Cloud computing

3 Buzz-words that every CIO hears but 1 they should listen to.

Webgui — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 16:47:34 GMT

Anyone that’s managing an enterprise IT with aging or outdated client/server systems is starting to feel the heat. Soon, their systems and applications will be obsolete and unsupported. At the same time, the industry as whole is seeking the fastest gateway to the latest .NET, HTML5 and mobile deployments including SaaS models. Right about now, there will be a knock on your door with team members offering their advice as to what you should do to ‘keep up’ with the latest trends and supported architectures. Here are 3 of the buzz-words they will have probably used, and what they actually mean.

Rewrite: Whilst the end result will be a bespoke and modern application, it’s lengthy, costly and risky path using one of the new unproven web frameworks

Technical migration: Sounds great, sure, but where are those automatic tools that will take your legacy client / server apps to the latest and greatest?

Apps Virtualization: Available but expensive. If you have no more than a few dozen users, the economics might not leave you out of pocket. And, if you are OK with using VPN and maintaining outdated, sometimes unsupported code, this might be your solution.

But the express route from c/s to a rich web app is this:
Transposition: A solution that literally transposes your code (moves it from one environment to another) to run as the latest .NET (C#, or VB.NET) in the form of desktop, web, cloud or mobile .NET / HTML or HTML5, at web economics (a few cents per user). This solution allows you to rewrite selected code using your legacy as a starting point so you can reuse valuable business logic. It enables you to achieve your goals at a fraction of the cost of both rewriting and application virtualization.

Gizmox’s Instant CloudMove will also enable you to improve your legacy code (whether it’s 'spaghetti', outdated functionality, antique-looking UIs, or the need for new layers or to make it object oriented) and is the shortest time to market by far.

Managers take note. Transpositioning is the way forward.

Nominate Visual WebGui now for your chance to win a Free ProStudio License

Webgui — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 08:25:36 GMT

DevProConnections and WindowsITPro are now accepting nominations for the 2011 Community Choice Awards. These awards allow you to nominate developer products and services for special recognition.

We’d like you to consider nominating Visual WebGui and as a thank you, will be giving away a few licenses. All you have to is click the links below and in the “Add-In” category on the DevProConnections survey (category # 1) and “Best Cloud Computing Product or Service” category on the WindowsITPro survey (category #5) please select “Gizmox Visual WebGui”.

To receive a license simply let us know you nominated by Tweeting “I just nominated @VisualWebGui for the [Insert as appropriate: WindowsITPro / DevProConnections] 2011 Community Choice Awards for a chance to win a license" – OR – writing on our Facebook wall/LinkedIn group “I just nominated Gizmox for the [Insert as appropriate: WindowsITPro / DevProConnections] 2011 Community Choice Awards”.

We’ll be selecting a few ‘nominators’ who will be announced as winners on those social media channels and giving them a license.

But wait – there’s more! If you get 10 more people to nominate us, you will definitely receive a license. To let us know they came from you, they need to write YOUR name when they tweet or post on our walls. ("I just nominated @VisualWebGui for the [Insert as appropriate: WindowsITPro / DevProConnections] 2011 Community Choice Awards @YOUR name")

Why should you nominate VWG?
Visual WebGui is a revolutionary tools that enables desktop applications to be migrated to the cloud/web mobile instantly. VWG also enables you to write new code in .NET and create HTML5 rich internet applications.

We invite you to pass these link on to improve your chance of winning a license
• DevProConnections: http://bit.ly/phWNzv
• WindowsITPro : http://svy.mk/n0cpVE

Presenting our unique migration solution at WPC11

Webgui — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 20:59:58 GMT

I would like to invite you to visit us at WPC LA 2011 and learn how to move your mission-critical/Enterprise apps to the Win Azure Cloud.

We will present our innovative migration solution Instant CloudMove at Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC)tomorrow (July 13). Find us at the Windows Azure Building Blocks demo station where we’ll be showcasing the unique tools for moving business client/server applications such as é.VISOR by Limón GmbH to Azure Cloud. The original application is a data-centric energy monitoring system developed as Client/Server Windows Forms with Access DB. We’ll explain how we moved the desktop application to Win Azure with Visual WebGui Instant CloudMove technology within 1 month whilst maintaining all exiting functionalities and user experience.

