QSL completes DESY migration

5 December 2005, Oxford, UK.

Quintessence Systems Limited has completed its migration of a mission critical Forms application at the German Electron Synchrotron, DESY into the Java™ language. The system is responsible for controlling helium flow in DESY's synchrotron, and comprises 6 forms totalling 9.5MB. A second system migrated using in2j manages aspects of DESY's stock control and comprises 2 forms totalling 6 MB. DESY, based in Hamburg and Zeuthen (Brandenburg), is Germany's main national research laboratory in particle physics and one of the world's leading accelerator centres.

The migration was carried out at DESY's Hamburg laboratories by QSL using its in2j Forms software, now in 'beta' version. Technical sign-off was received on 3 December. DESY indicated that the main reason for the migration was a deficit of IT personnel with a sufficient understanding of the system to be able to undertake further development.

QSL Technical Director Don Smith said: "I always knew this would be a difficult job owing to the highly abstract and complex nature of the original software. But in the event it proved even more difficult than anticipated thanks to the unorthodox programming style employed in its development over a period of many years and the widespread use of undocumented or inadequately documented Forms features."

"But now the job is complete that is all to our advantage as we are all the better equipped to take on other technically challenging migrations."