MAINFRAME VISIBILITY

Application Analyzer

Our application analysis tool provides a centralised, interactive documentation repository containing a wealth of information. As long as you own the source code of the application, it can provide seven different types of analysis: Function point, relationship, portfolio technology, visual program, data relationship, change impact, and dead and orphaned code.

Application Analyzer helps you manage, maintain, or modernise your mainframe application portfolio more efficiently.

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Understanding key issues

CHALLENGES

Delivering successful projects

Projects have a lower chance of success when they are complicated by a lack of understanding and, without the necessary knowledge, it’s difficult to properly determine how best to deliver a project.

On-boarding of new starters

It takes much longer to on-board new employees when organisations run undocumented applications. Documentation educates new employees so they can hit the ground running – and with fewer mistakes.                                

Introduction of applications

Understanding your technology stack is essential. Otherwise, if applications are connected, changes to one application or the addition of new technology could disrupt or halt processes elsewhere.

Diminishing knowledge

If your legacy technology is written in an older language, those that can understand it may soon retire or leave the industry, with no one with that same knowledge to replace them.

Technical debt

Using ‘easily’ implemented code in the short-term as a workaround creates complex applications that are difficult to understand, along with technical debt due to the extra work that will arise, draining resources.

High costs

Failed projects can incur unnecessary costs, and it usually takes too long to on-board new employees with undocumented applications to redo the projects -while those who already understand the applications are often expensive.

How our Application Visibility software can help you

FEATURES & BENEFITS

  • Application Sustainment

    Application Sustainment focuses on understanding the processes, procedures, people, materials and information required to support, maintain and operate applications.

    Business drivers

    These include continuing business as usual with critical applications delivering their normal functionality, as well as maintaining and enhancing existing systems.

    Current challenges

    There is often a need to maintain service levels, with a reduced headcount and increasing workload. Challenges may also include a change request backlog and making new resources productive.

    Goals met

    Using Application Analyzer enables you to better understand your applications to maintain their service and function levels while your business can move forward and embrace modernisation.

  • Application Modernisation

    Modernising your applications is a choice that should be made once your business needs are defined – a  process that works best as part of an overall strategy to align your applications to your future. This can be through refactoring, repurposing or consolidating.

    Business drivers

    These include modernising and transforming existing systems plus engaging with, and fulfilling, new business requirements and initiatives –supporting technology upgrades in the process.

    Current challenges

    There is often a need to understand existing systems, particularly the components and relationships, before restructuring the estate through application management.

    Goals met

    Application Analyzer is an automated tool specifically designed to deliver the comprehensive understanding required to achieve effective application modernisation.

  • Application Repatriation

    Returning the maintenance of your application to in-house teams, or integrating the technology of merged or acquired businesses, can be a complicated process. But, with Application Analyzer it can be simplified with appropriate and detailed documentation.

    Business drivers

    These include increasing internal capabilities, taking support back from an external service provider and handling mergers and acquisitions more smoothly, quickly and efficiently.

    Current challenges

    If an organisation is to improve its internal skills, it is vital new staff have a reduced learning curve so they become productive and gain a good understanding of the systems and components.

    Goals met

    Create the understanding and documentation required to speed up on-boarding of new staff, as well as support their maintenance and repatriation of your applications with Application Analyzer.

  • Application Outsourcing

    In recognition of internal capabilities, priorities or broader IT strategy, outsourcing your application management is a viable option. For this to be successful, your applications need to be easily understood and well documented.

    Business drivers

    These include moving application support to a trusted external service provider, while recognising a need to reduce current support costs.

    Current challenges

    There is a need to provide an understanding of your systems to your service providers, but this can be complicated if you are lacking the appropriate documentation for your applications.

    Goals met

    Develop the necessary documentation with Application Analyzer to help your outsourcer quickly understand your applications, so they can support them effectively.

  • Strategic Planning

    Organisations recognise the need to invest in digital transformation projects. But their success relies on detailed information about your current applications, so that you can determine their value and prioritise the maintenance of each one.

    Business drivers

    These include a need to develop short and long-term plans for IT, and determine the value of applications, so the IT budget can be allocated in the most appropriate way for your business.

    Current challenges

    A comprehensive understanding of your application inventory, including the application software costs and quality, will help you make informed decisions with your business goals in mind.

    Goals met

    Application Analyzer delivers an in-depth understanding, with information that can ensure your investments and successful strategies are worthwhile.

How Application Analyzer supports different roles

PERSONAS

CIOs and Application Managers

The effective management of applications is vital to the smooth running of a business. Accurate and comprehensive understanding and documenting of applications is a key part of this.

