How long would it take you to complete 25,000 tasks that take thirty minutes each?

Before you drag out your calculator, that’s 12,500 hours, or about 1,562 working days. Wouldn’t it be better to have it all done in under an hour? That gives you an idea of how refactoring—when done correctly—can accelerate modernization process and deliver accuracy in the range of just one error among 20,000 lines of code. That’s the kind of accuracy that’s needed for critical systems. Let’s talk about how refactoring achieves it so fast.

The refactoring phase of modernization at TSRI takes a project beyond updating the code and database to modern standards and system architecture. Sure, the planning, assessment, transformation, and integration phases of a modernization process get the mass of the work done. But more is needed. Imagine if a great painter only took a portrait to the point of getting the features in the right places. For functional equivalency, high performance, and future-readiness you need to dive into the details to get them as right as the original—and ready for future enhancements and needs.

That’s where refactoring can be hugely beneficial. If, after the transformation and integration phases you have to find and address each issue manually over hundreds of thousands or millions of lines of code, you may as well add those 12,500 or more hours back in. That’s why refactoring is key. By including an iterative code scanning and refactoring phase to the modernization process, TSRI automatically and semi-automatically remedies a host of issues at scale that would make developers run for the hills, including:

• Pinpointing and getting rid of dead or non-functional code
• Merging and consolidating duplicate code and data
• Improving design of code and data
• Eliminating system flaws from transformed software
   

"TSRI's refactoring process creates reusable components that can be applied to future projects"

And beyond those cleaning and refining functions, a well-designed refactoring process also provides forward-looking advantages. TSRI’s refactoring process improves maintainability, remediates security vulnerabilities, increases performance, and modularizes functionality. It also creates reusable components that can be applied to future projects for optimization, packaging, and redistribution.

When you’re able to reuse some or all of the outputs of automated or semi-automated refactoring, you don’t have to recreate the mechanisms for modern microservices, REST calls, and other reusable elements. They’re at your fingertips and ready for integration in modern environments or databases for future projects. It gives you the best of modularity, but customized and created specifically for your systems’ needs such as data-dictionaries, code and record consolidation, introduction of logging or comments, and more.

"It gives you the best of modularity, but customized and created specifically for your systems' needs."

One scan, one rule, and thousands of fixes

A key part of the refactoring process is scanning the newly modernized code to find issues for remediation. To do this, we use the SonarQube scanning tool. SonarQube is an open-source platform that executes continuous inspection of code quality in modernized code. It provides a detailed report of bugs, code smells, vulnerabilities, code duplications, and more. Once SonarQube has identified problems in the code the TSRI team can use the results to resolve the issues and improve code maintainability issues and security vulnerabilities.

This is where the economy of rules comes in. Once SonarQube has pointed out issues across thousands of lines of code, TSRI uses that intel to identify the types of issues that need to be addressed. When an issue appears once in an application, it often appears hundreds or thousands of times, and a single rule applied across all code can eliminate a host of individual instances.

So how did we get to those 12,500 hours we started with? We didn’t just make it up. In a TSRI project for Deutsche Bank, a single rule created based on a scan of the code fixed about 25,000 instances that issue. SonarQube estimated it would take 30 minutes to fix each instance. That means refactoring automated the remediation process and saved them about 12,500 hours of software development time. That’s a lot of Marks.

The proof is in the work. Refactoring can not only save thousands of coder hours, but a combination of code scanning and refactoring can also uplevel your modernization with:

• Maintainability making it easier to update and manage code going forward
• Readability for modern developers to find and improve the functions they need more easily
• Security by increasing the speed with which security issues can be found and remediated either manually or through refactoring rules
• Performance greatly increasing the efficiency of the application—for instance, enabling multiple services to run in parallel rather than sequentially.

Find out what refactoring done right can do for you, contact TSRI now

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What's in the Bill?
The Federal government is finally getting around to mandating the modernization of legacy IT systems within government agencies with the bipartisan Legacy IT Reduction Bill of 2022. If passed—and its bipartisan support from the likes of sponsors John Cornyn, (R-TX) and Maggie Hansen (D-NH) indicate that it probably will—the bill will seek to address the security, efficiency, and cost issues that arise from the ongoing use of antiquated systems and software languages throughout governmental agencies.

The bill will assert two basic mandates for government agencies.

1.   IT Inventory - In the first year after the bill’s passage, agencies will be required to submit an inventory of all legacy IT systems they use, operate, or maintain. Then every five years, that inventory must be updated. The inventories will also need to prioritize agencies’ top 10 systems in need of modernization, the most recent update or technology refresh the system went through, and the cost and contractor who maintains the system in addition to other details.

2.   Modernization Plan - Within two years of passage, agencies must submit their IT modernization plan to congress. In addition to the inventory, the plans submitted must include which systems the agency prioritized for modernization, retirement or disposal, and the steps the agency will take to modernize those systems.

"The funds are there now in the TMF, the question is, which agencies will get ahead of the regulation and access the funding before it is depleted?"

The Money Question: How Will Mandated Modernization be Funded?
While the bill does not create a funding source for modernization, it does mention existing sources of funding. Primarily, it references the Technology Modernization Fund (TMF) as one of the main programs that agencies will likely work with to support the plan along with the IT working capital funds (though working capital funds have had some trouble getting off the ground), and the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP), which is primarily concerned with security.

These are programs by application; not all government agencies get the kind of congressionally supported budgetary increases that the Internal Revenue Service received this year for IT modernization. The 2022 omnibus spending bill passed by congress allocated $275 million to the IRS to be used for business systems modernization. This increase of $52 million above previously enacted funding will help the agency modernize its legacy IT systems and improve IRS web applications. The size of the increase—and the willingness of Congress to allocate it—indicate the importance Congress has placed on getting modernization done across agencies.

Among the sources of funding we’ve mentioned, the TMF has proven to be the most successful in delivering funds to programs. Created by the Modernizing Government Technology Act of 2017, the TMF offers support to help agencies get ahead of the inevitable, while improving their services to the public, cost efficiencies, and security by making modernization funding available. So far, the TMF has received $175 million through the annual budget process and $1 billion through the American Rescue Plan to fund modernization projects.

A Track Record of TMF Success - with 99.67% Automation
With The Legacy IT Reduction Act of 2022 likely to pass, TSRI has a resounding track record of successfully supporting agencies in modernizing outdated legacy information technology systems. Our recent modernization project for the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) was the first to leverage the funds available through the TMF.

HUD partnered with TSRI and GovCIO using TMF funds to modernize several of its 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.

It was a remarkable success. On day one after the production systems were switched over to the cloud, the new system supported 25,356 users and 299,715 transactions with only three user problems reported.  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 modernization program has proven well worth the investment of TMF funds and the effort of HUD.

Watch This Space and Get Ahead of the Regulations
The HUD modernization project provides a solid model for soon-to-be-mandated modernization programs that agencies across the government will need to address soon. The funds are there now in the TMF, the question is, which agencies will get ahead of the regulation and access the funding before it is depleted?

As of March 30, 2022, the bill has been successfully voted out of the senate committee and recommended to the full Senate commending that the bill is considered further on the floor. We’ll keep you updated on its progress through this blog.

Get ahead of mandated modernization, contact TSRI now

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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. 

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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
See Case Studies 
Learn About Our Technology 
Get Started on Your Modernization Journey Today!