Legacy Powers Legendary (Part 2)

January 22, 2020

part 2 of 2

Let’s take a closer look at the MultiValue applications by asking these questions:

• What are we doing for our application so that it can evolve from Legacy to Legendry?
• What are we doing to help our application to age gracefully and not become a burden on our business processes and IT?

Suggestions

Modularization:

• Always revisit the source code and enhance it to take advantage of new best practices and new features.
• Start with the low hanging fruits and there is plenty to choose from.
• Reduce the code size as much as possible.
• Maintaining programs made up of thousands of lines of code is a nightmare for any developer, especially new ones.
• Also, a lot of source code in one program can easily introduce errors and bugs in the code.

Database housekeeping:

• Make sure that your database files are properly optimized on a regular basis to avoid file corruptions and also to enhance performance.
• Develop a methodology where source code is cross-checked by different developers in the environment.
• Enhance the code by replacing OS-dependent functionality such as GCI with new modern approaches like RESTful services. This will make the application less dependent on a specific OS which can lead to many issues in case the OS is upgraded or changed.
• Start cleaning up the code by separating the presentation layer from the business functionality. This will make the code reusable through APIs such as Web Applications, mobile applications, etc.
• Always check the new functionalities released in the MultiValue application platform, such as Audit Logging (we have white papers on our website), Replication, etc. and evaluate their benefits and value to your application and environment.
• Consider the implementation of products that can reduce the risk to your environments by setting up an HA/DR environment using Replication.
• Consider implementing Replication with External Data Access (EDA) where data can automatically be normalized (i.e., for SQL Server) thus providing users with the opportunity to self-serve using reporting and BI tools from third party vendors. This will reduce overhead on the product environment and your IT personnel.
• Introduce new skill sets into the environment to help interject new concepts and methodologies making the environment richer.
• Create a well-structured modularized environment. This will help your R&D team develop different skill sets while being able to integrate with other modules developed by team members with other skills sets.
• Consider the tools available to modernize your application to:
  • Provide a GUI interface in .NET forms
  • Create RESTful services to provide B2B integration
  • Create a web site to access the database, providing more services to the users
  • Develop a mobile application that integrates with the database using RESTful services.