Aranscia
Healthcare technology · Unified Platform Technical Lead
Merging five acquired healthcare products into one Azure SaaS platform under HIPAA, HITECH, HITRUST and SOC 2, incrementally, with legacy and unified running side by side.
BDG Software · Bruce Gilham Jr. · shipping since 1996, incorporated 2000
I migrate the systems nobody can hire for onto a stack you can, one piece at a time.
If you own a Silverlight, LightSwitch, Classic ASP, VB6, FoxPro or Delphi system, the shape of the problem is familiar: unsupported runtime, no one on staff who can read the code, and a req that has been open for months. I read the code and the database, write down what it really does, then move it screen by screen onto C#, .NET and Azure or SQL Server, with old and new running side by side until the new one has proved itself.
35years building systems, full time since 1996
16industries, each with its own data model and integrations
10systems on this site still in production, one since the 1990s
1person on the call — the same one who reads the code and writes the new one
The platforms, and how I have migrated off each
Shipped on every one. Migrated off every one.
Dead · support ended October 2021
Silverlight has no runtime left. The exit is screen by screen, not a rewrite. I have shipped on Silverlight and migrated off it.
Dead · retired with Visual Studio 2015
LightSwitch generated your app. The tooling to regenerate it is gone. I built four production systems on LightSwitch, payroll, used-car wholesale, right-of-way appraisal and a food plant, and I have migrated off it.
Classic ASP still runs. That is the problem. I migrated a music-rights royalty system and a twenty-year Billboard chart archive off Classic ASP, the second one to Blazor on Azure, with the business publishing throughout.
The VB6 runtime survives on Windows. The developers do not. I have shipped WinForms desktop systems for a bond-pricing desk, an industrial fastener-measurement fixture, an investment back office and a food plant, and moved desktop systems to the web.
Orphaned · the developers are retiring
Delphi is alive. Your Delphi 5 codebase is not. I learned Delphi in the 1990s in my father's shop and never stopped.
Dead · support ended January 2015
FoxPro. Yes, still. The data comes out first. I moved a chart-data publisher's FoxPro archive and book-generation tools onto Azure SQL, and kept the FoxPro tools running against the new database until their replacements were ready.
Orphaned · HCL owns it; nobody is hiring for it
Your records are in Notes databases. Getting them out is the job. I spent thirteen years inside one firm's Lotus Notes estate, first building inside it so their investment was not thrown away, then lifting the records into SQL Server when the time came to put a client portal on top.
Also on the list: WCF and WCF RIA Services, WPF, Entity Framework 6, SQL Server 7, Microsoft Access back ends, Silverlight-era Dynamics CRM customisations, and the ArcGIS Silverlight SDK. I read legacy C and C++ when the migration runs into it.
How a migration is run
Read the code and the database
I take the code, the database and whoever is left, and produce a written specification of what the system actually does — usually different from what anyone thinks — and what the migration will take. The specification is signed off before any code is written.
Migrate incrementally, side by side
Old and new run side by side over the same data. Features cross over one at a time, each verified in production before the old path is retired. No big-bang cutover, and a way back at every step.
Hand over on a stack you can hire for
You end on C#, .NET and Azure or SQL Server, with documentation and your own team able to carry it. The goal is that you do not need me afterwards.
Selected migrations and builds
All 24 engagements, searchable by stack →Record Research Inc.
Publishing — chart data · Sole developer and architect
A chart-data archive migrated off SQL Server 7, Classic ASP and Visual FoxPro to Azure SQL and Blazor on App Service, with the FoxPro tools kept running against the new database until replaced.
Mason & Mason / DSM, Inc.
Right-of-way appraisal and eminent domain · Sole developer and architect
Thirteen years as sole developer for a right-of-way appraisal firm: an operating system built inside Lotus Notes, then rebuilt on Silverlight and again on LightSwitch as each was discontinued, ending as Esri-backed cloud sites over SQL Server.
Frasco Inc.
Background screening and investigations · Sole external developer and architect
Self-service ordering for a national background-screening firm, built as ASP.NET Core over an OData layer into the existing Delphi/InterBase back office rather than replacing it.
Coast Asset Management
Fixed-income asset management · Lead developer and rescuer
A fixed-income desk's WinForms and WPF trading tools moved off forty hand-maintained flat files onto Bloomberg BLPAPI, and the 'mouse flicker' fault nobody could solve found inside the vendor's own .NET wrapper.
We Buy Cars / Used Car Club
Used-vehicle wholesale · Sole developer and database rescuer
Broken SQL replication and a leaking data warehouse fixed first, then six years replacing the Access system the floor ran on with a desktop client over a web-service layer.
Who this is for
A CTO, tech lead or IT manager with a system that runs the business and a req nobody is filling. You need the migration done, not a contractor to manage. Very often the migration is the second problem: the first is that nobody knows what the old system does any more. I handle both.
Not for: greenfield apps that any agency could build, staff augmentation by the hour, or anything I would not personally put my name on. Thirty-five years of going in and either building what could not be built or fixing what other people broke is the work I take.
Tell me what it runs on
Say what the system does, what it is written in, and what breaks when it goes down. I will tell you plainly whether I can help, what the approach would be, and roughly what it takes. No sales call, no deck.
Start here