The U.S. Air Force's Integrated Logistics System - Supply (ILS-S), has been a cornerstone of military logistics for over five decades. This complex and mission-critical system, which tracks more than 35 million assets valued at $18 billion across 1.7 million warehouse locations, has been a significant part of the Air Force's operations, supporting 18,000 users and over 100,000 consumers of ILS-S information across 250 military installations.
Historically, the Air Force had attempted to modernize and move away from expensive Unisys Mainframes without success. Their earlier endeavors earned the system the nickname "The Beast" and was featured in a 2003 book on legacy system modernization by the Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie Mellon.
However, the outcomes changed dramatically when TSRI, NTT Data, and CGI leveraged TSRI’s model- and rule-based transformation and refactoring solution, JANUS® Studio, to modernize the 1.3 million lines of COBOL to Java and migrate the system to an elastic, secure, cloud-native environment on AWS GovCloud.
Watch Paul Saladna, Lead Architect at NTT Data discuss what made this project so successful!
In the initial phase, TSRI converted the 1.3 million lines of Unisys COBOL to modern, maintainable Java and the teams migrated the system to an on-prem mid-tier environment. In a second phase, the application underwent further automated refactoring by the teams for code quality and performance and then migrated to the AWS GovCloud, gaining the benefits of a cloud-native, scalable multi-tier environment like setting up DevSecOps and CI/CD pipelines and providing network interoperability.
This transformative project marked a significant milestone in automated modernization and cloud-native deployment for the Air Force and has been heralded as a huge success by the USAF, setting a precedent for future modernizations.
“All told, we started at $30 million prior to the modernization and ended at about $3 million post-modernization; a pretty significant cost savings!”
Paul, who started with ILS-S back in 2003, played a pivotal role in transitioning the system from a fragmented, green-screen-based setup to a unified cloud-computing solution. His leadership was instrumental in steering the project from its inception, through its on-prem modernization phase, to its ultimate migration to a cloud-native architecture on AWS.
The modernization's driving forces were multifaceted, focusing on reducing infrastructure costs, mitigating COBOL developer dependency, and enhancing platform stability and capabilities. The Air Force required a fast and seamless transition with no loss in functionality or performance, despite the concurrent challenges posed by active military engagements.
The decision to adopt AWS GovCloud was influenced by the Air Force's existing computational frameworks and the natural fit of AWS for Java/Python-based projects, given its extensive use and the associated economies of scale.
TSRI was chosen for this monumental task through a rigorous selection process, showcasing unparalleled automation capabilities and a thorough understanding of the legacy COBOL code, which set them apart from other vendors.
“TSRI demonstrated the highest degree of conversion capabilities and past performance and represented the lowest risk for us to achieve mission objectives. Really, they stood out.”
The outcomes of this modernization are profound, achieving a 90% reduction in total costs—from $30 million annually to approximately $3 million post-modernization. Additionally, the project facilitated the reassignment of COBOL developers to roles where their deep understanding of the system's logic and business requirements could be leveraged for the modernized ILS-S system.
The modernized ILS-S now boasts a remarkable 99.999% uptime, a testament to the enhanced platform stability and capabilities achieved through this project. This success has prompted the Business and Enterprise Systems Directorate (BES) of the USAF to replicate this modernization model across other critical systems, with TSRI currently working on the modernization of the Air Force's wholesale Stock Control System.
This journey from COBOL to Java, culminating in a truly cloud-native deployment on AWS, not only signifies a technological leap for the Air Force but also exemplifies a model of collaboration, innovation, and strategic foresight in modernizing critical defense systems.
To learn more about the project, read the case study
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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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The Pitney Bowes Postage Payment Application had been running COBOL for decades on an HP NonStop Tandem mainframe, however, to seize the opportunities of the digital cloud age and to reduce overall technical debt, Pitney Bowes needed to modernize the Tandem COBOL to C# .NET Core. Just as important as the code, the HP NonStop Tandem database needed to also be migrated to a modern Microsoft SQL Server database and deployed to AWS. TSRI successfully transformed the application at 99.96% automation, and deployed the modernized application on the AWS cloud.
