I have apparently caused some confusion about my two tutorial sessions.
"Porting COBOL VPLUS and IMAGE Apps to UNIX, Linux or Windows"
http://www.hpworld.com/conference/hpworld2002/sessions/sn145/.  In response
to a question someone raised about the IBM iSeries I responded by indicating
that the tutorials would contain materials related to the iSeries and I did
it in such a way that might indicate that the talks were only about the
iSeries or IBM.  This e-mail will, hopefully, set the record straight

Q: How many sessions are there?
A: There is a Part I on Wednesday the 25th at 3:00 PM and a Part II at 8AM
on Thursday the 26th.

Q: What are the tutorials about?
A: better title would be "Porting COBOL VPLUS and IMAGE Apps to UNIX, Linux,
Windows or the IBM iSeries".

Part I focuses on picking the "right" kind of target environment.  This is a
software and services related set of issues and has less to do with Unix vs.
Linux vs. iSeries vs. anything else.  Most people I know have to deal with
applications as they are today and at the same time more modern
applications.  This addresses the question are there tools that can make
this  easier.  We will demo examples of Legacy applications enhanced by
commercially available off the shelf tools after migration.

I hope to show how migrated applications can suddenly become more valuable
if they are migrated into an environment on which certain tools that exists
today are available.  The idea is to do nothing more than migrate the
application with minimal changes and to suddenly be much better off in terms
of system development options.  It really is possible to migrate
applications, test them and the next day web-enable portions of that same
application.  The tools featured are all JAVA based tools and, although some
of them are either sold by IBM are available as Open Source from IBM they do
run on any JAVA supported platform.  Moreover, some of these are not IBM
tools.

Part II focuses on making sure you cover all the bases in order to replicate
the functionality you have today.  This includes such issues as indexing as
provided by the third-party indexing products on the HP 3000, IMAGE
functionality, etc. This is more of a standard migration tutorial.  You will
find that some migration solutions require you to change program logic in
order to accommodate the limitations in their approach.  It is important for
you to understand the differences between the limitations in the approach
and what is really possible.

Q: Has the content changed?
A: The original content is still there.  That is, if you read the abstract,
all of the described topics will be covered.  It means that included in the
talks will be topics such as HP Eloquence and RDBMS's other than IBM's DB2.
I have simply added additional materials that I think will be interesting to
some people.

Q: What's different?
A: It seems that most people I talk with divide the migration effort into
several parts.  First, they want to know how to get "all" of the
functionality they enjoy today on the target platform, they want to know
who's going to do all of the extra work during the migration, they are
concerned with new skills needed to operate in the target environment, then
they are concerned with future development tools,  and with issues such as
development using Web-related tools and technologies.  I have expanded to
scope of the talk to include not only the mechanics of migration but also to
cover what I think are the other related issues that should be considered
when making a migration plan or selecting an approach.

Q: Do these talks favor IBM?
A: These sessions feature IBM products and there will be a couple of IBM
guest speakers.  The products are supported on multiple platforms including
HP-UX, Linux and Windows as well as the iSeries.  To the extent that the
iSeries implementation might be more complete than on any of the other
platforms, one could argue that they favor IBM.  However, as is the case
with most things in the software world today. Once an attendee is armed with
a checklist of features, it is typically possible to find alternative ways
to do the same thing.  The speakers will be presenting concepts that exist
elsewhere beyond IBM. Once people know that these features and capabilities
are available, they are free to go elsewhere for them.

Charles Finley
Transformix Computer Corporation
Oceanside, CA
(760) 439-3146

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