1 / 25

Legacy Applications: Valuable Assets or Decrepit Liabilities? 7 February 2003

Legacy Applications: Valuable Assets or Decrepit Liabilities? 7 February 2003. Scale of the opportunity. There were 6,267,000,000 people on our planet in late 2002 ...Driving 722,000,000 cars (average age 6.8 years in the UK) ….And living in 1,645,000,000 households

donal
Télécharger la présentation

Legacy Applications: Valuable Assets or Decrepit Liabilities? 7 February 2003

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Legacy Applications: Valuable Assets or Decrepit Liabilities? 7 February 2003

  2. Scale of the opportunity • There were 6,267,000,000 people on our planet in late 2002 • ...Driving 722,000,000 cars (average age 6.8 years in the UK) • ….And living in 1,645,000,000 households • They had ‘invested’ $5,000,000,000,000 in software (according to Information Week and IBM) • ...And by 1998 had developed an estimated 7,000,000,000 function points • ...Of which 30% were COBOL • These function points were equivalent to about 640,000,000,000 lines of COBOL

  3. Questions • What to do with those ‘legacy’ applications? • Do we keep them running as long as possible and replace them when they are past their sell-by date? • …or is there an alternative, such as re-hosting, renovation, re-use or recycling? • If yes, how to decide which way to go? • What’s involved? • Where to go for help? Are legacy applications like cars, to be replaced on a regular basis by newer, more fashionable and/or economic models, …. or more like houses, to be maintained long-term, and extended or modified to meet our changing needs, and perhaps completely renovated once in a while?

  4. A couple of definitions • A legacy application is any application based on older technologies and hardware, such as mainframes, that continues to provide core services to an organisation. • Legacy transformation is about retaining and extending the value of the legacy investment through migration to new platforms. Transformation can involve any combination of translation, migration, recycling, and re-use

  5. Why transform? 1. It retains/enhances the value of the application in the business 2. Because it’s better economics Higher Transform Do nothing Application Value Initial maintenance phase Enhancement phase(s) Replace Lower Time Initial implementation

  6. What’s inside the ‘black box’? ??????? Legacy Application Transformed Application

  7. Translate Migrate data Test Re-use Analyse and assess the legacy systems Compon-entise Add function-ality Integrate Set transformation goals & success measures Administer and control transformation activities Inside the black box - the process

  8. Challenges • Preserve the business rules. • Keep the migration timeframe short enough to avoid retrofit issues. • Retain the functionality of the application through any migration process. • Retain ‘know-how’ in the organisation to support on-going maintenance. Automating the transformation process is central to addressing these challenges

  9. Translate Migrate data Re-use A snapshot of available solutions SWS DASE, Relativity Rescueware, Intercomp eMaker - hierarchical & relational to relational Sapiens eMerge, Prolifics - middleware ArtinSoft Freedom, Relativity Rescueware - Legacy to J2EE, .NET, others HostBridge, Jacada, DataDirect - Web-enabling Netron HotRod, Semantic Designs, McCabe Concerto2, CAST - code mapping and pattern detection Test Analyse and assess the legacy systems Compon-entise Add function-ality Integrate Set transformation goals & success measures Administer and control transformation activities McCabe Audit - assess metrics SWS Software, Prince - COBOL dialect revision ArtinSoft Analyzers - diagnostic assessment ASG Encore - extract COBOL code segments Cyrano Wincap - retro-documentation Merant NetExpress - wrap COBOL in Java ASG Rochade - administration, versioning

  10. Example 1: GYSSA transformed an ERP product • GYSSA is based in Guatemala, with regional offices in all the Central American countries. GYSSA’s ERP product (called SPC) took 48 programmer-years to develop and has 7 sub-systems aimed at Central American market needs for B2B, CRM, ERP, information portal and business intelligence. • Architecture was Client/Server, mostly written in earlier versions of Visual Basic. • Two choices: build new system from scratch (estimate was three years based on previous experience) or migrate and re-architect. • Upgrading SPC to .NET was decided on as the best way to remain competitive in the Central American market and to stay in the forefront as a supplier of ERP solutions in the area. • Diagnostic analysis revealed that transformation could be completed in eight months, with an equally sized development team at one quarter the cost. • Automatic translation tools were based on ArtinSoft’s upgrade wizard for Visual Basic 6.0 to .NET.

  11. Example 2: Owens & Minor transformed contracts and pricing applications - and avoided ERP package implementation • Owens & Minor are a leading US distributor of medical/surgical supplies. • Existing contracts and pricing applications were 15 years old - heavily customised, written in OS/2. Complex rules for pricing with unique prices for each customer and product. • Original software vendor out of business. • Future requirement for such capabilities as multicurrency transactions over the Web • Relativity Technologies provided tools to analyse business rules and translate the COBOL and CICS into Java. • Tool tested on three master files containing EDI maps and customer information. The test project was complete within six months. • “It easily would have cost us tens of millions of dollars to go with SAP or Oracle. So far we've spent about $1 million on this project…we should complete the whole thing within 18 months and for less than $5 million” CIO David Guzman

