Reinvesting in Key Line of Business Applications

The Challenge

The client had a vital line-of-business application that was critical to business operation and was used by most of their staff every day for a decade. Over this period new elements were added using various technologies. The application had reached the stage where these various elements either no longer met the client’s needs or were going out of support. The client also wanted to utilise modern deployment techniques for their software across the business. The key goals for the client were:

• Bring this key application into a modern clean and efficient deployment model.

• Retain the existing database and its related protocol.

• Replace components that are out of support or will be in the near future.

The Solution

Quorum was brought in to undertake analysis on a complete rewrite of the application to address the current issues. We began with an initial review of the technology in place and after the analysis was done could advise that a complete rewrite was not necessary to meet the requirements. The components that were to be retained were packaged up unaltered using the Desktop Bridge from Microsoft. The components that needed to be replaced were written targeting the Universal Windows Platform. This allowed for a high retainment rate of code from the original components and the ability to use the rich controls that the platform offers. The components that had been packaged could immediately be used in the modern deployment system across the business. The components that were written in the Universal Windows Platform created the opportunity to use new features and techniques that would not have been available before.

The Results

The high retainment of code allowed the overall cost of the solution to be greatly reduced. This was due to less time being spent rewriting these components. An added benefit is that the business logic was retained and did not need the extensive testing that new code would have required. Now that the whole application runs in the Universal Windows Platform, the components that were just packaged can be converted at any time to use the rich controls. They also now have access to a range of modern tools that can be utilised like big data analysis or even machine learning to assist the users in their day-to-day work.

Contact us today to see how we can modernise your business applications.