision about which applications should be migrated to Sharepoint and which ones should be migrated to ASP.net is made. Consolidation of applications can also be done based on user activity. Applications that need not be migrated are identified. Such applications may be archived or moved to hosted servers for some time before they are finally phased out. The existing application code base should be analyzed to decide whether automated migration approach should be adopted or whether the application has to be re-architected /rewritten. This analysis will be based on parameters like existing code structure, rewrite cost, enterprise IT direction etc.

Migrating a Lotus Notes application involves conversion of applications to either ASP.net or Sharepoint. As stated earlier, template-based data centric applications such as discussion databases can be migrated to Sharepoint. For customized applications or workflow based applications, ASP.net will be an appropriate choice.

As a first step, a Like-to-Like migration or As-Is migration approach can be taken.In this approach, an application is migrated without any changes to functionality or user interface. This is the most risk-averse approach since the chances of errors are reduced to a great extent. An alternate approach is to migrate with enhancements. Enhancements can be user- interface related or functionality-/workflow-related or database-schema related. However, this approach will mean additional testing efforts when compared to automated conversion. Though the enhancement approach may take additional effort, it offers the advantage of improved features available in the platform. Depending on the scenario, an appropriate approach can be taken after weighing the pros and cons.

Tools like Notes2Net™ can be used at various stages to assist the migration process as seen below:

Analyze: Notes2Net Analyzer tool can be used to get information of all Lotus Notes applications.
Strategize: Notes2Net Strategizer tool can be used to process the analysis and suggest a suitable migration strategy.
Migrate: Notes2Net Migrator could be used to assist the migration to SharePoint or .Net. However, no tool can migrate the entire application as-is and hence some manual touches will be needed.

Lotus Notes application migration can be easy if done the right way and with the right tools.

To know about L&T Infotech Lotus Notes migration capabilities, please click here.

Category: Technology

Published: 4/3/2012 4:27 PM

Automation – Its impact on ICT Infrastructure Management

System Account — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 06:03:29 GMT

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Infrastructure management comprises services that manage critical components of IT infrastructure such as servers, databases, networks etc. This space has witnessed a growing need for solutions which are highly efficient as well as cost-effective. Automation is a key contributor in designing products and services that have delivered highly efficient solutions resulting in significant ‘productivity gains.’ Let us take a look at some areas where automation for infrastructure management services has resulted in productivity benefits:

Virtualization, an offshoot of automatic computing, not only helps increase utilization of physical infrastructure by creating multiple images of a single infrastructure element but also eases their management. For example, VMware has led to a threefold increase in the support efficiency of servers managed by a single FTE.
Service desk tools (from BMC or CA) facilitate ticket routing to experts using rules defined in them. This not only reduces resolution time for tickets, but also improves productivity of consultants who are assigned tickets based on their expertise. Self-service modules and detailed reporting mechanism of such tools help users automatically view ticket status, thus saving manual efforts. For example, IT service desk implementation for a US-based e-commerce organization helped improve ticket resolution time by almost 30%.
The robust operation centers commonly called as GOC/NOCs (global operation centers/network operations centers) provide access to physical as well as human support resources in shared mode. Automation (through implementation of Tool Suites) play a crucial role here by streamlining operations, establishing proactive alert mechanism, facilitating remote management etc., resulting in both short and long term productivity gains. Tools such as ‘Manager of Managers’ can even correlate alerts generated from different infrastructure devices and point to the root problem facilitating quicker issue resolution.

Additionally, there are several other areas where automation tools impacts productivity. For example, tools for asset management make the cumbersome task of managing assets easy and results in productivity improvements as high as 50% (transactions per person). Tools for database backup and recovery reduce risks due to manual errors or data loss.

This is all good news for clients who are able to reap the benefits of increased efficiency and the resultant productivity gains using automation. However, there are questions we need to ponder over. How does automation affect the several IT vendors who have been in the business of providing infrastructure maintenance and support services to clients? Has the improved efficiency achieved through automation resulted in reduced business for such players?

I would like to believe that the answer to this is both yes and no. It is obvious that with increased productivity gains the number of resources needed to support infrastructure elements (like servers, databases, networks etc.) will reduce significantly. Naturally, this will result in reduced deal sizes for the same scope of work thus reducing business. On the other hand, automation has also opened up the industry to various other opportunities. Some of these opportunities are listed below:

Managed and shared services made available through robust NOC/GOCs which are able to cater to the needs of multiple clients.
Remote monitoring and management services on a 24x7 basis facilitated by the use of tools for automatic monitoring and alert generation.
Complete new range of services such as server virtualization, service desk tools implementation etc.

Service providers who can gauge this changing business need and embrace it through substantial investments in building and modifying their solutions will eventually reap significant benefits offered by automation.

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Category: Infrastructure Management Services

Published: 3/29/2012 12:47 PM

L&T Infotech Blog: Posts

Migrating applications from Lotus Notes to Microsoft Platform

Automation – Its impact on ICT Infrastructure Management