Archive for June, 2008

Upgrades-new video and podcast available from the Gathering

The Gathering on 25th June centred around upgrades and we were honoured to have 3 very senior CA staff in the dicussion – much useful information was discussed with respect to upgrades – and a other stuff besides!

The video, the podcast and the picture galley are now available – note that there is no eBook this time, as all the output is video and audio only – so download both now !

Apologies for the technical fault mid way through the video and the some of the sound quality – I do my best !!!!

• Audio (downloaded times), or play it here:

  Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

• Flash Video (downloaded times).

Refactoring choices

After attending the Gathering last wednesday, it seems that there are (anecdotally) more customers moving their front end processing to Java and .NET and leaving their back end processing on their mainframes, rather than moving the whole solution off the mainframe and downsizing to midrange systems.

Perhaps this reflects the move to systems which are NOT simply a total Java solution or a .NET solution – proving that one of the original paradigms actually work – that a Gen-based solution can be a mix of technologies.

This ability plays right into the hands of the SOA evangelists – in that the whole point of a SOA is that systems can be mixed without being reliant on the technologies - and exposing their functionality both internally and externally. 

Stop Press!!! Guests confirmed

The special guests for the 7th Gen Gathering have been confirmed!
John Carter and Russ LeClaire, Gen Product Architect and VP Marketing for Gen will be in-world in their avatar guises on Wednesday 25th June 2008 at 9pm BST UK time to take questions on Gen upgrades !

Take this valuable opportunity to speak and interact with the people at the heart of CA Gen !

Flexible metamodel

Thinking further about the last post about an Encyclopedia upgrade tool, it seems to me that the reason that this would be required is that the meta model changes.

OK – so why would the metamodel change ? to support functionality changes and more enhancements to the toolset. Inherantly, this is Gen’s strength but it is also its weekness in that changes to the metamodel are maybe one of the largest stumbling blocks in the way of upgrades.

Could the metamodel be made more static, but flexible enough to be able to cope with additions to functionality and paradigms ?

Just a suggestion ….

I’ll be bringing this up at the next Gathering (Wednesday 25th June 9pm (BST) UK Time at the Gen HQ in Second Life.

Having a slightly more flexible metamodel may/should make upgrades more straightforward and less fraught with problems.

Encyclopedia upgrade and import tool

Focussing on upgrades (which the next Gen Gathering will do), it occurred to me that a great value tool would be an encyclopedia upgrade tool. This tool would not be part of the main toolset, which would continue to be able to import and upgrade the current schema, plus 2 schema levels down.

This tool would be a tool that would import ANY level of schema (say from Composer 4.0 upward) and convert it to any subsequent level of schema. This tool would take the import code from the main toolset and add it to a separate tool each time the schema was upgraded.

Why would this be a good idea?

Well – for a customer that needs to upgrade, say from Composer 4.0 to Gen 7.6, several intermediate steps would be required since there are restrictions on import and upagrde (current schema -2 levels). Having a separate (optional tool) available would mean that customers who are behind (and let’s face it – there must be a few) could purchase it and use it on a one-off basis. Having it NOT as part of the main toolset means that the main toolset then doesn’t get bloated.

Any thoughts – either post them here or come along to the Gathering on 25th June and voice them to the community.