Merry Christmas to you all!!!

We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!! 


MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL OUR READERS AND CUSTOMERS!!!!!!!!!!

All of us at Objektum wish you the best Christmas ever and we hope you continue to support us and read our post in the New Year!!!


As many of you may have noticed, on the blog we have created a link to our Christmas surprises!! It is on the right hand side of the page and not hard to spot!!


If you like laughing(and let's be serious who doesn't?!!) please click the links you won’t be disappointed!!!!



Just to ensure you don't miss out here are the links on this post:                                   


www.objektum-modernization.com/christmas/
www.objektum-solutions.com/christmas



Thanks for reading!

The Objektum Team!

Google Doodle well deserved!!!!

Grace Hopper honoured with Google doodle

Google Doodle- 9/12/13

One of the pioneers of computer programming, the creator of the first ever compiler and a Rear Admiral in the US Navy, Grace Murray Hopper, has been honoured with a Google doodle today, on what would have been her 107th birthday.

With a PhD in mathematics from Yale, Hopper enlisted in the US Navy Reserve in 1943 to contribute to the war effort, working on early computers at Harvard University for a Bureau of Ships project. She remained in the reserve force after the war but went to work for the Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation to develop the UNIVAC I – only the second commercial computer in the USA.

It was here that she helped to lay the foundations for modern computer science. She created the first ever compiler, which is a program that takes source code from one language and converts it into another and a key component in her idea of writing machine-independent programs. Until then, programs were highly specialised for the hardware that they written on. Her ideas then led to the birth of COBOL, one of the first languages that freed programs to run on a range of hardware.

She is also credited with coining the term “debugging” for removing glitches from a program’s source code. It is thought to have arisen from her work on the rudimentary Mark II Computer, when a moth had become stuck in a relay and stopped the machine from working. As she removed it she was said to be “debugging” the system. The remains of the moth are still on display today at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History in Washington DC.

We at Objektum Modernization find her really important in the history of Software development and feel she is well deserving of a Google Doodle and a mention on our Blog!!!

Nowadays many companies still have legacy COBOL systems which are based on the early work done by Grace Hopper.  Those same companies are now turning to Objektum Modernization to provide the technology and services required to bring their business critical applications into the 21^st century, whilst providing maximum return on their initial development investment.

Contact us if you are struggling with an obsolete system!! We can help!
We found all the information about Grace Hopper on the telegraph website!

Thanks for reading
The team at Objektum Modernization :)

Modernization & The Archaeology of Software

The past is not dead. In fact, it’s not even past. -William Faulkner

Objective
Retrieving legacy code has something to do with archaeology as both try to retrieve undocumented artifacts and understand their initial context and purpose. The fact that legacy code is still well alive and kicking may help to chart their structures and behaviors, but it may also confuse the rationale of initial designs.

Legacy Artifact: Was the bowl intended for turkeys? at thanksgiving ? Why the worm ?

Hence the importance of traceability and the benefits of a knowledge based approach to modernization organized along architecture layers (enterprise, systems, platforms), and processes (business, engineering, supporting services).

Model Driven Modernization

Assuming that legacy artifacts under consideration are still operational (otherwise re-engineering would be pointless), modernization will have to:

• Pinpoint the deployed components under consideration (a).
• Identify the application context of their execution (b).
• Chart their footprint in business processes (c).
• Define the operational objectives of their modernization (d).
• Sketch the conditions of their (re)engineering (e) and the possible integration in the existing functional architecture (f).
• Plan the re-engineering project (g).

Modernization Road Map 

Those objectives will usually not be achieved in a big bang, wholly and instantly, but progressively by combining increments from all perspectives. Since the different outcomes will have to be managed across organizational units along multiple engineering processes, modernization would clearly benefit from a model based approach, as illustrated by MDA modeling layers:

• Platform specific models (PSMs) should be used for collecting legacy artifacts and mapping them to their re-engineered counterparts. 
• Since platform independent models (PIMs) are meant to describe system functionalities independently of implementations, they should be used to consolidate the functionalities of legacy and re-engineered artifacts. 
• Since computation independent models (CIMs) are meant to describe business processes independently of supporting systems, they should be used to reinstate, document, and validate re-engineered artifacts within their business context.

Model Driven Modernization 

Corresponding phases can be expressed using the archeology metaphor: field survey and collection (>PSMs), analysis (PSMs/PIMs), and reconstruction (CIMs/PIMs).

Field Survey

The objective of a field survey is to circumscribe the footprint of the modernization and collect artifacts under consideration:

• Given targeted business objects or activities, the first step is to collect information about locations, distribution and execution dependencies. 
• Sites can then be searched and executable files translated into source ones whose structure and dependencies can be documented. 
• The role of legacy software can then be defined with regard to the application landscape.

