The United States Customs and Border Protection agency contracted with The Software Revolution, Inc. (TSRI) for a Phase 1 assessment as well as a conversion and modernization of the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Cargo ACS/Quota (QUOTA) Conversion Pilot code from COBOL/CICS to Java or .Net.
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Customer: US Customs and Border Protection Source & Target Language: COBOL/CICS & JCL to Java Lines of Code: 163,700 Duration: 4 Months Services: Automated Code Transformation, Automated Refactoring, Integration and Testing Support, Internal and External Dependancy Analysis, Transformation Blueprint®, Application "As-Is" Blueprint®, Target Architecture Design
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Originally developed by Denmark-based KMD in 2001 as a mainframe software application, the e-Boks system became more difficult and costly to maintain over time. The original platform also lacked the agility to expand to additional countries at scale and was not agile enough to expeditiously react to business changes. TSRI and KMD were able to modernize the e-Boks application from its original IBM PL/1 legacy code in a monolithic architecture to a modern, multi-tier application in a modern computing environment, running .NET, with no impact on the business and end-user experience. As a result, e-Boks has the potential to save more than 50-60 percent per year in operations and maintenance costs.
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Customer: KMD and The Government of Denmark Source & Target Language: PL/1 & JCL to C# Lines of Code: 974,201 (781,893 - PL/1 and 192,308 - JCL) Duration: 6 Months Services: Transformation Blueprint®, Automated Code Transformation, Automated Refactoring, Integration and Testing Support
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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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How much automation actually makes a difference?
10% of 10 million lines of code is still 1 million lines.
A major modernization project involving millions or tens of millions of lines of code can take years and cost millions of dollars. Using artificial intelligence and modern computing method and automation, much of that time and expense can be eliminated. The question is, by how much? If your project starts out at 10 million lines of code and your automation technique cuts that down by 90%, you’re still left with a 1-million-line project that can take months to manually assess, document, transform, and refactor.
To appreciably accelerate large modernization projects, automation must eliminate as near as possible to 100% of the effort. That means in the range of 99.9X%. Without that, your organization can be left with significant and costly manual loads that can take years, strain budgets, result in unacceptable error rates, and still produce poorly written modern code. Even advanced automation cannot take code straight from any source language to a modern cloud-ready language. First, the code must be translated through a universally accepted language modeling system and standard to maximize the extensibility and efficiency of application analysis, transformation, and refactoring—an Intermediate Object Model (IOM). This is one of the keys to accelerating modernization that The Software Revolution Inc. (TSRI) has implemented for their clients.
The languages used for specifying grammars and transformations must fit the specific problems at hand and be as expressive and efficient as possible. TSRI has developed and defined three domain-specific high-level specification languages JPGEN™, JTGEN™ and JRGEN™:
JPGEN™ defines grammar system and language models
JTGEN™ delineates transformations between these models
JRGEN™, a 5th generation artificial intelligence language supports first order logic and predicate calculus as well as 3GL and 4GL language constructs
Together, these three proprietary tools comprise TSRI’s JANUS Studio®.
IOM: A Literally Exponential Improvement in Transformation
The three components of JANUS Studio® transform and compile software code originally developed in language such as Ada, Visual Basic, Vax Basic, C, C++, COBOL, C#, Java, Jovial, FORTRAN, and more than 30 other languages into efficient, platform-neutral C++. The core function of the IOM creates a language-neutral model into which all legacy source languages are transformed, and from which all modernized target languages can be generated. The IOM is effectively a universal translator. It simplifies the “O(n-squared)” language transformation problem to a much simpler “O(n+1)” language transformation problem. The IOM provides a set of generic language constructs that serve as a reusable language-neutral formalism for assessment, documentation, transformation, refactoring, and web-enablement.
This solution allows simple 64-bit multi-processor LINUX platforms to analyze massive software models using parallel processing.
Using IOM, and the expertise of TSRI’s exceptionally skilled developers, JANUS Studio® is simply the most powerful, least expensive, and lowest risk technology available to automatically modernize (assess, document, transform, refactor, and web-enable) legacy systems. Using the AI-enhanced capabilities of JANUS Studio®, 99.9X% of software transformation can be automated, cutting transformation project times from years to months—or weeks.
"Simply the most powerful, least expensive and lowest risk technology available to automatically assess, document, transform, refactor, and web-enable legacy systems.”
A Model for Automated Modernization
As Scale Increases, So Does Efficiency
JANUS Studio® allows TSRI developers to cut modernization projects so drastically using Artificial Intelligence-based modeling that drives that 99.9X% automation rate. Not only that, but because every application and every language is modernized and transformed at the meta-model stage, every prior project (regardless of the language or industry) further develops the toolset and TSRI libraries, resulting in greater value for each future project. The more scale, the more uses, the more efficient the process.
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It’s no surprise that TSRI adheres to the Object Management Group (OMG) principles of model-based and architecture-driven software modernization. We’re not just a member, TSRI is the principal author of the Abstract Syntax Tree Meta-Modelling Standard used by the OMG. We’re deeply involved in the innovations and future of OMG and look forward to the next Member Meeting March 21-25 in Reston, Virginia. If you plan to be there, we’d love to talk about how to significantly accelerate your modernization projects, while lowering cost and error rates.
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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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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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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.
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.
