Customer: AGATE Distribution (www.agate.fr)
Paris Nord, France

Created in 1994, AGATE Distribution (AGATE) pioneered information technology adoption and advancement of the public library system in France. Today, AGATE services libraries, library solution providers and documentation centers at more than 400 sites in metropolitan France and throughout the world.

Business Drivers: By the end of 2006, Open Source technology adoption was beginning to grow among AGATE's customer base and many library systems were beginning to require Java technology versions of applications. Although the functionality delivered by AGATE's current solution was sound and already distributed on a range of platforms, the graphical user interface (GUI) version of AGATE's application was only available on Windows and this deployment technology was not viewed as modern by AGATE's customers and prospects as a native Java implementation.

These factors inspired AGATE to seek an alternative distribution model for its solution which would enable the company to retain a competitive advantage in the market, gain greater flexibility to address change over time and better support its customer base going forward.

Solution: After considering several alternatives, AGATE decided to migrate its core application environment to isCOBOL Application Platform Suite (isCOBOL APS).

isCOBOL APS provided a pure Java deployment solution with full JEE integration, so AGATE could continue making enhancements to a single code base, while distributing its software with a user-friendly GUI environment on a variety of platforms. During the transition, isCOBOL APS proved to be highly compatible with AGATE's existing ACUCOBOL-GT based code, so no change to existing business logic was required in this move. Today, isCOBOL APS provides AGATE the best of both worlds. They have retained the core business logic that differentiates their product in the market and successfully distribute a native Java solution on Windows, Linux, Unix and even in a Rich Internet Architecture (RIA) environment, in particular over the Web.

Partner: Due to their high quality of service and proven expertise, Veryant France SARL was selected by AGATE to assist with the move to isCOBOL APS and to provide ongoing operational support. Veryant France SARL consulted on the architecture of the solution during various phases of the project and provided training in areas new to the AGATE team such as X-Windows, Java, XML and Ajax implementation.