Re: [OT] System Conversion - An Overview

On Tue, 30 Oct 2007 19:44:40 -0400, "Charles Hottel" <chottel@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

I have learned that we now have around 860 contractors working on our "new"
system. I put new in quotes because the current system was used for the
specifications for the new system. That 860 number is after they got rid of
a lot of SAP people.

SAP people are usually very good, and very expensve. IBMers are just very expensive.

They tried to replace one subsystem with 80% vanilla
SAP and 20% ABAP, but the vanilla SAP could not do even 60%.

SOA is about turning the old code into a Service, rather than rewriting it.

All of this
just to say they no longer have COBOL and now have the new and improved and
20% to 30% slower state of the art Java.

SAP is written in C and ABAP, not Java. If it's only 20-30% slower, it's better than most
new systems, which are typically 2-3 TIMES slower. Tuning often produces dramatic
improvements in speed.

In one lunch room they have a huge
chart of system development processes and paperwork deliverables.

In the old days, deliverables were things like Code Complete and Integration Testing
Passed. Now, deliverables are paperwork attesting to those milestones. Someone should ask
why, if development was complete two months ago, they're still making code changes.

If you live in the USA then sorry, it it your tax dollars at work :-(

"Pessimist drowns in half empty bathtub." :)

YOU could be one of those 860 contractors. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

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