HP/iX to UNIX migration with PowerHouse

[Jon.Kvisli@lindorffapplications.com]

7.12.01 Hasse, Christina wrote:

>I have a need for a case study on someone who has moved from IX to UNIX 
with
>PowerHouse.  They types of information I am looking for is:

For the past 15 months Lindorff have been working on the conversion of two 
separate applications. I have rapidly gathered some key-information from 
these projects. Not complete, but quick response is probably more 
important than the whole picture........?

The two systems are a loan-administration system and a collecting system. 
Both have been migrated from HP3000/MPEix/TurboImage to 
HP9000/HP-UX/Oracle 8i. The smaller loan system was used as a pilot, and 
the new hardware, base software and production environment was built up in 
parallell with this project (not included in figures below!). From the 
larger collecting system, a 30 GB "letter-database" was isolated, from the 
Image database, converted from ASCII to XLM, and fed into a standard 
document store/retrieval system called DocuLive (uses Oracle database). 
This was also done as a separate project, and is not included i figures 
below. 

The total work was carried out by Lindorffs own IS-department (app.20 
persons), Lindorffs consulting and developing company Lindorff 
Applications (8 consultants), an external consulting company I-COM (6 
persons) which had previously done a similar conversion, and 2 external 
projectleaders from a consulting comany called Hands. The loan system went 
"on air" 5.5.2001, and the main collecting system is now in the final 
testing phase. It is scheduled for production on 15.12.2001 with a 
possible delay of 1 month.

>1.  HP/iX with what data structure to UNIX with what data structure.

The database was converted fra TurboImage to Oracle 8i, with no 
significant transformation of datastructures or functionality. The loan 
system database was originally designed with relational structures in 
mind. The older collection system (15 years old), will need extensive 
redesign of datastructure. This will be done later on, on a modular basis, 
together with functional redesign. 

"Natural" primary keys are used where possible, and Oracle SEQUENCES are 
used to generate unique keys where no natural primary key existed. All PKs 
and foreign keys was indexed. Omnidex textindexing for TurboImage was 
replaced with Oracle Intermedia Textindexes.  To avoid extensive rewriting 
of PowerHouse expressions and comparing, the NOT ALLOW NULL VALUES was 
used in PH dictionary. This makes PH store/read NULL values as 0 or space. 
The downside is that Oracle NOT NULL constraint cannot be used (other than 
PK-columns).


>2.  How big was the project; such as number of screens, qtp's, reports.

Loan-system:
        80 tables containing 5 GB data
        200 quick-screens
        115 QTPs
        130 QUIZ reports
        90 USE files
        75 shell-scripts
Collecting system:
        230 tables containing 30 GB data
        280 quick-screens
        360 QTPs
        150 QUIZ reports
        130 USE files
        115 shell-scripts


>3.  When was it done and how long did it take.  (Does this number include
>operating system move with time spent on writing new scripts)

Loan-system: 
        Timespan: 1.10.2000-15.5.2001
        Manhour : app. 3000 hours (2000 programming, 600 testing, 300 
coordination)
        Manpower: 5 programmers, 2 project koordinators, 3-5 testers
Collecting system: 
        Timespan: 1.5.2001-15.1.2002
        Manhour : app. 8000 hours, 5000 programming, 2000 testing, 1000 
coordination/management
        Manpower: 10 programmers, 1 project manager, 2 project 
koordinators, 1 testleader, 5-7 testers
        Skills: PH programmers, Oracle DBA, unix-shell programmers

>4.  About how much did it cost.

Hardware : App. 3 mill NOK ($ 330.000) 2 x HP9000 L-class, 1 x HP9000 
K-class, + disc.
Oracle 8i: App. 3 mill NOK ($ 330.000) O8i Enterprice with OPS for HP-UX, + O8i Ent. for NT, + dev.server
PH licence converted from MPE to UX. I dont know the cost of this.
Working cost: See "Manhour" above.

>5.  What was used to get things from HP/ix to UNIX - Axiant, or some 
other
>migration tool, or just moving things and the editor.

No Axiant. PH code was "coase-converted" using a utility written by I-COM. 
This scans through code and does some basic editing (e.g. replaces "-" 
with "_"). After that code was worked og using only texteditors: vi (not 
for me) and textpad. MPE jobs were converted manualy to unix 
shell-scripts.


Finaly some performance experiences:
Some QTPs have been optimized using SQL cursors. OUR EXPERIENCES SHOW THAT 
POWERHOUSE QTP WILL PERFORM SLOWER WITH RELATIONAL DBMS THAN TURBOIMAGE IF 
SQL IS NOT USED IN QTP PROGRAMS. THIS IS ESPECIALY THE CASE IF LARGE 
RECORD COMPLEXES ARE SORTED BY POWERHOUSE ON HP-UX. Run times was reduced 
greatly if projection (colum selection), SELECT (where) and SORTing is 
done by Oracle using SQL. Sometimes down to 1/10 if large LINKS are moved 
to SQL JOINS. The hard bit is QTPs that have extensive use of 
(intermediate) subfiles, which are linked to tables in subsequent 
REQUESTs. These are hard to replace with SQL and programs often require a 
major rewriting and retesting of logic if performance is a problem. 
Another issue is QUICK ghost screens run in batch. QUICK are working 
record-by-record, and rewriting with SQL/cursors is limited. Also pay 
attention to programs that uses ACCESS BACKWARDS. These will need sorting 
by Oracle and can be slower than reading Image pointer-chains.

Hope this is of some use to You.

Sincerely

Jon Kvisli
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Pricipal Consultant
Lindorff Applications as
Hellandtunet research- & businesscentre
P.O.BOX 4, 3833 Bø in Telemark
Norway
workphone: 35 06 15 71
fax: 35 06 15 01
jon.kvisli@lindorffapplications.com
www.lindorffapplications.com
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