Our Automated Refactoring solution delivers modern, Cloud-enabled applications and databases that are functionally equivalent to their legacy counterparts, eliminating the hassle and expense of the mainframe. This reduces cost, allows for deeper integration, and enables customization to meet business requirements. This solution is great for moving legacy applications to Cloud-native languages such as Java and C#, and legacy databases to relational models.
CHALLENGES
Developers and database administrators who understand mainframe technology are reaching retirement age, resulting in a steadily diminishing talent pool. As this shortage grows, the costs and risks of relying on legacy languages and databases will continue to rise.
Companies are rapidly moving to modern environments and practices such as DevOps and the cloud, while mainframes and the languages and databases that support them were not designed for modern IT, resulting in difficult integrations and limited flexibility.
Mainframes cost as much as 4,500% more to operate than equivalent cloud counterparts, a figure compounded by a scarcity of development resources and rising licensing and maintenance fees for ancillary mainframe utilities, applications, and databases.
OUR SOLUTION
To thrive in today's digital world, organizations must develop a mastery of rapid response, effortless course correction, and unencumbered agility in the face of competitive innovation. This is particularly difficult for large firms with rich heritage because of their reliance on outdated, inflexible IT systems such as mainframes. These mission-critical systems are expensive to run and contain unique intellectual property and business processes developed over decades, rendering them difficult to replace by traditional means.
Automated refactoring with Advanced provides a turnkey modernization of your procedural codebase (or 4GL) to object-oriented Java or C# and your non-relational database to a relational model deployed to the cloud or in open systems on premises so you can retire the mainframe.
Once the legacy applications and databases are refactored, developers can extend application functionality for cloud optimization using standard DevOps tools and CI/CD concepts that simply aren’t available for mainframe applications. Precious business logic from the legacy system is preserved, while levels of optimization can be applied to deliver efficiencies and business benefits such as elasticity, granular service definition, and easy integration with cloud-native services.
Automated Refactoring with Advanced unlocks a whole new world of quality and scalability from automated testing to quality assurance, and the ability to leverage containerized deployments and orchestration with Docker and Kubernetes.
Many code transformation solutions create structurally similar programs in the target language, but require additional re-engineering efforts to yield desired results. Our solution is completely automated, removing the risk associated with the post-refactoring tweaks that go into other offerings.
Refactoring a 4GL or procedural language to object-oriented Java or C# presents many challenges. As such, Advanced's automated refactoring process was designed with the following requirements in mind:
Automated Refactoring is available for most languages, databases, and platforms, including z/OS, OpenVMS, and VME.
OUR PROCESS
We begin every modernization initiative with a discovery, free of charge. Our modernization experts work with you to understand and document your business and technical goals and objectives. Together, we gather information about the mainframe estate. Everything from infrastructure to language and database types and quantities are accounted for. The discovery concludes with a workshop where we recommend optimal modernization approaches based on information gathered, as well as rough order of magnitude (ROM) pricing, and estimated project durations and resource requirements.
The assess and design phase is performed using our automated tools to fully catalog and develop a complete understanding of the application, infrastructure, and operational components of a mainframe environment. It exposes mainframe artifacts that organizations did not know they had, relationships they did not realize existed, and assets that are no longer in use. Assess and design activities provide stakeholders with valuable insight to inform application modernization decisions such as disposition strategies and target environment architectures. It also mitigates cost and risk by highlighting potential challenges and how to overcome them. At the conclusion of the assess and design phase, all in-scope artifacts are accounted for, a detailed project plan is established, and the transformation process begins.
The transform phase includes the bulk of refactoring activities, the database and data modernization, and build-out of the target operating environment. During transform, we refactor pre-defined work packets, perform functional tests, and deliver them into the DevOps pipeline. While customer teams build, test, and deploy these work packets in the target environment, we refactor the next work packet, iterating until the entire mainframe estate has been transformed.
The test and deploy phase begins with the receipt of work packets through the DevOps toolchain as they are delivered from iterative refactoring activities in the transform phase. If issues arise, the work packet is passed back to us where we review the code, adjust our tooling, reprocess the work packet, and send it back into the DevOps pipeline to resume testing and deployment. This process repeats until the entire modernized estate has been deployed. Our Automated Testing solution speeds this process significantly.
Prior to go-live, we refresh the target ecosystem by transforming a final snapshot of the mainframe environment to account for changes that have taken place throughout the modernization project as part of normal business operations. Fortunately, since all adjustments and optimizations have been made to the automated tools and not the modernized code, this final refresh can be delivered into production over a weekend, eliminating code freezes.
We work closely with your team to ensure a smooth transition into production. Part of this transition includes the cooperative construction and testing of a go-live production cutover plan to reduce the potential risks associated with application deployments. We also provide on-demand assistance during the warranty period following production deployment, as well as appropriate rehosting platform support, and post-transformation support of the modernized applications.
"Advanced worked closely with our teams from the inception of the project through the sizing and planning to the delivery. The project has been completed within timescale and budget and this enables us to move onto the next stage of our IT strategy."
David Loughenbury, CIO
Police Mutual Assurance Society
Advanced's Automated Refactoring solution enabled The New York Times to completely migrate their core IT system to an AWS platform.
This Automated Refactoring project completely migrated Desjardins' systems from an MVS/IDMS platform to a new Windows/Oracle platform.
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by Rob Anderson, Vice President of Marketing and Product for Application Modernization
Over 35 years of mainframe modernization experience
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