Legacy Transformation

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Legacy Applications Valuable Assets or
Decrepit Liabilities? 7 February 2003
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Scale of the opportunity

• There were 6,267,000,000 people on our planet in
  late 2002
• ...Driving 722,000,000 cars (average age 6.8
  years in the UK)
• .And living in 1,645,000,000 households
• They had invested 5,000,000,000,000 in
  software (according to Information Week and IBM)
• ...And by 1998 had developed an estimated
  7,000,000,000 function points
• ...Of which 30 were COBOL
• These function points were equivalent to about
  640,000,000,000 lines of COBOL

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Questions

• What to do with those legacy applications?
• Do we keep them running as long as possible and
  replace them when they are past their sell-by
  date?
• or is there an alternative, such as re-hosting,
  renovation, re-use or recycling?
• If yes, how to decide which way to go?
• Whats involved?
• Where to go for help?

Are legacy applications like cars, to be replaced
on a regular basis by newer, more fashionable
and/or economic models, . or more like houses,
to be maintained long-term, and extended or
modified to meet our changing needs, and perhaps
completely renovated once in a while?
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A couple of definitions

• A legacy application is any application based on
  older technologies and hardware, such as
  mainframes, that continues to provide core
  services to an organisation.
• Legacy transformation is about retaining and
  extending the value of the legacy investment
  through migration to new platforms.

Transformation can involve any combination of
translation, migration, recycling, and re-use
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Why transform?

• 1. It retains/enhances the value of the
  application in the business
• 2. Because its better economics

Higher
Transform
Do nothing
Application Value
Initial maintenance phase
Enhancement phase(s)
Replace
Lower
Time
Initial implementation
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Whats inside the black box?
???????
Legacy Application
Transformed Application
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Inside the black box - the process
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Challenges

• Preserve the business rules.
• Keep the migration timeframe short enough to
  avoid retrofit issues.
• Retain the functionality of the application
  through any migration process.
• Retain know-how in the organisation to support
  on-going maintenance.

Automating the transformation process is central
to addressing these challenges
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A snapshot of available solutions
SWS DASE, Relativity Rescueware, Intercomp eMaker
- hierarchical relational to relational
Sapiens eMerge, Prolifics - middleware
ArtinSoft Freedom, Relativity Rescueware - Legacy
to J2EE, .NET, others
HostBridge, Jacada, DataDirect - Web-enabling
Netron HotRod, Semantic Designs, McCabe
Concerto2, CAST - code mapping and pattern
detection
Test
Add function-ality
Analyse and assess the legacy systems
Compon-entise
Integrate
Administer and control transformation activities
Set transformation goals success measures
McCabe Audit - assess metrics
SWS Software, Prince - COBOL dialect revision
ArtinSoft Analyzers - diagnostic assessment
ASG Encore - extract COBOL code segments
Cyrano Wincap - retro-documentation
Merant NetExpress - wrap COBOL in Java
ASG Rochade - administration, versioning
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Example 1 GYSSA transformed an ERP product

• GYSSA is based in Guatemala, with regional
  offices in all the Central American countries.
  GYSSAs ERP product (called SPC) took 48
  programmer-years to develop and has 7 sub-systems
  aimed at Central American market needs for B2B,
  CRM, ERP, information portal and business
  intelligence.
• Architecture was Client/Server, mostly written in
  earlier versions of Visual Basic.
• Two choices build new system from scratch
  (estimate was three years based on previous
  experience) or migrate and re-architect.
• Upgrading SPC to .NET was decided on as the best
  way to remain competitive in the Central American
  market and to stay in the forefront as a supplier
  of ERP solutions in the area.
• Diagnostic analysis revealed that transformation
  could be completed in eight months, with an
  equally sized development team at one quarter the
  cost.
• Automatic translation tools were based on
  ArtinSofts upgrade wizard for Visual Basic 6.0
  to .NET.

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Example 2 Owens Minor transformed contracts
and pricing applications - and avoided ERP
package implementation

• Owens Minor are a leading US distributor of
  medical/surgical supplies.
• Existing contracts and pricing applications were
  15 years old - heavily customised, written in
  OS/2. Complex rules for pricing with unique
  prices for each customer and product.
• Original software vendor out of business.
• Future requirement for such capabilities as
  multicurrency transactions over the Web
• Relativity Technologies provided tools to analyse
  business rules and translate the COBOL and CICS
  into Java.
• Tool tested on three master files containing EDI
  maps and customer information. The test project
  was complete within six months.
• It easily would have cost us tens of millions of
  dollars to go with SAP or Oracle. So far we've
  spent about 1 million on this projectwe should
  complete the whole thing within 18 months and for
  less than 5 million CIO David Guzman

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Example 3 Tharco extended package application
through Web front-end

• THARCO designs and manufactures corrugated boxes,
  and foam cushioning plastics. THARCO carries an
  inventory of 1,600 sizes of stock corrugated
  boxes and packaging materials.
• Requirement To enable customers to go online to
  place or check the status of their orders - the
  company also saves money and increases efficiency
  by streamlining the front portions of its
  business process.
• THARCO was an all-SAP shop, so mySAP was the
  obvious choice - however, complexity, licensing
  and transaction-fee issues - and overall cost led
  - THARCO chose an alternative middleware option
  which exposed the required parts of SAP to the
  Web.

