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.
In past decades, software applications for organizations and enterprises were built as single systems designed to fulfill multiple business needs. These applications are often referred to as monolithic due to their enormous size and cumbersome nature. In a monolithic structure, all functionalities rely upon one another, making them very difficult to update or maintain—making changes in one area can create unknown failures in others. Additionally, maintenance and upgrades can be a very heavy burden not just for the system administrators, but for the business as a whole. Entire areas within the organization are often offline for hours or even days as administrators hold their breath to make sure the new/upgraded applications don’t break something else.
One of the most important architectural advances since the rise of cloud computing is microservices. Though not necessarily tiny in size, microservices offer an alternative by breaking down monolithic applications into multiple, single-purpose services that interoperate with—rather than depend on—each other. These decoupled services are highly flexible, scalable, reliable, and can run simultaneously across multiple applications.
Microservices also make processes more efficient. They have the ability to communicate with one another to make a complete system and enable teams to use agile software development practices to deliver constant, ongoing software releases rather than forcing administrators to rely on single time-intensive upgrades.
From a business perspective, microservices can fulfill customer and employee requirements on an as-needed basis to provide new services and functionality. Their efficiency often means faster time to market on new products and services, and since they can be developed independently, organizations experience reduced risk with minimal business disruption.
When considering modernizing monolithic applications and making the move to a cloud-based microservice architecture, you must first assess, tune, and optimize your applications for a successful effort. Consider these items when preparing for a modernization of your legacy mainframe systems to bring them up to par with today’s architectures and languages:
While there are many different approaches to software modernization, the most accurate, efficient, and cost-effective option is a fully automated solution. Automation provides significant advantages over manual enhancements, not the least of which is a huge reduction in risk due to the introduction of human error to the modernized application.
A fully automated modernization includes a key component known as architectural refactoring. With refactoring, the application is re-engineered to improve the modernized system’s architecture, user interface, and maintainability. This iterative process also includes the removal of dead and redundant code while improving the quality and effectiveness through each pass. The refactoring process retains the functional equivalency of the original application while making the system more flexible, microservice compatible, and ready for cloud deployment.
Modernizing your monolithic applications to microservices and the cloud is no easy feat. It will take a team of experts to not only focus on the tactical modernization of the software, but also work closely with you to put your organization on the path to success. This means working to understand your existing architecture with an assessment and documentation, developing a roadmap to your target language and architecture, and finally, getting you across the finish line with a fully modernized and improved application that’s ready for microservices and the cloud. This start-to-finish partner will be an invaluable ally in your efforts.
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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.
