Chapter 5   Running NetDynamics Applications


This chapter is a planning guide for the migration of applications built with NetDynamics.

This chapter is divided into the following sections:

• Overview

• Migration Planning Considerations

• iPlanet Migration Toolbox and J2EE Assisted Take-Off (JATO)

Overview

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In the past, we have suggested a number of options for migrating NetDynamics 3.x, 4.x, and 5.x applications to J2EE for iAS 6.0. Some of those options specified staged upgrades to NetDynamics 5.x and then to J2EE.

With the increasing acceptance and maturity of J2EE, and because newly available automated tools can ease the transition for applications written with older versions of NetDynamics (Versions 3.x and 4.x), we favor the migration of NetDynamics 3.x and 4.x applications directly to J2EE, rather than through an intermediate NetDynamics 5.x migration step.

This chapter discusses some of the considerations involved in planning a NetDynamics to J2EE migration effort. In particular, we look at some of the issues that may affect the work effort required to migrate applications and some factors that might even dictate that a full migration to J2EE not be performed.

In addition, this chapter introduces the iPlanet Migration Toolbox (iMT), which provides automated enablement for the migration of NetDynamics applications to the iPlanet Application Server J2EE environment.

The migrated applications utilize the iPlanet J2EE Assisted Take-Off (JATO) application framework, which not only provides for an intuitive transition of applications from the NetDynamics application framework to J2EE, but also serves as a standalone application framework upon which future J2EE development can be based. JATO is provided to iMT customers with full ownership of the source code.

A comprehensive discussion of the iMT and JATO is beyond the scope of this chapter. Please contact your iPlanet representative when you require information regarding the iMT beyond that which is provided here.

Migration Planning Considerations

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Not surprisingly, the task of determining the scope of a migration effort is quite challenging. The NetDynamics environment provided for a great deal of flexibility in development. The organization of NetDynamics applications, the development standards, individual developer styles, and custom extensions and enhancements, among other things, can significantly affect the level of effort required to migrate a particular set of NetDynamics applications to J2EE.

The iPlanet Migration Toolbox includes some basic tools to jumpstart the migration estimation effort. The NDProjectPeeker tool generates an inventory of NetDynamics project objects to provide an idea of the size and composition of the projects. Another tool, which is currently under development, will utilize the output of the NDProjectPeeker tool to generate basic estimates for the migration effort. The initial estimates generated using the information compiled by these tools will be improved by incorporating the analysis described in this chapter.

This section includes the following topics:

• Migration Path

• Migration Planning and Estimating

Migration Path

We generally recommend that older NetDynamics applications be migrated directly to J2EE for iAS 6.0, but there may be some good reasons to upgrade NetDynamics 3.x and 4.x applications to NetDynamics 5.x. Some of these reasons may include:

• It can be determined that the upgrade to NetDynamics 5.x can be performed relatively quickly for a particular application and the application will be retired prior to the termination of support for the NetDynamics 5.x product in December of 2001.

Additionally, there may be some issues that would make a near-term migration to J2EE infeasible:

• An application uses custom or third party components which can only operate within a NetDynamics environment.

• An application is dependent upon a capability or feature that only NetDynamics can provide.

However, in general, we believe that a direct migration to J2EE is more desirable:

• Applications with an expected service life beyond the next two years should generally be moved to J2EE.

• The upgrade to NetDynamics 5.x can require a significant amount of effort. In some cases, the effort required to upgrade some older NetDynamics applications to NetDynamics 5.x may be of the same magnitude as an iMT-enabled migration to J2EE for iAS, especially when tasks such as testing are taken into account.

• Any dependency on NetDynamics will have to be addressed anyway since NetDynamics support will be phased out.

• The pool of NetDynamics-trained personnel will shrink over the next few years.

Migration Planning and Estimating

The iPlanet Migration Toolbox planning tools can give a useful first impression of the magnitude of the NetDynamics to J2EE migration effort, but meaningful estimates can only be generated by analyzing the unique set of factors represented by the body of the applications to be migrated. Some of the factors that should be considered in estimating the effort required to migrate NetDynamics applications include:

• The skills set and application knowledge of the migration team:
  • J2EE

  • NetDynamics

  • Domain knowledge of applications being migrated

• The number of NetDynamics projects and pages which must be migrated.

• The extent to which the NetDynamics API was used:
  • Was the NetDynamics API used extensively for coding the event methods?

  • Were existing Enterprise JavaBeans and other business logic components written to be independent of the NetDynamics API?

• The structure of the applications:
  • Have the applications been carefully tiered into display, business, and data layers?

  • Are custom classes which must be migrated? What is the degree of dependence of these custom classes on NetDynamics?

• The organization of the applications:
  • Do applications consist of many, smaller NetDynamics projects, or fewer, larger projects?

  • The extent to which different applications within the organization are interdependent.

For larger collections of NetDynamics projects, you may need to consider including some additional tasks in the analysis:

• An architectural overview

• An in-depth analysis of any custom classes and how they are used

• An close examination of a representative sample of NetDynamics projects

• A pilot migration

iPlanet Migration Toolbox and J2EE Assisted Take-Off (JATO)

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This section includes the following topics:

• iPlanet Migration Toolbox

• JATO Application Framework

• iMT/JATO Community

iPlanet Migration Toolbox

The iPlanet Migration Toolbox (iMT) contains a set of tools to perform the automated phases of NetDynamics to J2EE conversions:

• NetDynamics Extraction Tool - This tool extracts the declarative information and the Java code from NetDynamics projects into XML description files.

• Application Translation Tool - This tool uses the XML description files to construct J2EE-compliant versions of the NetDynamics projects in the JATO framework.

• Other tools - The iPlanet Migration Toolbox also contains convenience tools for compiling and packaging the translated projects.

The iMT was designed to migrate NetDynamics applications to J2EE as completely as possible. Its primary function is to move the application structure to a new application environment which supports the NetDynamics constructs and capabilities. Secondarily, the iMT tries to migrate all the declarative application functionality to this new application framework. Those functions supplied by NetDynamics wizards are, in large part, migrated to J2EE.

Once the automated part of the migration process is complete, it is necessary to evaluate the appropriateness of the custom code from the old applications. There is no practical way to convert custom code in a NetDynamics application to make it correct in a J2EE environment. The original code is commented out and moved to the appropriate module and method to make manual conversion of the code easier. Though the task is not small, it should be, in general, straightforward once the migration developer is familiar with the JATO J2EE component classes and methods.

Typically, a migration developer will perform a preliminary run of the iMT on an application to assess the level of manual migration effort that will be required for the project. The iMT generates an inventory of code-level items of interest which will need evaluation and possible modification during the manual code porting phase. This change inventory should be used to help refine the migration work plan.

JATO Application Framework

J2EE Assisted Take-Off (JATO) is an application framework built to provide developers with a foundation for building J2EE applications in a consistent and efficient manner. Instead of inventing ways to build applications and the infrastructure to support them, we have, with JATO, the procedures and support infrastructure to start building applications right away. In other words, we regain some of the productivity advantages we had with NetDynamics. Furthermore, the availability of a standard framework will not only enable organizations to ensure development consistency in the organization over time, but also reduce the likelihood that new team members would have to be trained to use a proprietary, internal J2EE application framework.

JATO is intended to not merely be a stepping-stone for the jump from NetDynamics to J2EE, but to be a framework upon which J2EE applications can be built long after the last NetDynamics application has been migrated.

iMT/JATO Community

The iPlanet Migration Toolbox team moderates an online iMT/JATO discussion community at: http://www.egroups.com/group/iPlanet-JATO