This will take place at 1:15-3:30 PM PDT at the Windows Azure Building Blocks demo station, located in the front of the Windows Azure booth. We’ll have our own station which will be located under the monitors which display “Building Blocks in the Public Cloud”

We are also going to present a quick session “Cloudify your Client / Server app with Visual WebGui CloudMove “ at the Windows Azure Theater this afternoon (July 12) @ 2:45 PDT.

We look forward to welcoming you there and taking any questions.

You can also follow us on Twitter @VisualWebGui and if you are not attending WPC you are welcome to chec out the updates information on our website:
http://www.visualwebgui.com/cloudmove.aspx

Visual .NET Development Power finally meets Web 2.0

Webgui — Sun, 27 Mar 2011 19:28:20 GMT

I’d like to invite you to a set of 2 webinars targeted for Visual WebGui newbies and beginners as part of the new completely free evaluation program for the Visual WebGui Experience.

Visual WebGui (VWG) has gained its fame for its simplicity that lets core Microsoft developers, develop rich ASP.NET Ajax based Web, Cloud or Mobile applications just the way they are used to developing desktop .NET apps. With over 200,000 .NET developers that have adopted Visual WebGui to write over 35,000 VWG applications you can be sure that VWG opens the new cross-browsers HTML5 horizons for developers.

The first session "Develop data-centric Ajax-enhanced, secured-by-design application with 50 screens in 30 days" is available at your choice of the following: March 29, March 31 and April 5.

The second sessions is also available at 3 different occasions at your convenient (April 7, 12 and 14) and it will focus on the graphic design aspect when creating a Web 2.0 UIs with VWG.

In addition to the webinars the program also includes the 30 day free trial downloads and prioritized support @ Gizmox’s evaluation forums for 30 days.

I am looking forward to your participation – please register by clicking here:
http://www.visualwebgui.com/Gizmox/Landing/tabid/674/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/911/Free-Fully-Supported-Evaluation.aspx

New partnership allows auto-transposition of client/server application to Windows Azure

Webgui — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 22:44:30 GMT

The economics of IT is changing rapidly, and organizations are searching to widen and secure availability of their systems and at the same time lower costs which is exactly what the cloud meant to do. Running your systems on Microsoft’s Windows Azure cloud for example would improve and secure the availability, accessibility and scalability (both up and down) of your systems and support the new IT economics.

However, in order to take advantage of the cloud's promise of lower cost of ownership, the applications must be built or adjusted to work on that platform and in most cases this is not a simple task. Even existing web applications cannot always be transferred to Azure without some changes, and for client/server applications, the task is way more challenging even to the point where it seems impossible. The reason is the gaps between the client/server desktop technology and the cloud's. For that reason, most of the known methodologies to migrate existing client/server applications actually involve rewrite of the desktop systems for the cloud.

A unique approach is introduced by Visual WebGui which creates a virtualization layer atop ASP.Net web server, it moves the transformed or generated .Net code to that layer, and then using a patent pending protocol it renders a user interface within a plain browser. The end result is pure .NET code that is a base code for a pure rich web application and now due to a collaboration with Microsoft Windows Azure Visual WebGui provides the shortest path from client/server to the Azure cloud by being able to handle close to 95% of the transformation to the cloud platform in an automatic way.

Application Migration to Azure without migraines

More information about the Instant CloudMove Azure solution here.

Webcast: Moving Client/Server and .NET Applications to Windows Azure Cloud

Webgui — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 21:56:30 GMT

The Cloud and SaaS models are changing the face of enterprise IT in terms of economics, scalability and accessibility . Visual WebGui Instant CloudMove transforms your Client / Server application code to run natively as .NET on Windows Azure and enables your Azure Client / Server application to have a secured-by-design plain Web or Mobile browser based accessibility.