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Customer: Pitney Bowes Inc. Source & Target Language: COBOL to C# .Net Core on AWS Lines of Code: 390,000 Duration: 6 Months Services: Automated Code Transformation (99.96% level of automation), Automated Refactoring, Database Conversion: File based system to a Microsoft SQL Environment, Integration and Testing Support, Transformation Blueprint®, Application "As-Is" Blueprint®,
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"The successful modernization and cloud deployment of these four critical government applications is proof that the U.S. Technology Modernization Fund is beginning to fulfill its purpose."
Nicolas Newcomb, TSRI President
KIRKLAND, Wash., March 31, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) --TSRI, a recognized leader in fully-automated software modernization — announces the recent completion of a large-scale, public sector application modernization and mainframe retirement effort that transformed four critical, aging applications from Unisys COBOL to Java for a United States federal government agency. The federal agency’s applications containing millions of lines of code were modernized over three years and deployed to the Microsoft Azure Cloud.
The effort was the first of its kind to leverage the funds available to government entities via the Modernizing Government Technology (MGT) Act’s Technology Modernization Fund (TMF). With federal government mandates gaining further prominence and the bipartisan bill — the Legacy IT Reduction Act of 2022 — currently on the floor of the U.S. Senate, TSRI is well-positioned to support government entities in modernizing their outdated legacy information technology systems.
Critical and Aging Systems, Transformed for Modern Times
Despite incremental upgrades or patches over the years to this federal agency's decades-old mainframe applications, a dwindling supply of programmers made it increasingly difficult to maintain them. In addition, cloud computing would improve these mission-critical applications' reliability and security. Using TMF funds, this U.S. government entity sought to modernize several of its remaining critical systems on a legacy Unisys mainframe. TSRI provided automated code conversion of more than 1.3 million lines of the client's COBOL applications, with hierarchical DMS and relational RDMS databases, to the Microsoft Azure cloud. TSRI implemented Java as the target language and Microsoft SQL Server as the target relational database at 99.67% automation levels.
On day one after the production systems were switched over from the Unisys mainframe to the Microsoft Azure cloud, the new system supported 25,356 users and 299,715 transactions with only three user problems reported. These critical systems — responsible for managing, storing, and protecting personal financial and employment-related data for government-supported home financing — were seamlessly deployed to the new Microsoft Azure Cloud environment without impact on operations. The positive results could be seen in the first 30 days during which the new system disbursed billions of dollars in program funds to eligible users without a single error.
“The successful modernization and cloud deployment of these four critical government applications is proof that the U.S. Technology Modernization Fund (TMF) is beginning to fulfill its purpose,” TSRI President, Nicolas Newcomb, said. “This federal agency’s crucial technology now serves people more predictably and reliably while providing efficiency and cost-savings for the government and therefore, Americans. Furthermore, these applications can now be more effectively maintained and evolved now and in the future.”
View the case study for more details on this government IT modernization project.
For Government Agencies, The Time to Modernize is Now
Four years ago, the United States government established the Technology Modernization Fund to support federal agencies in funding the modernization of their aging information technology infrastructure. On March 23, a bi-partisan bill was introduced to the United States Senate: The Legacy IT Reduction Act of 2022. The bill aims to make the modernization of federal legacy IT systems mandatory.
“Every year, the number of programmers required to maintain or improve the legacy systems we all rely on shrinks but that doesn’t mean we depend on those systems any less,” TSRI’s Nicolas Newcomb said. “We can say that this one federal agency’s crucial technology is now serving the American people more predictably and reliably, but there are still thousands of crucial, at-risk applications that we rely on to conduct our daily lives and business. We have never previously witnessed the scale and severity of technology obsolescence we may currently face.”
Nicolas continued: “TSRI can reliably and rapidly modernize — and frequently improve —these carefully designed systems. Cloud architectures offer predictable landing zones, and the sophistication of the foundational technologies have made modernizations more seamless than ever. Done well, a modernization accelerates the delivery of benefits to business bottom lines and improves the lives of end-users. Simultaneously, modernizations help relieve the liabilities caused by technical debt and human resource scarcity. In the end, application modernization is organizational modernization. Therefore, TMF funding is a responsible step to ensure our government is competitive, secure, and efficient. There should be no doubt that the time to modernize our crucial software infrastructure applications is indeed now,” he concluded.
