Our Automated VisualAge Generator (VAGen) Refactoring solution delivers modern Cloud-enabled applications and databases that are functionally equivalent to their legacy counterparts, eliminating the hassle and expense of VAGen and the mainframe. This reduces cost, allows for deeper integration, and enables customization to meet business requirements.
CHALLENGES
Developers who understand VAGen and mainframe technology are reaching retirement age and no one is being trained to replace them, resulting in a steadily diminishing talent pool. As this shortage grows, the costs and risk of relying on VAGen will continue to rise.
Mainframes running VAGen cost as much as 4,500 per cent more to operate than equivalent Cloud counterparts. This quandary is compounded by VAGen's rising maintenance fees.
Companies are rapidly moving to modern environments and practices such as DevOps and the Cloud. VAGen and the underlying systems that support it were not designed for modern IT, resulting in difficult integrations and limited flexibility.
OUR SOLUTION
Our Automated VAGen Refactoring solution preserves the benefits of legacy systems while empowering organizations to leverage the advantages of newer platforms, especially the Cloud. This 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.
This solution automatically refactors existing VAGen applications to fully maintainable Java or C#, while our modernization methodology ensures the resulting code is compact, clean, and easy to maintain.
After go-live, Java and C# developers can extend application functionality for Cloud optimization using standard DevOps tools and CI/CD concepts that simply aren’t available for mainframe applications. Object-oriented application architectures conform to web-centric requirements and will run on any Java application server (i.e. WebSphere, WebLogic, Apache Tomcat, etc.) or on Microsoft IIS when the target language is C#. 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.
Refactoring a fourth-generation language like VAGen to object-oriented Java or C# presents many challenges. As such, our Automated VAGen Refactoring process was designed with the following requirements in mind:
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 your 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 data, 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 data migration decisions such as ancillary application 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 the automated VAGen 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 refactored estate has been deployed.
Prior to go-live, we refresh the target environment 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 refactoring and data migration tools and not the refactored code or converted databases, this final refresh can be delivered into production over a weekend, eliminating code freezes.
We work closely with you and 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 post-transformation support of the modernized application.
Explore the business case, key benefits and technical details of taking VisualAge Generator (VAGen) applications to Java or C#.
By joining this webinar you will discover how assessments provide stakeholders with valuable insight to inform mainframe modernization decisions.
Exploring the impact of the new era of digitalization and change on the current state of legacy systems and organizations' modernization plans.
Live discussion: 2022 Mainframe Modernization Report
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by Rob Anderson, Vice President of Marketing and Product for Application Modernization
Over 35 years of VAGen and mainframe modernization experience
Read our application modernization blogs