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Tuesday, May 28, 2013

Cygnet Infotech becomes a Borland Partner

Cygnet Infotech became Borland Partner on 22nd May, 2013. 

Borland is a Microfocus company that delivers Application Lifecycle Management tools to help people improve their requirements management, change and configuration management, test management and software quality.

Partnership with Borland will help us provide testing services centered around Borland's Silk Test Suite, accelerate product development and optimize resources used in test lifecycle. Besides, this partnership enables us to provide skilled test resources to clients to help them in their applications testing process and offer better quality applications overcoming the challenge faced in application testing environment.

To learn more about Application Testing Services delivered using Borland tools by Cygnet Infotech and to get free evaluation on Silk Test, Silk Mobile and Silk Performer contact info@cygnet-infotech.com.

Friday, May 24, 2013

Basics of Security Testing

When applications are exposed on the internet, it invites the risks such as unauthorized access, tampering with the application and hacking which reduces its quality and performance. This certainly calls the need to implement tight security into the applications before making them available on the web to keep its functionality and load performance intact.


Security Testing is all about protecting and maintaining the functionality of the applications by encoding security codes into it. The primary job of Security Testing is to find loopholes and vulnerabilities from the system and improve its performance so that the system can work for longer time. Companies usually to avoid delays in the release of a software system, prefer to start Security Testing of the web applications from the very early stage of the SDLC. 

Companies generally perform different types of Security Testings of applications in different stages of the software development lifecycle which helps in conforming following aspects in the application:
  • Authentication: This ensures whether the digital identity of the user is validated or verified
  • Authorization: It helps confirm the rights to access the system or application and make changes in it.
  • Availability: Availability is about reducing the errors in the application to make it available as and when required
  • Confidentiality: It deals with making information and services available only to the authorized users of the application to maintain its  confidentiality.
  • Integrity: This makes sure that the information provided to the user is correct and that it is not outdated or irrelevant
  • Non- Repudiation: This checks whether the sender and receiver of the message is genuine
In Security Testing, it is quite necessary to segregate roles and understand the negative impacts of the risk-prone applications before taking up the security testing task. This will help in resolving bugs quite early and delivering better applications.

For Application Security Testing and Security Consulting Services, contact info@cygnet-infotech.com or visit www.cygnet-infotech.com.

Friday, May 17, 2013

How to Effectively Manage a SharePoint Migration without Disrupting Your Business

Let’s face it, migrating to a different version of anything we have can be challenging. Upgrading your email system from Windows XP to Windows 8, or in our case from an older SharePoint version to SharePoint 2013, requires a careful transition process that maintains the integrity of the content we are bringing over and ensures business continuity. So how do you manage a SharePoint migration without disrupting your business?

Start with an inventory


The first step to successful migration is documenting everything you have in your environment. A key factor in a successful and cost effective migration is to have an accurate count of what you already have. There are different ways to make an inventory.
  • Manually: Of course this is pretty straightforward; open your browser and start navigating through all your Site Collections in all Web Applications and start taking notes. In some cases, this could very well be the fastest method to take the inventory.
  • PowerShell: This is probably the one I have the most experience with. Using some built-in commands you can have it export into a CSV all the information that you need. The beauty of the CSV file, is that Visio supports building a diagram from a CSV file. In short, you can export all the information you need and have Visio draw out your inventory.
  • Third Party: As for everything in SharePoint, there is probably someone who already built it somewhere.
Ok, I got my inventory, now what?
You chose one of the 3 methods mentioned above and built a complete inventory. But how can we use this information to run an effective migration? Throughout my experience with customers and SharePoint migrations, I have come to create my own little method. I call it the RMR Strategy, and no don’t try to Google it, you won’t find a thing. The RMR Strategy can be broken down as follows:
  • Remove certain sites, basically meaning we will not migrate the sites marked for removal.
  • Migrate sites that will not cause too many issues with the upgrade. Usually sites that used out of the box functionalities of SharePoint.
  • Rebuild sites that need to be migrated but contain too many exceptions. Typical examples are sites with custom code and solutions that simply no longer work on the next version. But it could also be for sites whose architecture needs to be reviewed.
Now that we have an inventory of our environment and a basic understanding of the RMR Strategy, we can complete our migration.

Depending on how you chose to take your inventory, either add a column or color code your diagram to identify sites with “Remove, Migrate or Rebuild”.

How do we start the migration properly?
First you will have to identify the different supported scenarios for your migration. For example, to migrate to SharePoint 2013, Microsoft only supports a Database-Attach upgrade from SharePoint 2010. If you are running 2007, you’ll have to first upgrade to 2010, then 2013. There are always migration tools that can do the job of course, but it’s important to understand the supported scenarios first.

SharePoint 2013 also installs certain binary files of SharePoint 2010, which allows for a new feature “Deferred Site Collection Upgrade” within 2013. In short, after you attach the 2010 content databases to 2013, they will still run in “2010 mode” running on the 2010 binary files. For your users, they will see 0 difference. For them, it’s business as usual as everything looks and acts like SharePoint 2010.

By doing a database attach migration; you get to test as well if the migration process will run without too many bugs. This is crucial for the overall user experience during this transition.

Transitioning over
After all the health checks and the simulations, will come the time to run an actual migration. Because the only supported scenario in our case is a database-attach update, it will be very difficult to keep the same URLs.

A typical practice is to put the old SharePoint in Read-Only mode so the users still get somewhere by typing the old url but cannot edit. Over time, they start using the new URL and stop using the old SharePoint.