Itzik Spitzen VP of R&D, Gizmox will present a webcast on Microsoft Academy on Tuesday 8 March at 8am (USA Pacific Time) explaining how VWG bridges the gap between Client/Server applications’ richness, performance, security and ease of development and the Cloud’s economics & scalability. He will then introduce the unique migration and modernization tools which empower customers like Advanced Telemetry, Communitech, and others, to transform their existing Client/Server business application to a native Web Applications (Rich ASP.NET) and then deploy it on Windows Azure which allows accessibility from any browser (or mobile if desired by the customer).

Registration page on Microsoft Academy:
https://www.eventbuilder.com/microsoft/event_desc.asp?p_event=1u19p08y

Project Showcase: SaaS Web Apps Hits a Home Run with New SCMS Database

Webgui — Thu, 27 Jan 2011 10:38:25 GMT

We love seeing projects from start to finish, and we’re happy to share the latest example with you.

Who: SaaS Web Apps – they use Software as a Service to create web applications that look and feel like desktop applications.

What: SaaS Web Apps needed to build a Sports Contract Management System (SCMS) for one of its customers, Premier Stinson Sports.

Why: The SCMS database is used for collecting, analyzing and recording college coach and athletic directors’ employment and contract data.

The Challenge: Premier Stinson Sports works with a number of partners, each with its own needs and unique requirements. For example, USA Today uses the system to provide cutting edge news analysis while The National Sports Law Institute of Marquette University Law School uses it to for the latest sports contract data and student analysis. In addition, the system needed to be secure due to the sensitivity of the data; it was essential that the user security and permissions be easily configurable.

As always, performance was a key factor, especially with the intense reporting and analytical capabilities for this project. Because of this, most of the processing had to be done on a dedicated server but the project called for the richness and responsiveness of a desktop application.

The Solution: To execute the project, SaaS Web Apps used APS.Net-based Visual WebGui from Gizmox, combined with SQL Server 2008 and SQL Reporting Services. This combination resulted in a quick deployment for SaaS Web Apps’ customers.

The Result: The completed project gave each partner the scalability and availability of a web application with the performance and security of a desktop application. As an example, USA Today pulls data from this database to give readers the latest sports stats – Salary analysis of 2010 Football Bowl Subdivision Coaches.

And here’s a screenshot of the database itself. Great work, SaaS Web Apps!

How We’re Staying Ahead of the Cloud Curve

Webgui — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 08:38:51 GMT

You don’t need us to tell you that cloud computing is a hot market. According to Distinguished Analyst John Bittman and a recent Search CIO article, Private cloud computing is more than a virtualized environment, sixty-six of attendees at a Gartner Data Center Conference plan to pursue the private cloud by 2014.

And while everyone is talking about moving to the cloud (public or private), very few are actually doing so. Here’s why: The process of migrating resources to the cloud is a lot more complicated than you may think. This is where we come in.

Recognizing this gap, we created a tool-based solution that gives application developers and enterprises a simpler way to migrate to the cloud. We’re proud to present Instant CloudMove, the only platform that transforms desktop apps’ code to the cloud, in addition to web and mobile deployments.

To learn more, you can check out our press release and watch the video below. And if you have any feedback, we’d love to hear about it.

A new tool shows how close an app can be to Web and Cloud

Webgui — Sun, 07 Nov 2010 12:33:59 GMT

I want to introduce a new tool that can bring a huge change to your life by upgrading your Client/Server applications to a Web or Cloud based environment. Most of us are intimidated even by the thought of migrating a large, mission critical application to any technology. If it ain't broken why fix it, right?!

However, Visual WebGui is a unique platform that its architecture allows to convert .NET applications to ASP.NET VWG based Web and Cloud (SaaS) in a simple path and practically no risks since no rewrite or reengineering is required. Now, in order to support those declerations Visual WebGui released a tool that can analyze .NET Windows Forms applications in a matter of minutes and provide a quick assessment report about your Client/Server (.NET Windows Forms at the moment and soon VB6 and other Client/Server technologies) application readiness to be moved to Web and Cloud using the Visual WebGui CloudMove solution.

