Conversion questions (from Powerhouse to ?????)
Taber, Phil
prta@lubrizol.com
Wed, 21 Jun 2000 10:59:41 -0400
Well, you need someone to provide consistency to the project. As a previous
post pointed out, a consultant is expensive and limited in value. I thought
you might be able to get the other school to pick up the cost since the
professor would be "teaching" their students. Besides, a professor will be
more sensitive to your budgetary constraints than an industry consultant
will.
Phil Taber
Phone: (440) 943-1200 x 3892
Email: prta@lubrizol.com
-----Original Message-----
From: Jon Hawks [SMTP:hawksj%yahoo.com@interlockp.lubrizol.com]
Sent: Wednesday, June 21, 2000 10:55 AM
To: Taber, Phil; Glenn Waters;
powerh-l%sphere.swau.edu@interlockp.lubrizol.com
Subject: RE: Conversion questions (from Powerhouse to ?????)
That's not so wild, but a professor?
--- "Taber, Phil" <prta@lubrizol.com> wrote:
> Here is a wild idea available only to you in a
> university setting. Approach
> the department that houses the business computing
> education at the
> university. Suggest they find a faculty member from
> another university that
> is looking for a sabbatical opportunity. Have
> her/him come in as Leader of
> the project and have the upper level business
> programming majors staff the
> project. You should define the toolset they are to
> use (I suggest making it
> an intranet based front end with a relational
> database back end).
>
> Of course there are risks involved with this
> approach, but ...
>
> Phil Taber
> Phone: (440) 943-1200 x 3892
> Email: prta@lubrizol.com
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jon Hawks
> [SMTP:hawksj%yahoo.com@interlockp.lubrizol.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, June 21, 2000 10:18 AM
> To: Glenn Waters;
> powerh-l%sphere.swau.edu@interlockp.lubrizol.com
> Subject: Re: Conversion questions (from Powerhouse
> to ?????)
>
> For what it's worth. I supported many groups
> involved
> with client/server solutions. What took 1-3 people,
> using Powerhouse, sensible detail design and the
> formation a normalized database, denormalized to
> fit
> what made sense (advice from the modeling guru's),
> (deep breath, now), took each shop 15 people, to
> write
> and support techno-weeny systems, that did not
> properly validate data, the users had to be
> instructed
> what data to enter, and the endless debate over
> vbasic
> vs java, both interpretive and limited.
> Corba using IDL became a worthless arguement, still
> tied up in the OMG, and vendors spawning off their
> own
> versions of metadata interfacing.
> Middleware is the solution! was the cry from the
> unknowing and hopeful, who soon found they had to
> hire
> expensive consultants and the vendor, in order to
> EMBED the calls within some form of C(+ or -), or
> Java.
> Non-standard screen interfaces appeared depending
> upon
> the programmer.
> Interfacing with Oracle became a slow and
> burdensome
> activity. Some groups took advice to use the OCI
> and
> got better results.
> Many systems were built with data models forged
> under
> the limits of ERwin, or the flash of System
> Architect,
> both, without the essential chalk-talk, normalized
> for
> SQL, though. View upon view, appeared with most
> "architects" opting to stay at the superficial
> level
> of design, and only give the user what they had in
> their spreadsheets. But, in a database! Oracle,
> even.
> Oracle is played up, too much. It sucks in many
> areas,
> and the consulting is about as useful as used
> toilet
> paper. O8something, came from Rdb, the DEC product,
> when Oracle bought the database portion from
> Digital,
> when the now past CEO was into cutting of his
> limbs,
> to give the appearance of a healthy business
> profit.
>
> If you hire certain consultants, they will sell you
> on
> the benefits they know.
> If you look to Powerhouse-heads, you'll get the
> limits
> of their imagination, but not necessarily what you
> need. And, they get to hang around as consultants,
> as
> long as they make nice.
>
> On the other hand, you need help with making a new
> system. An common industry designer may fail to
> produce what you need, not really knowing set logic
> and design. A P-house person thinks in Qk/Qz/Qtp,
> often, but will rail otherwise.
>
> I like your dilemma. But, I'm not being paid to
> solve
> it. (grin!).
>
> I hope this provides insight. I've worked in
> Oxford,
> NC for Revlon (Yes, it's true Cindy and crew are
> the
> only attractive people there, and they don't really
> work for Revlon). I've been in Charlotte, with a
> DirecTv virtual corp. Another useless, but money
> making venture, spawned under Cobol. You're up
> against
> a low talent pool.
>
> See ya.
>
> --- Glenn Waters <Glenn_Waters@ncsu.edu> wrote:
> > Having read the threads through the list-serv I
> came
> > across a number of conversion questions, the
> > majority were answered with (and I paraphrase a
> bit)
> > "don't do it", "it's more trouble then it was
> > worth","plan for it taking a lot longer" and many
> > other variations on these. Pretty much across the
> > board negative! Well we are in the un-enviable
> > position of maybe having to convert systems,
> perhaps
> > away from Powerhouse totally. Explanation
> follows...
> >
> > We are running 7.33 Powerhouse on a DG Unix
> platform
> > using Interbase. The system that has been built
> up
> > through the years is a heavily customized, very
> > specialized system, that runs this place pretty
> > well. We received notice from Cognos that
> Interbase
> > support is being dropped at the end of the year
> > (because its going open source!?!), so naturally
> the
> > alarm bells have gone off and we are starting to
> see
> > what we might be able to do. Well if it were only
> > that simple we might be ok, but there is more.
> They
> > developed and have considerable interfaces built
> > using Powerhouse PC! Which for any of you not
> aware
> > is also sort of on the "fringe" of support (and
> > still uses 16 bit drivers...). In addition to all
> of
> > this, this is an educational institution and
> funding
> > is always an issue.
> >
> > So we are exploring alternatives right now. I'll
> > list them below, and I'd be very interested in
> any
> > input from you folks on our ideas, and any other
> > ideas you may have.
> > 1. Set up Oracle on the DG box. This solves the
> > Interbase problem, and should involve only a
> minimal
> > amount of pain. Keep running our current
> > applications, converted as needed for Oracle.It
> > doesn't solve our Powerhouse PC problem, but will
> > buy us some time.
> > 2. Oracle on a Sun box. Similar to the idea
> above.
> > Again still running our Powerhouse
> applications.The
> > main push for this idea is the university has
> > standardized on Sun (we could get them
> "cheaper"),
> > and would solve some non powerhouse related
> issues.
> > 3. Convert our applications to Java. A total
> > conversion off Powerhouse. Probably to Oracle DB,
> on
> > a Sun box. Yes I understand how tough it would be
> > :-) Advantages of Java (in a University setting)
> is
> > that any workstation we have could (in theory)
> run
> > the programs. Currently only Windows boxes have
> > access to the applications because of the
> Powerhouse
> > PC front end. This would solve the DB issue, and
> the
> > Powerhouse PC issue, but the "cost" would be the
> > highest.
> > 4. Finally some "creative" ideas were brought up,
> > like putting a Java "wrapper" around the current
>
=== message truncated ===
=====
Jon Jared Hawks
Partnership is a privilege. Don't abuse it.
Business Intelligence Applications
Anything you read from Jon (Jared) Hawks is his own
expressed opinion.
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