TSRI has decades of experience modernizing applications in over 35 legacy languages for public sector, government, and military entities in the U.S. and beyond. Examples include the U.S. Air Force, the U.S. Customs and Border Control, the U.S. Navy, the Canadian Revenue Agency, and the Government of Denmark. View TSRI’s case studies for more.
Today’s modern systems often require deployment to cloud environments. TSRI modernizes applications for deployment to any cloud environment and is a validated Amazon Web Services Mainframe Migration partner.
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TSRI is Here for You
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.
TSRI – Software Modernization Assured
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Only a few engineers know how it feels to lead a major government agency through an automated mainframe modernization for multiple applications from COBOL to Java on the Microsoft Azure cloud. TSRI’s Executive Vice President of Engineering & Service Delivery, Roger Knapp, is one of them!
Get the story straight from Roger in his interview with GovCIO about his experiences modernizing multiple applications for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).
Also, be sure to check out TSRI’s case study to learn more about our work with GovCIO to transform multiple Mainframe Unisys 2200 COBOL with DMS2200 databases to Java with a factory-style process. The modernized systems were deployed on the Microsoft Azure Cloud and hook directly into the Microsoft Azure DevOps pipeline!
TSRI utilized the same proven JANUS Studio® modernization solution, process, and approach we have leveraged for our other IBM, Tandem, Unisys, and other mainframe modernizations. During the project, TSRI provided “As-Is” and “To-Be” application documentation. We utilized our powerful refactoring engine to improve code quality, maintainability, readability, and security to meet the HUD’s needs. HUD’s modernized applications (CHUMS, F42d/CAIVRS, and LOCCS) are live, in production, and being actively maintained by Java developers.
This program was also the first-ever modernization utilizing the U.S. Technology Modernization Fund (TMF) distributed by the General Services Administration (GSA) and hailed as a resounding success! Maria Roat, the deputy federal chief information officer, shared in a CompTIA webinar that the U.S. government’s technology modernization fund (TMF) is about accelerating projects and enabling multi-year funding.
“HUD mainframe modernization, there’s a playbook coming out of that. So other agencies, they’re going through their mainframe modernization, they can take lessons learned from HUD and apply that,” she said. “As we as we look to scale and accelerate the board, there’s a lot of things that we’ve already done over the last three years, as we’ve matured, that we can apply to the future funding.”
TMF allowed HUD to move off the mainframe completely, get OPEX savings and achieve an amazing reduction in TCO for the Department (80%+ compared to the mainframe TCO).
Download the full case study and learn more.
TSRI is Here for You
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.
See Case Studies
Learn About Our Technology
Get Started on Your Modernization Journey Today!
How do you transform the slow pace of technological innovation within a federal agency into an opportunity for innovation and IT systems modernization? Start by taking a cue from the partnership between TSRI and GovCIO. With backing from the Federal Government’s Technology Modernization Fund (TMF) our joint teams propelled the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) from an outdated twentieth-century Unisys COBOL system into modern, service-oriented Java that was performant and functionally equivalent.
TSRI worked with GovGIO on their process designed to successfully migrate the applications to the Microsoft Azure cloud. They started by defining the five key project goals and taking an inventory of system components, including intersecting platforms. Once we had identified what the unique technical challenges were and how to address each, we created testing strategies and migrated the data stores for each system. Finally, we executed an automated code conversion and refactored the legacy COBOL code.
TSRI’s partnership with GovCIO executed a rapid, holistic mainframe migration process for HUD that has improved their organizational performance while minimizing risk. On day one after the productions systems were switched over from the Unisys mainframe to the Microsoft Azure cloud, the new system supported 25,356 users and 299,715 transactions with only three user problems reported. These are the HUD systems that manage, store, and protect all the personal financial and employment-related eligibility information for FHA insured financing. Given the criticality of the data managed every day by HUD, it was important that the migration run without impact on operations. The result could be seen in the first 30 days during which the new system disbursed just over $2.7 billion dollars in HUD program funds without a single error.
Review the details of how TSRI and GovCIO successfully executed this complex modernization project in our recently published case study.
