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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 October 2009
SYNOPSIS
This project describes the migration and testing of a large-scale complex business-critical financial software system from MS VB6 to VB.NET.
Since the project involved the direct conversion of the existing functionality of the system into VB.NET with no other enhancements planned, all the cost and effort involved were seen as overhead by the users.
Because of the need to reduce cost and timescales, an agile approach was selected for the project.
Introduction
My name is Howard Knowles and I am the MD of IT consultancy Improvix Ltd. With thirty-one years' experience in the IT arena covering the full software development life cycle, I have been involved in process adoption and improvement for the past fifteen years.
This case study describes a project in which I was engaged as the test manager by a leading international financial company to migrate their business-critical system from Microsoft VB6 to VB.NET. The project arose due to Microsoft's ending of support for VB6 and the difficulty in hiring (and keeping) VB6 developers to continue maintenance and enhancement of the system.
Overview of the Testing Challenge
Two factors defined the testing challenge facing the conversion project:
A regression test suite did not exist for the system to verify the migrated software. As part of gaining user buy-in to the conversion project, development of an automated regression test suite had been promised as a deliverable.
Development of the software would continue during the conversion because a change freeze was unacceptable to the users.
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