Analysis (with regard to presentation, control, persistency, and services) 

It must be noted that field survey and collection deal with the identification and restoration of legacy objects without analyzing their contents.

Analysis

The aim of analysis is to characterize legacy components, first with regard to their architectural features, then with regard to functionalities. Basic architectural features take into account components’ sharing and life-cycle.

The analysis of functionalities can be achieved locally or at architecture level:

•  Local analysis (a) directly map re-factored applications to specific business requirements, by-passing functional architecture. That’s the case when targeted applications can be isolated, e.g. by wrapping legacy code.
• Global analysis (b) consolidate newly supported applications with existing ones within functional architecture, possibly with new functionalities.

Analysis (with regard to presentation, control, persistency, and services) 

It must be noted that the analysis of legacy components, even when carried out at functional architecture level, takes business processes as they are.

Reconstruction

The aim of reconstruction is to set legacy refactoring within the context of enterprise architecture. That should be done from operational and business perspectives:

• As the primary rationale of modernization is to deal with operational problems or bottlenecks, its benefits should be fully capitalized at enterprise level. 
• Re-factored applications usually make room for improvements of users’ experience; that may bring about further changes in organization and business processes.

Reconstruction 

Hence, modernization is not complete until potential benefits of re-factored applications are considered, for business processes as well as for functional architecture.

From Workshops to Workflow

As noted above, modernization can seldom be achieved in a big bang and should be planned as a model based engineering process. Taking a leaf from the MDA book, such a process would be organized across four workshops:

• Technical architecture (deployment models): that’s where legacy components are collected, sorted, and documented. 
• Software architecture (platform specific models): where legacy components are put in local context. 
• Functional architecture (platform independent models): where legacy components are put in shared context. 
• Enterprise architecture (computation independent models): where legacy components are put into organizational context.

Modernization workshops 

Those workshops would be used to manage the outcomes of the modernization workflow:

1. Collect and organize legacy code; translate into source files. 
2. Document legacy components. 
3. Build PSMs according basic architecture functional patterns. 
4. Map to PIMs of system functional architecture. 
5. Consolidate enterprise architecture.

Modernization Workflow

I found this blog post, written by Remy Fannader on LinkedIn. He perfectly captures the essence of why we at Objektum Modernization provide the technology that we do.

Thanks for reading

Derek Russell 
derek@objektum.com
08451999932

The PA's Posts!!!!- My course progress

My PA course

As promised in my last blog, this is the first post about my PA course! I hope you find it interesting!

I am really enjoying my course, I have only been going once a week for the last 6 weeks and I have already learnt so much!

As I have said before I really wanted this job for a variety of reasons one of them was that I was offered the opportunity to further my skills and get a diploma which really was the cherry on top!! After a few weeks adjusting to full-time work and adapting to my role, I went to the centre I would be learning my diploma in, and an even bigger bonus is that the location is fairly local to me with an easy journey! Once I got there I met the lovely trainers and was shown around the centre…. Well I say centre but it is more like a huge room full of computers, none the less I was impressed especially as it is fully equipped with a kitchen where I can help myself to tea and coffee throughout the day, which is perfect for me as I am a huge tea addict!!.


When I was there, I enrolled and was given my first workbook and a demonstration on how the courses work, to explain they are all self-paced. All the lectures are audio based, so you can work at whatever speed suits you!

I have to say I was really impressed with everything and it was a no-brainer when I was given the choice to either start the course there and then or come back next week to start, of course I started then! My first course was all about Word 2010, it consisted of 10 lessons of about 1 hour and half each and during my first session I got stuck in and completed about half of them, I have to say I found them really interesting, I’ve used Word throughout my life and knew a fair amount before I started, so needless to say when I was being taught to scroll down a document and key in words, there was a voice in my head shouting “YOU ALREADY KNOW THIS!!!”, however I stuck with it and as the lessons went on they got more complex and I must admit I learnt a few features I didn’t even know Word 2010 had!

I honestly am enjoying the diploma, at the moment I feel I am flying through as since I started the course and got round to writing this post, I have already passed the first course (Word 2010) with a DISTINCTION!, and done the final test for the second course I studied for which was Word 2010 Expert! Hopefully if I pass this too and I may be referred to as Katie, the Word 2010 Expert!!

After the brain- exhausting exam, I was a good student and went straight onto the my next course which is PowerPoint 2010, I feel pretty confident in this, I am more than capable of creating presentation however I am looking forward to learning the features I have never used before!

I have a long way to go but I really feel I have made a good start and like I said I am enjoying learning the courses. For the last 6 weeks I have also been practicing my touch-typing, and It has really helped, I am typing quicker than before which will help in my job, and once I feel really confident that I can do it without much fault, I will be doing a test in that, so watch this space !!
I will keep you updated with my results and experiences and this time next year, if everything goes to plan I will be a fully qualified Executive PA!!!

Thanks for Reading

Happy December!

Katie