Displaying items by tag: Business

Monday, 27 January 2020 14:19

The Business Case for Automated Modernization

Perhaps you’ve seen your competition pull ahead. Maybe your customers have become frustrated with their experience as they interact with your systems. Possibly, you’ve even experienced a security breach. You know your legacy systems need to move into the 21st century, and perhaps you’re struggling to decide how to move forward. Whether you want to face it or not, now is the time to take a hard look at modernizing your digital infrastructure.

According to salesforce.com, “while there may be a multitude of reasons for a business to undergo digital transformation, it mostly boils down to survival. Digital transformation can be risky and expensive, so it’s often a necessity for businesses that want to survive and outlast the ones that failed to evolve.”

And then there’s the expense: Daniel Newman at The Future of Work suggests that as much as 80 percent of an IT budget can be spent on maintenance. Modernizing legacy systems—even incrementally—can help a company see its capabilities leap forward by using the cloud to integrate automation into standard business processes. John Brandon at techradar.com suggests that “some of the most disruptive technologies—such as machine learning, voice bots like Amazon Alexa, and artificial intelligence—are helping to automate mundane tasks and improve how a business runs.”

These technologies run on data. In this new era of computing, the businesses that truly succeed will be the ones that put an emphasis on their data. If they haven’t already, legacy systems with limitations on their data will fall behind, especially when introducing machine learning and AI into the mix. At the same time, the data and infrastructure that have kept older systems going for so long can’t just be switched off, and freezing the systems as teams write and develop its replacement will push customers away.

Modernization effectively overcomes these risks to your organization by opening up the possibilities that an older codebase wasn't designed to handle.

“Taking inventory of what still works and what doesn’t allows companies to identify which processes are no longer relevant,” writes Newman. “Only applications deemed critical to business are then modernized; the others are simply retired, saving time and money on maintenance.”

When you decide to replace or reconfigure your legacy system, you can decide between any of these modernization options:

New Application Development. Replicate your legacy system by writing entirely new code. Your team will manually develop your new system using current coding practices with modern interfaces, and support for current technologies. This option is very expensive option, and it’s generally only usable to set a baseline for future development. You’ll incur expenses that can be as high as the original project, risk levels are similar to a typical “waterfall” project, and there are high likelihoods of time and budget overruns.

Extend/Surround. Many organizations currently opt for this method. The development teams or consultants encapsulate the legacy system in coding containers that provide APIs and tack-on integration with other systems. While the solution may work, you will have a patchwork of code, often in multiple programming languages, that gradually increases technical debt and incurs added maintenance costs. While this situation defers replacement, it will likely be costly in the long run.

COTS/SaaS. Both common off-the-shelf (COTS) solutions or cloud-based SaaS systems enable you to migrate to a less expensive and more modern architecture, but costs can easily escalate. The new system will require customization and ongoing licensing costs. Such a migration could create ripple effects on other systems and cause you to incur other costs from conforming to a completely new platform with unknown attributes.

Automated Modernization. A careful translation of code by a team of expert external engineers creates a new, modern application based upon the logic and behavior of the original. The process will include varying degrees of automation, which increases accuracy while decreasing costs. Modernization will likely incur the least risk and expense of any of these options.

Replacement of aging systems is becoming increasingly urgent, and as programmers of many of these older systems retire, replacement costs will continue to rise. An automated modernization program will likely yield the least expensive and most flexible alternative for stable, long-term performance.

 

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As a leading provider of software modernization services, TSRI enables technology readiness for the cloud and other modern architecture environments. We bring software applications into the future quickly, accurately, and efficiently with low risk and minimal business disruption, accomplishing in months what would otherwise take years.