Better choices

Assess and compare applications in terms of size, complexity and quality to enable effective planning. This results in better choices for strategies that are more likely to succeed.

Enhanced visibility

Monitor your applications, learning exactly how they operate, so you can gain a greater understanding in order to manage them better.

Improve cost-efficiencies

Evaluate the cost of maintaining your current application functionality. This will give insight into which costs cannot be avoided and which can be reduced or removed.

Enterprise Architects

Day-to-day problems arise when misunderstood and undocumented applications need work because fixing them is always a struggle. Learning more about the distinct workings of the business-critical applications within your IT estate can alleviate these issues.

Deep application visibility

View your existing application structure, as well as how applications were implemented, to see exactly what is happening within your IT estate so you can manage it in the best possible way.

Clear view across whole estate

Map your current IT architecture across platforms and types of applications (transactional, decision support, customer self-service etc.) with information and data flows to enhance understanding.

Effective budgeting

Assess the feasibility and cost of re-engineering and re-platforming options, as well as alternatives, to effectively budget for projects so you can ensure your choices are cost-effective.

Business Analysts

As the world rapidly digitises, businesses cannot be truly analysed if their IT estates are ignored. Our application analysis tool automates the creation of application documentation, delivering a deeper understanding of core business applications.

Successful planning

Translate the comprehensive mapping of business processes and information that needs to be implemented in a suite of applications. This accuracy and detail will ensure risk is minimised in all planning.

Technology agnostic

Our tool understands over 100 languages, and parsers can be developed for others. This means you can receive an overview regardless of the language of your business-critical applications.

Enhanced visibility

Get an accurate view of your IT estate to better analyse your business digitally. Knowing how your applications work, and how well they interoperate, shows the effects of changes before they take place.

Quality Assurance / Testers

The best testing environments perfectly replicate both standard and stressful situations for an application. But these cannot be effectively built if what is standard and what is stressful to the application is unknown. Our tool provides this understanding.

Continuous testing

Trace from test case, to application object and to business requirement. Our solution follows the entire process and ensures what is being tested truly meets the specified needs.

Improved testing

Assess the completeness and appropriateness of application test scenarios. The better the testing environment, the more confident you can be that the application will work.

Efficient testing

Save time and money by only testing what you need to. Application Analyzer delivers the test cases required and tells you what to test based on the components being modified.

Systems Analysts / Developers

Developing an application is difficult if there is a lack of documentation. Without this insight, you cannot understand where you are – and therefore accurately develop the application to support your organisation’s aspirations.

Intelligent insight

View application design, structure and organisation accurately so you can have where-used and where-updated type questions answered immediately – removing long, incorrect overviews and processes.

Accessible, accurate data

Access data by viewing program context, structure, call patterns (upstream / downstream) and inheritance information with just one click, quickly delivering accurate details.

Return on investment from using Application Analyzer

PROCESS OVERVIEW


Gain return on investment using our application analyser

Ongoing software innovation and developments

PRODUCT UPDATES

We are always improving and innovating our products to deliver the best experience for our customers. Here are a selection of the latest updates to our Application Analysis tool.

  • March 2019

    Business Rules Extraction: A tool-assisted solution for identifying and documenting the critical business processes hidden in your COBOL applications. Find out more here.

"Application Analyzer saved us weeks, if not months, in reverse engineering time. Without Application Analyzer, our incoming developers would have to take weeks to understand how our stack is built. With it, we have trimmed that time to days.

Mark Kaplan, Senior IT Director

The BARBRI Group

Additional insights to help you modernize

RESOURCES

  • 2021 Mainframe Modernisation Report

    Explore the the impact Covid-19 is having, and will continue to have, on modernisation plans, and the case for application modernisation amongst large enterprises with annual revenues over $1 billion.

    Read report
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  • Know the details, reduce the risk

    This whitepaper gives an in-depth explanation on why a detailed assessment of legacy applications and databases is essential for proper strategic modernisation planning and decision-making.

    Read whitepaper
    an image associated withKnow the details, reduce the risk Whitepaper

  • Live Discussion: The 2021 Mainframe Modernisation Business Barometer Report

    Webinar Watch on demand

  • How cloud migration can help your organisation to go green

    Blog Read blog

  • Know the details, reduce the risk: How to begin your mainframe modernisation journey

    Webinar Watch on demand

  • Struggling to adopt DevOps? Maybe it’s because of your aging mainframe

    Blog Read blog

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News & Opinions

BLOG // 24-05-2022

Embrace Mainframe to Azure Migration with Advanced

by Rob Anderson, Vice President of Marketing and Product for Application Modernization

Embrace Mainframe to Azure Migration with Advanced