Smart Developer | Oracle Forms Migration Tool (BAZ)

Oracle Forms to Oracle ADF Migration Tool ( Baz )

Why Convert?
Our Solution
What is Baz?
Baz Unique Features
Oracle Forms Versions Supported By Baz
What Exactly Can Baz Do?
Can Baz Convert PL/SQL?

Why Baz Does Not Completely Convert PL/SQL?
What Are the Requirements for Baz?
What Is the Output of Baz?
What Is Not Converted?
How to Complete the Conversion after Baz?
How to Work with Baz?
Requesting Baz Demo

Why Convert?
There are a lot of problems in running Oracle Forms, and other legacy systems, on the latest versions of Windows OS, and there are lots of differences between the results in different Windows operating systems. Not to mention the growing needs of web-based environments for public and private sectors, and General trend of Oracle to convert to ADF and what follows of technical support and so forth.

Our Solution
Smart Developer has developed a tool (Baz) that converts legacy applications from any database to ADF in a very high speed and punctuality. Our tool converts Oracle Forms to ADF which saves the conversion effort by more than 80% from the total project duration. Smart Developer offers data migration and cleansing from any database or environment (including Main Frame) to the target database.

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What is Baz?
Baz is a tool for converting legacy systems built using Oracle Forms to Oracle ADF making the applications web based with a better performance.

Benefits of Baz

Minimizes the efforts of Conversion.
Minimizes the time taken for Conversion.
Reduces the resources needed for Conversion.
Reduces the cost of system conversion.
Improves the system performance on the web.

The following are some of the main features of the Baz tool.

Ability to convert directly from Oracle Forms 6 or 6i to ADF without converting to Oracle Forms 10G.
Ability to customize the tool according to the Customer requirements.
Support for all languages including Right-to-Left direction languages like Arabic.
Possibility to build tailored conversion that suits each customer special needs.

Oracle Forms Versions Supported By Baz
Baz can theoretically convert from any Oracle Forms version but it has been tested and certified on Oracle Forms 6, 6i and 10g and Smart Developer is working on testing Baz on older versions.

What Exactly Can Baz Do?
Since Oracle Forms is only a WEB enabled product not WEB based, Oracle itself introduced new WEB based product i.e. Oracle ADF. Most of the Legacy systems designed using Oracle Forms need to be converted to Oracle ADF. Currently, this conversion requires rebuilding the application from scratch. This will take a lot of time, efforts, and resources and will cost a lot.

Smart Developer has created a tool "Baz" which converts Oracle Forms to ADF, in which it converts all the forms screens (FMB) to JSP pages using ADF technology under the development tool "JDeveloper". Baz creates JSPs, managed beans for each JSP, all of the configuration files used for application and does the internationalization.
Can you imagine the amount of time, effort and resources needed for the Conversion?

Can Baz Convert PL/SQL?
Currently Baz is partially converting PL/SQL written in your applications either in Triggers or in Procedures. Smart Developer has also done a mapping between Forms triggers and ADF actions which will help in the conversion. Smart Developer is working on improving the amount of PL/SQL code that can be directly converted from the tool.

Why Baz Does Not Completely Convert PL/SQL?
Smart Developer believes that this should not be done by just changing the syntax from PL/SQL to Java for the following reasons:

The main reason is the difference between the languages used in Oracle ADF (i.e. Java) and PL/SQL.
To take benefits of ADF features those were not available in Forms.
Java is object-oriented and contains a lot of classes that are much powerful than Oracle PL/SQL.
Forms and ADF experts must evaluate the old PL/SQL code and determine the best strategy to convert this code to Java.

For all these reasons, there is a partial manual conversion for the PL/SQL code that is done by our Forms and ADF experts.

What Are the Requirements for Baz?
Smart Developer needs the following:

1. FMB files (required).

2. Database SQL Script (required).

3. Sample Data (optional).

Note that options 2 and 3 can be replaced by the DMP file.

What Is the Output of Baz?
You will get the following output directly from the tool:

Oracle ADF project on JDeveloper latest release.
A managed bean for each form.
A default template with a nice skinning.
A JSP page built with ADF components for each form.
All needed entity objects; view objects and read only objects.
All of the configuration files like faces-config and XML files required by ADF.
An Excel sheet containing all triggers and procedures used by the forms.
Internationalized text for all the application.
A log of file of all the remaining tasks.

What Is Not Converted?
Only some of the PL/SQL code.

How to Complete the Conversion after Baz?
Smart Developer is going to analyze the triggers and our expert team will convert them completely and will provide the source code of the output project to the customer. Also our Web Design experts will modify the layouts of the screens and make appropriate changes as per customer requirements.

How to Work with Baz?
Currently Smart Developer does not sell the tool itself; Smart Developer does sell its output. The customer must provide us the FMB files, Database SQL Script and optional sample data. Smart Developer is going to convert the FMB files from the tool and let our team complete the actions to complete the project 100%.

Requesting Baz Demo
You can send us a test FMB with the Database SQL Script, Smart Developer is going to convert it and send you back the ADF project that directly came from the tool so you can evaluate and feel the power of Baz. This test is done free of charge!