Healthcare financing company, Discovery Health, is in the process of migrating to version 8 of the Magic rapid application development environment, enabling the company to take full advantage of Magic`s component-based multi-tiered architecture. Magic is distributed in South Africa by JSE-listed EC-Hold company, Exsol.
Discovery Health developed all its primary business systems on version 5 of Magic, after selecting the tool as the optimal development platform for its business requirements almost eight years ago.
"Back in 1992 when Discovery Health (then Momentum Health) was born, we needed a development tool that was fast and easy to maintain, and was easily transportable across various databases and operating platforms," says Discovery Health CIO John Robertson. "Magic 5 conformed to these criteria and served us well through the rapid growth cycles of our business." With the shift towards fully object-oriented (OO) systems in the latter half of the decade, specifically component-based systems that are both easier to manage and deploy across the Web, Discovery Health re-evaluated its development tools and redefined its selection criteria for the next push forward. "Although the basic criteria, speed and maintainability, remained the same, we narrowed our search to tools conforming to the Corba standard," notes Robertson. "Several tools including Java and Magic 8 made the grade and were selected to develop the next phase of business applications for our diverse environment in South Africa and abroad.
"Clearly we made a large investment in Magic tools and expertise from the start, so it was a natural progression to include Magic 8 in our component-based toolset," he adds. "Because Corba is an open standard, however, we are no longer limited to one set of tools, but rather have the freedom to choose between the best of the development environments at our disposal for any given application."
One of the key benefits of adopting a component-based approach to application development and using OO techniques and tools is our improved responsiveness to market changes and fluctuations. "A case in point is our recent launch of a suite of products," Robertson points out. "We were able to implement the required system changes in a very short time and meet all the requirements of the business and our clients."
"Because our applications were component-based, we used the opportunity not only to re-design, but to improve and optimise on our original products," he continues. "This process would have been too expensive and time consuming were it not for the interoperability of our base components and the flexibility of our tools - including Magic 8 - in dynamic business environments."
Robertson says that fundamental to its OO/component-based strategy is Discovery Health`s interactive online service available to members, employers and brokers on the Web. "As a Discovery Health member, DiscoveryLink enables you to interact with our central database to access your records and any information pertaining to your product portfolio from anywhere in the world," he adds. "Much of this interaction, the depth of data analysis and the core functionality of the Discovery Health site would not have been possible without the Web-aware features of our infrastructure."
Because Magic 5 was purely text-based and Magic 8 is a GUI environment, the text screens of the earlier version have to be redesigned in Magic 8. "The project will be complete by March or April next year, with help from contracted Magic expertise from Magic in Israel," adds Robertson. "Because the learning curve to the new version is gradual and the toolset is component-based, the bulk of development and training will happen in Johannesburg."
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