Deutsche Bank's relatively reliable mainframe infrastructure utilized COBOL and JCL languages running DB2 and VSAM flat-file databases for a variety of their key financial applications. The company’s leadership knew they would need to be cloud-enabled with a modern architecture to stay relevant for its customers and ongoing market needs. Following a successful proof of concept against other well-known industry soluitons, TSRI emerged as the best solution (highest quality output and most advanced architecture) for the full modernization effort of Deutsche Bank’s internal KreditManager application. An application which gives the company’s employees all of the tools they need to handle all of the company’s loan, credit and mortgage applications.
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Customer: Deutsche Bank Source & Target Language: COBOL & JCL to Java & Python Lines of Code: 397,222 (383,358 - COBOL, 13,864 - JCL) Duration: 12 Months Services: Automated Code Transformation, Automated Refactoring, Integration and Testing Support, SonarQube Quality Refactoring, Code-Specific Adaptation, Database Migration, Transformation Blueprint®, Application "As-Is" Blueprint®
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This case study documents technologies, processes, and methods of the timely and 100% automated conversion of a portion of the VHA (Veterans Health Administration) Information Systems and Technology Architecture (VistA) system, written in 2.1 million lines of MUMPS. The modernized module resulted in object-oriented and highly maintainable Java compatible with the J2EE framework. VistA is the core Electronic Healthcare Recordkeeping (EHR) system for the VHA hospital system, which provides EHR record keeping for more than 4.5 million veterans.
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Customer: Veterans Health Administration and SAIC Source & Target Language: Mumps to Java Lines of Code: 300,000 Duration: 5 Months Services: Automated Code Transformation, Automated Refactoring, Integration and Testing Support, Engineering Support, Transformation Blueprint®, Application "As-Is" Blueprint®
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Using money from the Technology Modernization Fund (TMF) under the Modernizing Government Technology Act disbursed by the General Services Administration (GSA) of the U.S. government, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) sought to modernize several of its remaining critical systems on a legacy Unisys mainframe written in COBOL with a flat-file DMS-II database.
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Customer: Department of Housing and Urban Development and Salient CRGT Source & Target Language: Unisys COBOL to Java Lines of Code: 1.3 Million Duration: 8 Months Services: Automated Code Transformation, Automated Refactoring, Integration and Testing Support, Enginerring Support, Software Maintenance Agreement, Transformation Blueprint®, Application "As-Is" Blueprint®,
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The U.S. Air Force uses the Integrated Logistics System – Supply (ILS-S), of which the Standard Base Supply System (SBSS) is a major part, as a mainstay of their supply chain. The SBSS program includes over 1.5 million lines of COBOL, as well as smaller numbers of C and Assembly, all of which are to be transformed into Java.
As we enter a new year, it’s only natural to look back on what we accomplished in the past 365 days. Many of those accomplishments centered around explaining what TSRI does in a way that nearly everyone can understand. Software modernization and refactoring solutions are, by their very nature, complex concepts. Teams of specialized engineers are required to successfully complete each project, and even the simplest automated transformations can take months to get all the right pieces put into place.
In this blog, we highlight some of the most informative pieces published in 2021. These materials were designed to help make the automated modernization process easier to understand and navigate from start to finish. We hope you’ll find them useful as you consider your organization’s IT plans and modernization initiatives for the coming year.
GETTING READY TO MODERNIZE!
Modernizing to the Cloud
Scott Pickett, TSRI’s Vice President of Product Operations and Service Delivery, conducted a live presentation that discussed how automated modernization can help organizations move their applications to the cloud. The presentation resulted in a complete series of videos, all of which are accessible from the post linked above.
Check out this article featuring a downloadable Checklist: Preparing for Cloud Modernization to help you assess your organization’s current assets, including your existing codebase, databases, and other tools that may be installed on your mainframes and other legacy technologies.
MODERNIZE WITH LESS DISRUPTION
One of the major risks of any modernization is the amount of time a system will be taken offline during cutover to the new environment. Any downtime becomes a disruption to the business, whether that means lost revenue or maintaining security of mission-critical systems. This post, 4 Tips for Modernizing with Minimal Business Disruption discusses ways that organizations can mitigate disruption, and also explains how proofs of concepts, step-wise automated migrations, and proper planning play into maintaining continuous uptime.
Common Misconceptions About Modernization (And What to Do About Them)
Application modernization is a game changer in any organization. Oftentimes, perceived obstacles, such as prolonged system downtime, get in the way of bringing mission-critical applications to modern programming environments. This article helps to dispel many of those notions.
Automated Refactoring: The Critical Component to Achieving a Successful Modernization
When any application gets modernized, the codebase shifts from a legacy language such as COBOL or PL/1 to a modern language such as C# or Java. However, just because the language is up to date doesn’t mean the system will operate more efficiently. That’s why refactoring is so important: this automated, iterative process eliminates dead code and redundancies while streamlining the entire application. It’s truly the key to more secure, robust applications.