Web browser
Standard Web server
SAP R/3
Illustrative example
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Example 4 How Anglo-Irish Bank upgraded
COBOL-based back-office applications
Used Intercomp MineIT to discover business rules,
regenerate COBOL
Used Intercomp AnalyzeIT to analyse code and
structure
Test
Micro Focus COBOL DB2 Consolidated data Bank
leveraging DB2 for extracts, reporting Improved
code semantics, readability Scalable
ACUCOBOL ISAM Distributed data Scalability
limits Record locking problems Problems in
maintenance
Add function-ality
Analyse and assess the legacy systems
Compon-entise
Integrate
Administer and control transformation activities
Set transformation goals success measures
2.5 million lines of code
Contractors migrated data
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Example 5 ALLTEL transformed data resource

• ALLTEL Information Services provides banking and
  mortgage software to financial organisations in
  the U.S.
• ALLTEL is developing new real-time/DB2 products
  to complement existing financial software suite.
  Components of this software suite are used by
  four of the top ten banks in the U.S. One of the
  major challenges of the initial project is moving
  from a VSAM to a DB2 data model.
• ALLTEL used Netrons DMS product and associated
  services based on an iterative, rules-based
  approach to data migration.
• ALLTEL also use this as the standard method for
  helping its customers move their data models to
  DB2 as they upgrade to new releases of ALLTELs
  software products.

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What strategy?

• Choice driven by business needs - push to save
  money, or pull to meet market requirements.
• Mix and match 4 options to transform the
  applications - replace, re-use, transform,
  rewrite.
• Consider the future of the overall application
  portfolio.
• Choose the target platform based on general
  strategic considerations.

Migrations due to mergers and acquisitions can
fit more than one category
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Business benefits and drivers
Legacy Transformation - Business Value Model
Business Driver
Internal focus
External focus
Deteriorating system
Economy
eBusiness
Get ready for change
Extend reach inside business and/or external to
business
Key business objective
Survival, operational continuity
Reduce operating costs
Position business for the future

• Improved maintainability (documentation, easier
  to fix)
• Access to support
• Lower operating costs
• Access to new customers (package supplier)
• More adaptable system

• Reduced operating costs, licence costs,
  back-up/disaster recovery costs
• Opportunity to outsource
• Reduced complexity
• More adaptable system

• Increased revenues
• New customers/users
• Better service to existing, new customers/users
• Reduced customer acquisition costs
• Brand enhancement

• Adaptable system
• Closer integration with business partners
• Extended services to customers
• Web Services option
• Re-use of components
• Future-proofing

Value dimensions
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Key factors are quality of the legacy and
availability of standard packages
Unique, non-standard
REWRITE
TRANSFORM
Type of Application
Standard, packages available
REPLACE
RE-USE (or RE-CYCLE)
High
Low
Quality of Legacy Application
Adapted from Erlich
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Steps to a decision
Legacy portfolio
Overview of Decision Process
Screen for continuing business value
Assess Individual Legacy Applications
Drivers
Outcome
Deteriorating system
Transform
Applications A B C D E ...

• Quality
• Cost
• Business fit
• Level of business change
• Resourcing
• Affordability

Selected applications
Rewrite
Looking for economies
Replace
Adding eBusiness functionality
Re-use
Map portfolio against drivers
Do nothing
Getting ready for change
Input to business case
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Which target platform?

• .NET and J2EE - most automatic translation
  products target these platforms
• Re-use, scalability, and wide access to related
  products and services.
• Integrated Development Environments (IDEs) make
  the development and maintenance task easier.
• Application containers (runtime environments)
  provide the qualities of service necessary for
  enterprise applications such as transaction
  handling, security and persistence services.
• Growing skill base.
• Suitable for Web Services.
• Willingness to accept commitment to one strategic
  supplier a factor to consider in choosing .NET.

Choice between .NET and J2EE best made on broader
strategic grounds
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Making it happen
Additional functionality definition
Proof of Concept
Acquire transformation technologies
Project set-up
Test
Add function-ality
Analyse and assess the legacy systems
Compon-entise
Integrate
Build know-how
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Example 6 Building know-how at North Carolina
Department of Justice

• DOJ is migrating an application from an existing
  Unisys COBOL/MASM/MAPPER mainframe legacy
  application environment to a Java-based
  application. The migration was a pilot for the
  transformation of mainframe legacy code in other
  applications.

Build know-how
DOJ staff with little or no knowledge of the
existing business rules contained in the existing
code reviewed and comprehended the COBOL
application's architecture, organisation and
processes
Worked with consultants to validate the JAVA
programming standards, the XML messaging
standards and the state service broker
architecture to be utilised for the project.
Established training material and conducting
training class for DOJ's IT staff.
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Selling the transformation project - what makes
it so difficult?

• If it aint broke, dont fix it - Managers like
  to get something new for their money -
  transforming a legacy application looks like a
  project to fix something that already works.
• Jam tomorrow - Transformation makes it easier to
  maintain and enhance the application in the
  future - to address things that might happen.
  This is always worth less than immediate
  benefits.
• Apples and Oranges - Are you comparing like with
  like? The costs of the transformation project
  have to be spelled out, while the true cost of
  todays legacy (disruptions, maintenance issues,
  costly operations, and so on) is often hidden in
  other budgets. These must be spelled out if the
  transformation project is to be compared with the
  cost of doing nothing.

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Choosing a business partner - Follow the money
Infrastructure suppliers
Transformation Project
Operations
Base Platform Provider
Enabling Technology
Mining Tools
Conversion Tools
System Integrator
Outsourcer
IS Department
Customer
Licence-driven revenues
Project-driven revenues
Operations-driven revenues
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In summary
Transformation works
Its feasible to extend the business value of
core legacy applications by migration to new
platforms. Transformation is probably cheaper
than rewriting or replacing a legacy
application. Choose suppliers, tools and mix of
transformation approaches based on future
business needs and realities of the legacy
portfolio. A first transformation project
has a steep learning curve. Its advisable to
work closely with the experts to ensure success.

Real savings are possible
Horses for courses
Alliances are key to success
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• Thank you

Declan Good declan_at_declan.vispa.com