The 9 Low-Risk Steps That Led to Success
You might be surprised that HUD and other government agencies still run their IT on mainframes using COBOL (first released in the 1950’s), or MUMPS (from the 1970’s). Running on these aging platforms presents an extensive list of challenges to these agencies: data management, growing storage, collaboration, security, etc. The modernization process typically involves risk, time, and significant expense. It’s understandable that a large agency like HUD would want to select a partner they knew could deliver a low-risk, high-accuracy result.
Working together, we adhered to GovCIO’s nine-step best-practices process that resulted in modernizing systems to modern cloud architectures that can now evolve with HUD, while preventing negative impacts to their mission, day-to-day operations, and security.
For more details on the nine-step process that enabled HUD to enter the cloud age, read our latest white paper with GovCIO.
A first-person account of HUD’s modernization process with Roger Knapp – Executive Vice President and HUD Program Manager
Only a few engineers know what it feels like to lead a major government agency through an automated mainframe modernization. Roger Knapp is one of them and has been working in the field for over 30 years. As Executive VP of Engineering & Service Delivery at TSRI, Roger has unique insights on the HUD project. He sat down to share them in an interview with GovCIO as part of their Partner Spotlight.
In a short chat, he shares how the TSRI-GovCIO team overcame the challenges not only of modernizing a nationally mission-critical system at risk of obsolescence, but also how to deal with the presence of dynamic SQL data in the legacy application logic.
Get the story straight from Roger in his interview with GovCIO.
TSRI is Here for You
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.
No change in business logic.
Reduction in overhead costs.
Continuous development during and after migration.
These are a few modernization concepts that Scott Pickett, TSRI’s Vice President of Product Operations and Service Delivery, discussed on his recent appearance on Amazon Web Services’ APN TV channel.
“TSRI allows for an ability to do automated transformation of not only your language, but your application to the cloud environment, allowing you to bring in skilled, modern technology to your legacy implementations, being able to drive down the cost point associated with ongoing operational costs, and being able to deliver new applications, new functionality, new screens, and new capabilities in that modern language,” he said in his talk.
So what does that mean, exactly?
In TSRI’s modernization of a major European bank to the cloud, that meant they modernized approximately 80,000 lines of code at 99.7% automation. In other words, only 384 of those lines of code were hand-written. That's big for a project of this size—but it's huge when you're talking about applications with hundreds of thousands or even millions of lines of code!
For any organization, whether in commercial enterprise organizations like the banking client mentioned above, or in government agencies, modernization reduces risk.
“You're able to bring a new skill set, new experts that know Java and know CI and CD tools and apply them to your legacy application that's been modernized,” Scott said. “It literally also allows for the ability to drop tens of thousands, and even hundreds of thousands of dollars, off your monthly costs.”
As Scott also noted in his presentation, “we can not only transform code quickly…because there are very, very few manual changes, but it also means that you can migrate to the cloud and then be able to not have any business logic change associated with that migration.”
Maintaining business logic is a big deal when it comes to systems that measure their age in decades rather than years and the original programmers have long since moved on.
One other interesting point Scott brought up is how TSRI’s tools have enabled customers to maintain agility and competitive advantage by providing its clients with the modern, cloud-based applications they need—all while reaching back to its legacy DB2 database that supports the applications that have yet to be modernized.
Throughout the talk, Scott also pointed to how TSRI has adopted a step-wise model, which modernizes small applications or pieces of an application, tests for validity, then pushes into production before the next applications are transformed. Such a methodology allows the client to continue to develop in the legacy language, maintain a common data set, and minimizes business disruption to almost zero.
“There’s no big delay. You can continue developing the legacy and we can migrate those legacy applications while the transformations are happening and migrate them into your modern environment,” he said.
Scott also explains the steps of an automated migration in layman’s terms and how a TSRI transformation integrates cleanly into cloud services like AWS using containerization and microservices.
We of course don’t want to spoil the presentation by giving everything away, so head over to APN TV and watch for yourself to learn about how automated modernization to the cloud will save your organization time, money, and the headaches from continuing to maintain legacy systems.
TSRI is Here for You
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.
Modernization’s hot.
