High Marks For Migration Tools
The University of Guelph used Speedware migration tools to make a smooth transition from the HP e3000 MPE platform to the HP-UX 9000
"I would definitely recommend Speedware’s migration tools and services to other organizations."
Doug Badger, Manager of Information Systems
University of Guelph
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Established in 1964 and rated as Ontario’s number one comprehensive university by Maclean’s Magazine, the University of Guelph currently has a full-time enrollment of over 15,000 students. The university’s six colleges offer undergraduate and graduate programs in the humanities and in the physical and social sciences.
The University of Guelph has a growing international reputation for the excellence of its curriculum, research and student services. To maintain its reputation and ensure ongoing success, the university depends on a strong IT infrastructure to support its student base, faculty and staff. Recently, the university decided to move away from proprietary computing platforms and adopt a more open environment. Open systems would give the university the flexibility it needed to accommodate the demands of new programs and an expanding enrollment.
The University of Guelph’s financial and human resources applications resided on an HP e3000 MPE platform and accessed an Image database. The university wanted to move to an HP 9000 HP-UX server and port its Image databases to Sybase and Oracle. However, the university didn’t want to re-write applications or re-build databases from scratch. Protecting its investment in existing applications would be an important factor in determining how to accomplish the migration.
Information technology staff from the University of Guelph researched their migration options and quickly discovered that the university already had a hidden asset: cross-platform portability at the core of the Speedware development toolset. A significant portion of the university’s HP e3000 applications were created with Speedware’s development technology, so porting would require little effort. The IT managers at Guelph realized they could make a small investment in time and money and achieve a seamless migration with no interruption to regular activities. The migration got under way and the university was able to do all the following:
- Migrate all of its Speedware applications with almost no code modification
- Migrate its Image databases to Oracle and Sybase without significantly modifying database structures
- Benefit from Speedware consultants’ migration expertise
- Implement a phased approach to migration, thanks to Speedware’s flexible migration tools
- Benefit from and extend its 20-year business relationship with Speedware
Since the migration of Speedware applications went so smoothly and required so little effort, the university was able to enlarge the scope of its migration and take the opportunity to consolidate its servers to increase efficiency.
When the migration was complete, the university’s IS manager, Doug Badger, was enthusiastic about the experience: "I would definitely recommend Speedware’s migration tools and services to other organizations. Our Speedware applications were readily portable. The fact that Speedware runs on multiple database management systems on separate servers was a definite bonus. The migration toolset is very stable and efficient and enabled increased development productivity".
The University of Guelph realized significant savings by porting its Speedware applications rather than re-creating them in a new system or by replacing them with packaged applications. Development staff used familiar Speedware tools to complete the migration with minimal effort, and university employees benefited from continuity.
Established in southern Ontario in 1964, the University of Guelph has a world-wide reputation for excellence in teaching and research. It offers a wide variety of undergraduate and graduate programs in the arts, humanities, social sciences and natural sciences, with special emphasis on agri-foods and veterinary medicine. The faculty have won more than a hundred major awards and the student body has the highest average entering grades among comprehensive universities in Canada.
Also available in pdf format
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