Microservices Offer Robustness and Security in Modern Systems
Many, if not most of the clients who modernize their mainframes with TSRI started out with monolithic systems. All functions in the workflow relied upon one another, and if one area went down, the entire system went down. Modern software architecture operates using multiple tiers that interoperate with one another, but aren’t dependent on each other. That means if one area goes down, the entire system doesn’t go down with it. A component of this structure, known as microservices, makes for easier software maintenance and also protects organizations while allowing for faster go-to-market strategies for new applications.
Cloud Migration and Containerization: 3 Steps to Reduce Risk and Ensure Success
An important benefit to automated modernization is how the business logic of the transformed application never changes. Sometimes, particularly when modernizing to the cloud, the legacy application may still require some usage. Rather than keep the mainframe in operation or employing some other inefficient, insecure method, transforming to a containerized modern codebase can keep those application instances separate from the rest of its processes. This method increases security and efficiency while allowing for further system development in modern languages.
As you contemplate modernizing your mainframe or embedded-system applications in the new year, we hope these articles will provide you with the knowledge you need to move forward.
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.
PL/1 - Life in COBOL's Shadow
When IBM developed the framework for its PL/1 computing language in the 1960s, the committee of business and scientific programmers that developed the parameters for the language could not have foreseen today’s modern technologies of a phone in every pocket and digital access to anyone on the planet via the internet. They also may have hoped for, but likely did not foresee, how a mainframe language and architecture that survived 60 years would still be in use today.
Though PL/1 never reached the level of popularity of its COBOL competitor, it was still used on multiple government, corporate and defense mainframe systems throughout the years. It is, by many accounts, a very stable and reliable language—it even had more features in some areas than COBOL! However, programmers and organizations had little business or technical incentive to adopt the language. Today, having lived for so long in the shadow of COBOL and Fortran, finding programmers with PL/1 experience has become harder each year making it increasingly difficult to maintain any remaining mainframe applications. Those challenges have made PL/1 a desirable candidate to transform into a modern language like C++, C#, or Java.
Modernizing PL/1 - Success is in the Details
When it comes to automated modernization and refactoring, a successful outcome lies in the details. For example, TSRI engineers spend a lot of time prior to transforming any code understanding how a step-wise process could allow a critical system to operate continuously without any disruption or data loss. Going step-wise means that some components of the system such as the login function or other application program interfaces can be modernized, tested, and, if necessary, reverted to the original application without any impact on the rest of the application or the end user. Because an automated modernization creates a like-for-like replica of the functionality in the target language—in this case C# in a Windows environment—the successful migration of each step means that subsequent transformations will be easier because the automated transformation engine continues to learn and adjust.
Following the transformation of PL/1 to the modern computing environment, an automated, iterative refactoring process can find redundant, dead, or unused code and remediate while making the entire codebase more efficient. PL/1 was designed to facilitate programming using human-readable logic so automated refactoring can also reduce code overhead significantly. Furthermore, the transformation from the monolithic environment of early mainframe languages to a multi-tier environment separates the programming from the data and the user interface enabling further functional development while preventing system disruption.
PL/1 is not unique in how the architectures that run this legacy language can be modernized but given the age of the language and lack of business or programmer support, undergoing an automated modernization may be the best way to transform PL/1 applications to modern languages and architectures.
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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.
Get started on your modernization journey today!
One huge benefit to an automated modernization is the migration from a monolithic architecture to a multi-tier architecture. The multi-tier, or layered, architecture separates the data layer from the logic layer, and also makes the presentation layer—what the end user sees and interacts with—independent of the other two. In this video segment, Scott Pickett discusses how this modern-day style of architecture allows developers to extend the functionality of an application without affecting the data or behavior of an application. Even more important, however, he explains how a modernized application can continue to refer back to legacy databases when organizations migrate to their target environment in smaller steps rather than committing all at once.
Be sure to view our other videos in this series:
Videos 1 & 2: “Setting Project Scope” and “Setting Up Development Sandboxes”
Video 3: Selecting Cloud Vendors and Your Target Language
Video 4: Using Automation to Quickly and Accurately Move to a Multi-Tier Environment
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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.
As Scott notes in this video, the latest in our Modernizing for the Future series for undertaking a cloud modernization, “One of the benefits associated with using an automated technology is that none of it is done by hand.” In this video Scott introduces the idea of automation when it comes to modernization and how taking this avenue will preserve the functionality and logic of the legacy applications. The benefit is that the application will operate exactly the same way it did previously, but with capabilities to expand into a more tiered approach so the application can take advantage of the best the cloud has to offer.
Originally aired live on May 18, 2021.
Additionally, having the automated transformation preserve the functionality means once organizations are ready to put the cloud applications into production, the data layer remains consistent so this can be done gradually with very little downtime in the production environments. That minimal business disruption greatly reduces the risk of data loss and technical failures. And from there, automated and semi-automated refactoring can begin to improve the quality and functionality of the application—all in a cloud environment.
Be sure to view our other videos in this series:
Videos 1 & 2: “Setting Project Scope” and “Setting Up Development Sandboxes”
Video 3: Selecting Cloud Vendors and Your Target Language
As always, TSRI can help answer any questions you may have about modernization, automation, and making sure your systems are ready to deploy in modern computing environments.
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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.