However, ideally you would want to keep the same URL. Though difficult to manage, it can be done and should be done. Users have already set up many hyperlinks to their SharePoint and it is important to them. To do this, you will need someone with DNS expertise to make the transition as smooth as possible.

Not disrupting the business does not mean don’t communicate
By now you should have a good idea on how to run a migration with as little disruption to your business as possible. There is still one important factor that will accelerate the change management process: communication. Send notices, emails with dates and milestones coming up with the SharePoint migration.

Users should never arrive at the office one day to find a new version of SharePoint without any prior notice. In fact, I recently wrote a presentation on slideshare about the 10 mistakes we make during a SharePoint migration, which should provide you with some tips around the overall experience.

To sum up, here are best practices to follow for a smooth Sharepoint migration:

  • Remember to take an inventory and define what will be Removed, Migrated or Rebuilt.
  • Test your migration process and apply it after fixing the errors you encountered during your tests.
  • Transition the users over to the new environment, either by putting the old in Read-Only and providing a new URL or by transitioning over with the same url. 
  • Always remember to communicate the changes and what’s coming next.

Biography – Benjamin Niaulin
Benjamin Niaulin works as a SharePoint Geek at Sharegate, a Montreal-based software development firm specialized in Sharepoint migration.

Passionate about SharePoint, Benjamin has been helping people around the globe reach their goals by simplifying SharePoint solutions. With his Microsoft Certified Trainer certification and over 5 years of Training and Speaking experience, he has acquired the skills needed to help everyone understand and use SharePoint.​ 

Tuesday, May 7, 2013

Cygnet Infotech Enters into Partnership with Neotys

Cygnet Infotech enters into Partnership with Neotys as a Service Partner on 25th April, 2013. Neotys has been helping companies to enhance the reliability, performance and quality of their web and mobile applications with its best-in-class load testing tool called Neoload. 

Neoload is a flexible and easy to use software testing tool to measure performance and robustness of applications. Neoload unlike other web testing tool require no scripting and is user-friendly thanks to its intuitive GUI. It supports all Web 2.0 technologies including J2EE, .NET, PHP, AJAX, SOAP, FLASH, FLEX, GWT and Oracle Forms with unlimited scalability from the cloud.

Partnership with Neotys will allow us to use the capabilities of Neoload Testing Tool for meeting client requirements with top quality services  such as designing load testing requirements, developing load testing plans, implementing load testing on Neoload and optimizing performance on load testing results, while ensuring optimized testing costs.

With Neotys partnership, we aim to enhance the performance of the applications by pre-assessing their scalability before production and deployment which will render considerable cost advantage.


Cygnet Infotech is Now Sitecore Solutions Partner

Cygnet Infotech is please to announce its acceptance into Sitecore’s Partner Program as a Solutions Partner

Sitecore is web content management system built on .Net that provides website, portals and intranet management and automation solutions.


Being a Sitecore partner, we are now authorized to provide customers with a solution for migrating their business to Cloud by exploiting complete Sitecore capabilities such as active lead generation, robust content editing, engagement automation and analytics, multi-lingual support along with external tools and databases. Besides, partnership with Sitecore enables us to enhance the following Sitecore services
  • Sitecore Implementation
  • Sitecore CMS Integration
  • Sitecore CMS Support & Maintenance
  • Sitecore Migrations
  • Sitecore Custom Application Development
  • Sitecore Modules Development
  • Sitecore Mobile Development
  • Sitecore User Interface & Design Development

With this partnership, we look forward to assist our clients in designing and developing their business presence and expand our web capabilities over time.

To know more about Cygnet's capabilities on Sitecore, visit: http://www.cygnet-infotech.com/microsoft/sitecore-cms-solutions

Wednesday, May 1, 2013

Smartphones Have Overtaken Feature Phones


According to an IDC press release, in Q1 of 2013, more smartphones were shipped than feature phones for the first time in history. To be precise, 216.2 million smartphones (51.6% of the total mobile phones shipped).
The trend is aptly summed up by IDC’s senior research analyst Kevin Restivo - Phone users want computers in their pockets. The days where phones are used primarily to make phone calls and send text messages are quickly fading away.

Here's the statistics showcasing smartphones overriding feature phones

Implications of this trend
As we have seen happening with computers and laptops earlier, we are able to see the same trend with the mobile phones so to say more features at the reducing prices. When more features are available on smartphones at every reducing prices, where is the need for feature phones?

While for the general population smartphones are a means of keeping in touch with friends through social media or playing games, for business users, smartphones allow for greater flexibility in performing job related activities. The BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) concept is being welcomed in many organizations despite all the associated risks.

Enterprise Mobility
Smartphones will play a major role in the way organizations perform their work going forward. Enterprise mobility is redefining the rules in many industries (Read our whitepaper on Enterprise Mobility). While some organizations are taking tentative steps in developing some mobile application for a specific line of business, others are strategizing by imagining a world where smartphones and tablet computers will be the norm and planning for that.

The evolution of enterprise mobility is driven by two forces. One is by the organizations themselves. Companies know what processes can be made more efficient through use of mobile apps and develop custom apps for their internal use. On the other side, application vendors are developing mobile apps as extensions for their apps. Whatever features are available in their normal desktop or web offering are being offered on the mobile platform also.

Prediction for the Future
Smartphones are here to stay and very soon, we might see the death of the lowly feature phone. However, when the smartphone becomes the standard, there will be a new breed of even smarter phones, geniusphones - which will probably pack in even more power and flexibility than today’s smartphones. We cannot even begin to envisage what such geniusphones will be able to do. Would you like to take a guess? Leave your comments and tell us what you think