From Legacy to
webacy
In our last issue we concentrated
on the question "Is CERN
an e-business ?" where e-business was
defined as on-line administration preferably via the
web. To be ready for e-business means we must no longer
have applications running legacy or old code. In the
pre-web days applications were developed to run in client-server
mode - the move from code optimised to run in client-server
mode towards code optimised to run in a web environment
is what can be referred to as web-enabled or "webacy".
The AIS applications, and how
they were developed depends where the code was written;
in-house at CERN or off-site Commercial Off-The-Shelf
(COTS) standard applications. The AIS
policy has always been to buy COTS solutions
where possible only developing in-house what was very
specific to the CERN environment and impossible to find
on the software market.
The core administrative business
areas such as finance, purchasing, human resources
are served by COTS applications whereas the "glue"
surrounding these applications helping them to work
for the CERN environment has been developed in-house.
Any in-house
AIS application developed since 1997 (e.g.
CFU,
PPT)
was developed directly for the web, so the problem of
legacy code does not exist. However since 1997, when
the AIS strategy was re-focussed towards the web, older
in-house applications such as the Electronic
Document Handling (EDH)
application, the Budget Holder's
Toolkit (BHT)
and the Human Resources Toolkit
(HRT)
had to start moving to the web which involved the development
of server-side frameworks in Java, using standards
where possible, and generally using the opportunity
to cleanup as in some cases the code had been written
and in use since the early 90's.
BHT
was the first of
these applications to move to the web. The porting exercise
started in 1997, and was completed in 1999 when BHT
became web-enabled allowing it's 1000+ users to perform
budget follow-up and management anywhere in the world.
The porting exercise for HRT
started later in 1998, and was completed at the end
of 2000, following user testing and feedback. WebHRT
finally became web-enabled
in February 2001 as you can read from one of the articles
in this newsletter. HRT
allows users to perform human resource management including
reporting on career history and training. The HRT legacy
code (Excel HRT to be precise) will be stopped on April
30, 2001.
EDH
is the largest and
the oldest AIS application
developed in-house.
It was originally developed in 1990 with the first electronic
document being the Purchase Requisition. EDH evolved
through the last decade keeping pace with the evolving
technology world, and adding new functionality and new
electronic documents. Its move to the web started in
1997, but due to the size and complexity of the application
it was decided to go for a phased approach.
- Phase 1 of WebEDH
allowed users to read and sign documents via a web
browser.
- Phase 2 allowed
users to access information screens and search for
documents.
- Phase 3 allowed
users to start creating documents directly on the
web.
Today
we have completed phase 3; all
documents can now be created on the web.
To completely switch-off the EDH legacy code (EDH Version
2.1 to be precise) we must ensure that all our users
can do everything they always did in 2.1 on the web,
and much more. Some very specific functionality used
by a few of our active users is in the process of being
added to webEDH to finalise the porting exercise. Already
today of our 9,500 registered users 6,000
very regularly perform
administrative actions either at CERN or from home,
while travelling or from their institute via webEDH.
EDH is almost web-enabled, and will be by June 30, 2001
when the legacy code will be stopped.
Becoming web-enabled will eventually
allow us to further integrate our in-house and COTS
applications, accessible from
a single and secure AIS Login. This process
goes slower for our COTS applications as we are in the
hands of our suppliers and have less control over the
timing. However eventually we will be able to provide
all AIS functions on the web
and offer them to our users based on their role within
the organisation, as described in the Portal
article.
So, AIS is well on the road
taking us from legacy to "webacy"
to check the current status please look at the AIS
desktop, and we look forward, as we hope you do,
to the future exciting possibilities offered in the
AIS web world.
Sue
Foffano
AS-IDS
Group Leader
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