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Standish Group, “Modernization: Clearing a Pathway to Success,” 2010

Published in Best Practices
Monday, 22 February 2010 15:28

New Book by Ulrich and Newcomb

 

"New Book by Ulrich and Newcomb: Information Systems Transformation:

Architecture-Driven Modernization Case Studies with
Reviews by Grady Booch, Ed Yourdon and Richard Soley"

Kirkland, WA. (Feburary 22, 2010) – Book Release
 
Information Systems Transformation: Architecture-Driven Modernization Case Studies
 By William M. Ulrich and Philip H. Newcomb

 Published by Morgan Kaufmann
 ISBN: 978-0-12-374913-0
 Copyright Feb 2010
 $59.95 USD €43.95 EUR £29.99 GBP

www.informationsystemstransformation.com
What The Experts Are Saying:

According to Grady Booch, IBM Fellow & Chief Scientist, Software Engineering:
"Ulrich and Newcomb's book offers a comprehensive examination of the challenges of growing software-intensive systems … (Read more...)

According to Ed Yourdon, noted Author and Consultant:
"Modernization is going to be a more and more important part of the overall IT strategy. William Ulrich and Philip Newcomb's important new book ... (Read more...)

According to Richard Soley Ph.D. Chairman/CEO, Object Management Group (OMG):
“Estimates by internationally-known researchers of the worldwide legacy code base is now approaching a half-trillion lines. That only counts so-called "legacy languages" like COBOL--which drive the world. Add in database schemas … (Read more...)

About the Book
Information Systems Transformation: Architecture-Driven Modernization Case Studies, a new book by William Ulrich and Philip Newcomb, provides a practical guide to organizations seeking ways to understand and modernize existing systems as part of their information management strategies. It includes an introduction to ADM disciplines and standards, including alignment with business architecture, as well as a series of scenarios outlining how ADM is applied to various initiatives. Ten chapters, containing in-depth, modernization case studies, distill the theory and delineate principles, processes, and best practices for every industry, ensuring the book's leading position as a reference text for all of those organizations relying on complex software systems to maintain their economic, competitive and operational viability. (Read more...)

Key Features
  • Acts as a one-stop shopping reference and complete guide for implementing various modernization models including core concepts, common scenarios, and a guide for getting started.
  • Concepts are illustrated with real-life examples from various modernization projects, allowing you to immediately apply tested solutions and see results.
  • Ten chapters containing in-depth modernization case studies, covering multiple platforms, industries and government agencies from four different countries.
About the Authors
William M. Ulrich is President of Tactical Strategy Group, Inc. (TSGI)
and a management consultant. Mr. Ulrich has been in the modernization field since 1980 and continues to serve as a strategic advisor on business and IT transformation projects for corporations and government agencies. In 2005, Mr. Ulrich was awarded the Keeping America Strong Award for his work in information systems modernization. He is Co-Chair of the OMG Architecture-Driven Modernization Task Force and the OMG Business Architecture Special Interest Group, Editorial Director of the Business Architecture Institute, and author of Legacy Systems: Transformation Strategies.
Philip H. Newcomb is Founder and CEO of The Software Revolution, Incorporated (TSRI)
and creator of TSRI's acclaimed architecture-driven modernization services and toolset JANUS Studio®   . He is coauthor of Reverse Engineering (Kluwer 1996) with Linda Wills, Coeditor of the 2nd Working Conference on Reverse Engineering (IEEE 1995) with Elliot Chikofsky and principal author of the Abstract Syntax Tree Metamodeling Specification (OMG Specification 2009). With more than 35 publications and 70 successfully completed information system modernization projects he is a recognized leader in the application of artificial intelligence, automatic programming and formal methods to industrial-scale software modernization.
About Morgan Kaufmann:
Since 1984, Morgan Kaufmann has published premier content on information technology, computer architecture, data management, computer networking, computer systems, human computer interaction, computer graphics, multimedia information and systems, artificial intelligence, computer security, and software engineering. Our audience includes the research and development communities, information technology (IS/IT) managers, and students in professional degree programs. Learn more at www.mkp.com. Contact Bob Dodd, 781-313-4726 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., for an electronic review copy, access to our expert authors, or to publish excerpts of our material.