If there’s a single takeaway from TSRI’s experience as a sponsor and exhibitor at AWS re:Invent 2021 in Las Vegas, it’s that enterprises and governments alike have their minds on software modernization. If they haven’t started the process of migrating their mainframes and legacy applications to modern architectures to the cloud, then they will be soon actively moving in that direction.
“Virtually every CIO who has a mainframe application is now looking to migrate,” said Scott Pickett, TSRI’s Vice President of Service Operations and Product Delivery, who attended the conference at the end of November.
“Mainframe modernization was the centerpiece of activity for the conference-goers we interfaced with at AWS re:Invent,” echoed Greg Tadlock, TSRI’s Vice President of Sales. While modernization comes in many different flavors—mainframes can be transformed in multiple ways (replatforming, redevelopment, or refactoring, for example.), software modernization is a niche inside the modernization industry. It’s a niche that TSRI has embraced for over two decades and doubled down on earlier this year through validation and selection as a launch partner of the AWS Mainframe Modernization competency. Mainframe application modernization is clearly a movement that has entered the mainstream. “The validation that we made the right decision to be a launch partner with AWS on their Mainframe Modernization competency was confirmed at the re:Invent conference,” Tadlock said.
As a company, TSRI has mainly focused on migrating legacy systems to modern languages and architectures, whether on-premises or on the cloud. One thing that surprised the on-site team at re:Invent were the questions about round-tripping. In essence, a round trip is a refactoring of applications originally written in software languages that most modernizations currently target, Java or C#. Both languages have been in use for two decades (or more) themselves, and the technology landscape has changed significantly during that time.
“They came to us specifically because they saw refactoring and the need to take their older Java or C# apps and get them refactored to targeted cloud services, microservices, and containers,” said Kory Caze, TSRI’s Lead Account Executive. It’s a service TSRI has begun to offer, and will certainly become a focus area in the coming year.
The refactoring or transformation of nearly any legacy language to modern languages is certainly one the core values TSRI offers to the modernization market. The capability to modernize more than standard IBM COBOL applications can be useful for, say, an airline that needs to modernize their FORTRAN applications—an opportunity that actually presented itself at the conference this year.
“There are so many software languages and technologies out there, that you can't have a one-size-fits-all solution for,” Kory said. In fact, TSRI’s Director of Business Development, René Wagner, had three different inquiries about doing a transformation from MUMPS, a relatively obscure mainframe language originally developed for healthcare operations—all within 10 minutes of each other! “It's like the most random language,” said René.
Knowing that several companies have joined AWS’s Mainframe Modernization competency is reassuring to smaller companies like TSRI. They have a significant role to play in bringing major corporations and public sector agencies to the cloud quickly and efficiently, according to René.
“If you went over to the modernization area [at re:Invent] and you asked Amazon, ‘Who do you use to transform your systems to modernize the mainframe?’” René said, “their answer was, ‘Oh, we have an ecosystem of partners that we utilize to get this work done.’”
Everyone on the TSRI team saw live, in action, that modernization will be important over the next few years. Migration to the cloud, they all said, is not a matter of if, but when.
“That was kind of the feeling that I got,” René said. “Modernization is happening, and these people have bled enough on what they currently have.”
While TSRI has begun to focus more of its efforts on cloud migrations, with AWS as a leading platform, the re:Invent conference opened the company’s eyes to plenty of opportunities that the company’s leadership might not have considered even a year or two ago. Being on the floor as a first-time sponsor and having the ability to demonstrate what the company can do, through Application Blueprint® demonstrations, or walking booth visitors through case studies, has opened a lot of doors for the TSRI team.
“The AWS mainframe migration announcement validates the tools, capabilities, and shift that TSRI has undergone, as well as in the industry,” said Scott Pickett, TSRI’s Vice President of Service Operations and Product Delivery.
Next year should be even more interesting.
If you were unable attend AWS re:Invent 2021, you can still access the materials TSRI shared that show what we can do to help your organization modernize to the AWS cloud. Download this information to get started!
Case Study: Modernizing a Critical ILS-S U.S. Air Force System for AWS
TSRI’s approach to modernizing mainframe technology for AWS
Checklist: Preparing for Cloud Modernization
TSRI is Here for You
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.
