How to convince client to migrate from ASP to ASP.NET

[Saurabh Lakhia]

My client have an application completly written in ASP and
SQL Server. It's very big web application(Approx 250 ASP
pages), It has all Validation rules, Business Rules and
Data Access Rules embaded in ASP, even no stored
procedures all database call with hard coded SQL.

Is this possible that above web application can handle
more than 5000 users? they are expecting to handle 1
million user?

I know that above design is not good, Now How do convince
my client to migrate from ASP to ASP.NET? I am new
to .NET, Could you please tell me or send me link to
an .NET based Architecture or really good advantages
of .NET from business point of view. So client can think
of scrap ASP application over new developement.

 

[Edwin Kusters]

I have no straight anwer for you but here are my thoughts.

First of all the amount of users does not really say much. It could easily
handle 1M users if those users only hit one page a year and those hits would
be nicely spread over the year. You should look at the amount of (page)hits
you expect and then focus on peaks. Most websites do not have an even
distribution in the amount of hits they get. Depending on the nature you can
expect peaks during workhours, evening hours, weekends, monday mornings,
first week of the month etc etc.

From a business perspective there is no need whatsoever to go for an
(expensive!) redesign/recode as long as
- The app performs as expected
- The app is as robust and reliable as was asked for
- The app's maitenance cost are as expected
- Will the app scale up/out to meet future demands
- (couple more like this)

Due to it's current design it's not unlikely several (if not most) of these
criteria won't be met. My approach would be to demonstrate to the client
that the current application will not meet the demands. If it doesn't it's
also not very likely that it can be resolved within the current design which
in it's turn leaves redesign/recode as the only real option. This is the
point where a choice has to be made about the platform to recode it in and
the asp vs asp.net discussion comes in. At that point there are numerous
reasons to go for the asp.net version over the asp version.

Browse around http://www.microsoft.com/net/business/ for some ideas. But
there are plenty of other places to look as well.

This is not an easy situation. Nobody likes to be told that all the money
they spent was spent wrongly. If you can't make a very very compelling case
that it was I think I would not even attempt it. Remember that there are
always people responsible for the current situation. You walking in and
saying it should be totally redone is not going to get you much support from
them. The mere fact there is better, faster and newer technology available
to do something is _not_ a good argument to ditch something else that does
the job it's asked to do.

Hope this helps and good luck,
Edwin Kusters
Hot ITem Informatica

 

[Admiral Bob]

Tough corner for a consultant. But if you are being brought in to fix a
current situation you have a bit more wiggle room over the folks who painted
them into the corner to begin with...I would add to the above suggestion
(Edwin's) that if you focus on the costs to maintain the current system vs.
updating to .net. Mentioning what neds to be done to make the current app
more scalable under ASP, such as moving the SQL stuff to stored proceedures
etc.... Put everything in terms of what it will cost to implement the
changes...compare those costs to the costs involved in migrating to .net
Also cover and compare the cost of long term maintance of each platform...
My best results have been obtained when remembering these are business folks
and reminding them that sometimes it is better to bite the bullet NOW and
spend more than to wait a year for everything to fail and end up spending
far more to keep things running with "bubblegum and bailing wire". But other
times what is working is really just fine...

"Painted them into the corner" may not be the appropriate way to
characterize asp pages. After all, that is what Microsoft wanted us
using only three years ago, and ever since Denali came to us.

Much of the problem is that Microsoft has not provided a migration
path forward from ASP pages. While providing the quite sophisticated
JLCA to Java users (who are not paying customers) and not even
throwing a bone to ASP developers, Microsoft made a clear statement
about whose business it values.

You can't fault anyone for having used ASP. Until recently, we were
all supposed to.

As for my ASP applications? I've left them in place - even in large
volume situations. I just can't afford to redevelop it all if it
works. I developed a converter for some specific situations I have,
but otherwise, it is new applications I do in .NET, and I won't redo
the .asp ones until Microsoft makes it a little easier to do.