Fujitsu “CoolCat” Service

Migrate from Microsoft Visual Basic 4, 5 and 6 to Visual Basic .Net

Fujitsu’s highly efficient VB migration service can move your applications from VB4,5,6 to VB.Net in a fraction of the time of the Microsoft migration toolset with a 99.x% source code conversion.

The Challenges of Migrating

With the advent of the Microsoft .NET development framework, Microsoft released a new version of the popular Visual Basic programming language – Visual Basic .NET. However, the extensive differences between previous versions of the language and Visual Basic .NET meant that many organisations have delayed migrating to the new framework. While Microsoft released a migration wizard to assist in the move, unfortunately it stopped well short of a 100 per cent conversion. This left a large part of the code to be migrated by hand, with all the associated risks.

Visual Basic 6.0 has been out of standard support since March 2005 and will be out of extended support from March 2008. Specialist support from Microsoft will become progressively more expensive as fewer sites use this outdated version. In addition, the Visual Basic 6.0 runtime will not be guaranteed after 2011. All these factors mean organisations running versions of Visual Basic 6.0 or earlier need to seriously consider upgrading to Visual Basic .NET 2005. (Source: Gartner “Visual Basic 6: Setting End-of-Life Migration Priorities” Mark Driver, 14 December 2007)

Organisations that have not yet migrated to Visual Basic .NET 2005 may suffer from the following issues, each of which can severely affect organisational viability.

The options available to organisations with Visual Basic 4.0, 5.0 and 6.0 have traditionally been:

• Stay with Visual Basic 4.0, 5.0 or 6.0
• Re-write the system manually in Visual Basic
• .NET or Java to meet current and future functionality requirements
• Convert the code using the Microsoft wizard and manual intervention
• Find a package to replace the systems and undertake the required systems integration
• Decommission the applications

However, many of the issues with Visual Basic 4.0, 5.0 and 6.0 will become increasingly acute over time, eventually making the framework impossible or impractical to run. Rewriting the system yourself is a high-risk, expensive and time-consuming undertaking. While using the Microsoft wizard to convert some code is an option, you will still have to convert the remainder manually.

Fujitsu’s Approach

Fujitsu, with Legacy Modernisation partner Shiga Fujitsu Limited®, has created a smarter approach to moving your organisation to Visual Basic .NET 2005.

To begin with, we request that you fill in the CoolCat Questionnaire which can be downloaded from this page, this will allow us to give you an approximate cost and timeframe, then we conduct an application value assessment workshop to learn about your environment and desired outcomes. From this workshop agree on a suitable application to migrate as a pilot project and give reasonably close estimates of the cost, timeframe and resource requirements for undertaking the entire migration.

Fujitsu conducts the initial code migration in a similar manner to the Microsoft wizard. However, we also include CoolCat Classes to replace the parts of Visual Basic that have no Visual Basic .NET equivalent and alter any reserved words to conform to Visual Basic .NET standards. We use CoolCat Comments to enable alterations between the old and new versions of the application, such as colours and version names. We also leverage Fujitsu’s Type Library, a database of alterations requested during current and previous projects, to help CoolCat learn different migration requirements.

During the migration, we apply only a very limited freeze period on the source code to eliminate the risk of functional drift, which is where the old and new versions of the application would both need to be altered separately. During the migration, only the legacy Visual Basic code needs to be maintained.

We make no functional changes throughout the migration to reduce risk and conduct industrialised testing on the migrated application to ensure that the old and new applications function identically. The final migration requires no manual intervention.

The Benefits of “CoolCat”

The major benefits of the Fujitsu Legacy Modernisation program for Visual Basic are:

• Removing your organisation’s reliance on unsupported versions of Visual Basic and avoiding the possibility of total language failure;
• Reducing support costs;
• Reducing the complexity of your technical portfolio with fewer less versions to support;
• Increasing access to cheaper technical resources by moving to Visual Basic .NET;
• Creating code in Visual Basic .NET that is recognisable to Visual Basic 6.0 developers;
• Streamlining the migration as, unlike other options, only the legacy system needs to be updated during the process, not both systems;
• Reducing risk through industrialised testing;
• Increasing the speed and accuracy of application development and maintenance by taking advantage of the Microsoft Visual Studio development environment;
• Increasing access to leading-edge technology;
• Avoiding confusion as the format of the applications remains the same;
• Reducing end-user training as all screens have the same topography and navigation; and
• Creating a more secure technical roadmap for the future.

From our previous experience we believe our Legacy Modernisation option to cost roughly half as much as the Microsoft Wizard/Manual Fix option.

Interested in Finding Out More?

If you answer "Yes" to any of the following questions, please contact Fujitsu for a more in-depth discussion of our Legacy Modernisation options for Visual Basic .NET.

Legacy Modernisation Alliance Partner