The AssessmentTool is a simple, downloadable standalone EXE application that can be executed on the runtime assemblies of a WinForms application, from which it extracts detailed information regarding your project (technology statistics and usages). This information is by no mean a risk to your intellectual property as it collects technological information and statistics and not business logic analysis or algorithms capturing.

This tool is based on a wide database which is created progressively during the assessment process. After creating this database we run some queries on it, searching for patterns and usages that are risky or requiring manual adjustments when running as VWG Web or Cloud. The results are aggregated as a readable report which indicates the relative portion of the application that can be reused automatically (as-is). In addition it provides more specific information on the parts that will require adjustments and manual intervention.

This report assists you further to decide and assess the efforts require to upgrade the application to the Web, based on the level of the automatic transposition vs. the manual intervention required. We expect that the majority of Window Form applications will show 80% - 90% portion readiness for transposition and will not require manual adjustment.

More info and the free download is available here.

Two giants are fighting and the third might win, Visual WebGui might be one of the winners of the RIA wars

Webgui — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 08:25:25 GMT

Latest announcements by Microsoft executives leave no doubt. Microsoft is shifting its support to HTML 5 and by doing so gives up on its RIA platform Silverlight which it repurposes for mobile. Adobe releases a Beta of a new HTML5 supporting tool kit, and by doing so also embraces the HTML5 option. It does look as if both give in to the market preferences for standard, no-plug-in and non-propriety option of HTML5 (see "Microsoft favoring HTML5 over Silverlight: reports" ).

If we follow Microsoft's early announcements when launching Silverlight, Microsoft pointed out the value of Silverlight in two aspects: The first was the graphics and media richness it enables while the second was the .Net developer's quest for a simpler, .Net based RIA development.

In a new world where HTML 5 replaces Silverlight and Flash in providing a solution for the quest for standard rich internet, the second quest for simple .Net based development of rich Internet application is left unattended (now that Silverlight is off the shelf and no longer serves as RIA, developed the .NET way). Reading developers' reaction following Microsoft PDC in October 2010 is probably the best way to learn about the impact of this announcement:

"Silverlight is dead, quite a surprise they have for us in PDC this year. I think most devs arround the world were expecting just the opposite, the Silverlight 5 announce. I think Microsoft should had been more honest and recognize the big mistake they made, wasting so much time and resources in a technology that is never going to be used massively. I assume my mistake as a developer for the resources I invested in Silverlight. The most sad thing is there aren’t any tools for HTML 5 in .NET, those four years of Silverlight left us with the hands empty. I think is time to move to GTW, every evidence is screaming that Google is the future." (Quoted from this blog)

I must express my humble opinion here and say that there might be more to the Silverlight twist (and Flash) than meets the eye. It might also be a result of slow adoption rate in the business sector that pays for its applications (vs. the consumer that does not). Being in the business RIA market for some odd years, I have been hearing quite too often enterprise CIOs saying that they will not allow plug-in RIA solution for security reasons, no matter if it is Microsoft's or Adobe's. I have been also hearing enterprise CIOs complaining about the stiff learning curve and lack of productivity that the new RIA solutions impose. I have been hearing them complaining about the hardship of data binding and I have been hearing them complaining about slow response time of applications written with the new Ajax based RIA solution.

Visual WebGui does support HTML development the .NET way, and naturally supports HTML5

We have been there for the last 3 years, betting on HTML by boosting ASP.NET Ajax development and runtime and indeed, being highly rewarded by market opinion leaders, adoption and traction. We have been enabling the classic VB6-like desktop development paradigms for HTML based front-ends. And now more than ever it seems like we are here to collect the big prize. Visual WebGui enables the best of .NET simple and structured development paradigms for HTML5. Exactly where Microsoft has been aiming with Silverlight, but we target open standards non-propriety platform. And that is a big difference.

So dear developer, Silverlight might be dying but it is not necessarily Google GWT that you must migrate to. If you are a .NET developer, I do believe that it is Visual WebGui you are looking for. You will have the best, well entrenched .Net development practices only this time targeting the RIA winner HTML5 and JavaScript.