For more information about TSRI contact:

TSRI
Greg Tadlock
Vice President of Sales
Phone: (425) 284-2770
Fax:     (425) 284-2785
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

 

Published in Press
Tagged under
Monday, 22 February 2010 15:28

TSRI Automatically Modernizes OpenVistA

 

Kirkland, WA. (March 12, 2010) – One of the best kept secrets in Washington DC is that our nation’s veterans already have a comprehensive electronic health care record (EHR) that for decades has supported delivery of quality health care at more than a 160 VHA hospitals around the world.  That extraordinary system is VistA, the Veteran Information System Technical Architecture.  Written in MUMPS, VistA serves as the vital backbone of the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) Electronic Health Care Record System (EHRS) that manages medical record data and delivers medical informatics to the veteran’s bedside while tracking and managing 100% of veteran’s health care electronically throughout his journey through the VHA medical care system.

Visit the VHA’s OpenVistA® Transformation Blueprint at
http://www.tsri.com/open-vista

Ironically, VistA like many systems that are highly successful, is now threatened with self-extinction due to its need for continuous growth and the inability of MUMPS, the language it is written in, to sustain its continued evolution.  VistA suffers from a form of software arthritis common among many legacy systems. Due to its age, size and complexity VistA is brittle, inflexible and resistant to change, and its maintenance costs have gone through the roof, compromising the VHA’s ability to grow and evolve Vista as the foundation for a 21st century medical delivery system for its veterans.

In 2005 the VHA estimated automated modernization of VistA could save the VHA upwards of $3 Billion compared to redevelopment, or manual replacement.  With the announcement today by The Software Revolution, Inc (TSRI), (the world-leading supplier of architecture driven modernization (ADM-based) solutions), of its open-source Transformation Blueprint ® for OpenVistA, TSRI has made a huge start on this daunting challenge.  For those who might care to understand, the OpenVistA Transformation Blueprint ® is a major step towards achievement of the VHA's goal of modernizing its Electronic Healthcare Record  system for its veterans. 

OpenVistA Casestudy

TSRI’s OpenVistA® Transformation Blueprint ® provides the complete target Java code and UML design for the transformation of all 2.1 Million lines of OpenVistA® and 120,000+ lines of Fileman MUMPS code.  The OpenVistA® Transformation Blueprint ® is far more than a mere language translation.  It is a massive multi-million page (300GB) web-based software design and architecture document consisting of navigable hypertext of the 'As-Is' MUMPS and 'To-Be Java' hyperlinked to hundreds of thousands of State Machine Graphs, Cause-Effect Graphs, State-Transition Tables, Control Flow Graphs, Data-Flow Graphs, Structure Charts, Data Element Tables, Class Diagrams expressed as scalable graphical diagrams that richly document all of the MUMPS and target Java/J2EE code. The Transformation Blueprint ® is both an application portfolio as well as a complete architectural roadmap towards a modernized OpenVistA® and Fileman. Every statement of MUMPS in OpenVistA® is shown side-by-side with its transformation into Java/ J2EE along with an extensive array of software property-oriented metric indices (e.g. fan-in, fan-out, complexity, redundancy, dead code, etc) for navigation to the code measured by the property. 

To learn more about TSRI’s transformation of OpenVistA® and the company’s plans for evolving OpenVistA® towards a modernized universal EHR system of the future, read the Chapter 12 casestudy: Veterans Health Administration’s VistA MUMPS Modernization Pilot in William Ulrich and Philip Newcomb’s new book Information Systems Transformation: Architecture-Driven Modernization CaseStudies, just published by Morgan Kaufmann, February 2010 as part of the Object Management Group (OMG) OMG Series.


   Kirkland, WA. (February 22, 2010) – New Book Release

   Information Systems Transformation: Architecture-Driven Modernization Casestudies

   By William M. Ulrich and Philip H. Newcomb
   Published by Morgan Kaufmann
   ISBN: 978-0-12-374913-0
   Copyright Feb 2010
   $59.95 USD €43.95 EUR £29.99 GBP
   www.informationsystemstransformation.com

For more information about TSRI contact:

TSRI
Greg Tadlock
Vice President of Sales
Phone: (425) 284-2770
Fax:     (425) 284-2785
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

 

Published in Press
Tagged under