In view of Forms3 not being supported by Oracle in future, it was decided that the Oracle Forms3 Mainframe Systems within the SAPS environment should be converted to IBM's VAG (Visual Age Generator), a 4th generation language. The ISIS system was identified as the pilot project for this conversion. The entire undertaking was to be conducted internally and would not form part of the tender procedure of the other SAPS systems.
From the onset it became apparent that VAG expertise in South Africa was virtually non-existent, sufficing to comment that it still is a rare commodity.
The ISIS Conversion Team under the accomplished leadership of ISIS Project Manager Hannes Rothmann includes four programmers: Stefan van der Merwe, Zane Weber, Susan Kruger and Heidi Jacobs.
These contemporary pioneers were often faced with challenges and difficulties never encountered before. All obstacles regarding the how-to's, when-to's and what-now's had to be tried and tested by themselves, as local support from IBM was still being established. IBM did, however, provide international support when required to do so. The team was fortunate to have a strong ally in the enthusiastic Oracle and CICS technical personnel at Numerus Bureau: Corneel Booysen, Florence Mar'e, Nico Booyse, Trevor Swart and Leon Buitendag, who unrelentingly helped decipher and solve problems never anticipated or experienced before.
On 20 January 2000, the programs in their entirety were successfully generated for the first time.
After the Project Plan had been drafted by Mariana van Riet, the implementation date was determined and everyone involved was fully committed to reach the deadline on time. With total perseverence they slaved and toiled, working nights and weekends to successfully accomplish their goal. Needless to say, their social lives became virtually nonexistent.
The historical date was 10 March 2000. Thanks to the enormous effort by the team as well as everyone involved at Numerus, the implementation was a huge success.
The statistics prove that this was no mean feat. The conversion of ISIS started in April 1999, and the project team spent 8585 hours for the conversion, re-work, preparation for implementation, implementation, problem solving and support. ISIS consists of 267 Oracle Tables, 133 Triggers and 612 Packaged Procedures. The converted system consists of a total of 1490 programs and maps. The VAG code generator produced an estimated 3 792 057 lines of COBOL code.
VAG's first healthy offspring born and bred on the African continent is called ISIS and it is alive and doing extremely well.
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