  12. HAHT Commerce Suite application code HAHT deployment pack Application server (eg IBM Websphere) Example 3: Tharco extended package application through Web front-end • THARCO designs and manufactures corrugated boxes, and foam cushioning plastics. THARCO carries an inventory of 1,600+ sizes of stock corrugated boxes and packaging materials. • Requirement: To enable customers to go online to place or check the status of their orders - the company also saves money and increases efficiency by streamlining the front portions of its business process. • THARCO was an all-SAP shop, so mySAP was the obvious choice - however, complexity, licensing and transaction-fee issues - and overall cost led - THARCO chose an alternative middleware option which exposed the required parts of SAP to the Web. Web browser Standard Web server SAP R/3 Illustrative example

  13. Translate Migrate data Re-use Example 4: How Anglo-Irish Bank upgraded COBOL-based back-office applications Used Intercomp MineIT to discover business rules, regenerate COBOL Used Intercomp AnalyzeIT to analyse code and structure Test Micro Focus COBOL DB2 Consolidated data Bank leveraging DB2 for extracts, reporting Improved code semantics, readability Scalable ACUCOBOL ISAM Distributed data Scalability limits Record locking problems Problems in maintenance Analyse and assess the legacy systems Compon-entise Add function-ality Integrate Set transformation goals & success measures Administer and control transformation activities 2.5 million lines of code Contractors migrated data

  14. Example 5: ALLTEL transformed data resource • ALLTEL Information Services provides banking and mortgage software to financial organisations in the U.S. • ALLTEL is developing new real-time/DB2 products to complement existing financial software suite. Components of this software suite are used by four of the top ten banks in the U.S. One of the major challenges of the initial project is moving from a VSAM to a DB2 data model. • ALLTEL used Netron’s DMS product and associated services based on an iterative, rules-based approach to data migration. • ALLTEL also use this as the standard method for helping its customers move their data models to DB2 as they upgrade to new releases of ALLTEL’s software products.

  15. What strategy? • Choice driven by business needs - ‘push’ to save money, or ‘pull’ to meet market requirements. • Mix and match 4 options to transform the applications - replace, re-use, transform, rewrite. • Consider the future of the overall application portfolio. • Choose the target platform based on general strategic considerations. Migrations due to mergers and acquisitions can fit more than one category

  16. Business benefits and drivers Legacy Transformation - Business Value Model Business Driver External focus Internal focus Deteriorating system Economy eBusiness Get ready for change Extend reach inside business and/or external to business Key business objective Survival, operational continuity Reduce operating costs Position business for the future • Improved maintainability (documentation, easier to fix) • Access to support • Lower operating costs • Access to new customers (package supplier) • More adaptable system • Reduced operating costs, licence costs, back-up/disaster recovery costs • Opportunity to outsource • Reduced complexity • More adaptable system • Increased revenues • New customers/users • Better service to existing, new customers/users • Reduced customer acquisition costs • Brand enhancement • Adaptable system • Closer integration with business partners • Extended services to customers • Web Services option • Re-use of components • Future-proofing Value dimensions

  17. Key factors are quality of the legacy and availability of standard packages Unique, non-standard REWRITE TRANSFORM Type of Application Standard, packages available REPLACE RE-USE (or RE-CYCLE) High Low Quality of Legacy Application Adapted from Erlich

  18. Steps to a decision Legacy portfolio Overview of Decision Process Screen for continuing business value Assess Individual Legacy Applications Drivers Outcome Deteriorating system Transform Applications: A B C D E ... • Quality • Cost • Business fit • Level of business change • Resourcing • Affordability Selected applications Rewrite Looking for economies Replace Adding eBusiness functionality Re-use Map portfolio against drivers Do nothing Getting ready for change Input to business case

  19. Which target platform? • .NET and J2EE - most automatic translation products target these platforms • Re-use, scalability, and wide access to related products and services. • Integrated Development Environments (IDEs) make the development and maintenance task easier. • Application containers (runtime environments) provide the qualities of service necessary for enterprise applications such as transaction handling, security and persistence services. • Growing skill base. • Suitable for Web Services. • Willingness to accept commitment to one strategic supplier a factor to consider in choosing .NET. Choice between .NET and J2EE best made on broader strategic grounds

  20. Translate Migrate data Re-use Set transformation goals & success measures Administer and control transformation activities Making it happen Project set-up Acquire transformation technologies Proof of Concept Additional functionality definition Test Analyse and assess the legacy systems Compon-entise Add function-ality Integrate Build know-how

  21. Translate Migrate data Test Re-use Analyse and assess the legacy systems Compon-entise Add function-ality Integrate Set transformation goals & success measures Administer and control transformation activities Example 6: Building know-how at North Carolina Department of Justice • DOJ is migrating an application from an existing Unisys COBOL/MASM/MAPPER mainframe legacy application environment to a Java-based application. The migration was a pilot for the transformation of mainframe legacy code in other applications. Build know-how DOJ staff with little or no knowledge of the existing business rules contained in the existing code reviewed and comprehended the COBOL application's architecture, organisation and processes Established training material and conducting training class for DOJ's IT staff. Worked with consultants to validate the JAVA programming standards, the XML messaging standards and the state service broker architecture to be utilised for the project.

  22. Selling the transformation project - what makes it so difficult? • If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it - Managers like to get something new for their money - transforming a legacy application looks like a project to ‘fix’ something that already works. • Jam tomorrow - Transformation makes it easier to maintain and enhance the application in the future - to address things that might happen. This is always worth less than immediate benefits. • Apples and Oranges - Are you comparing like with like? The costs of the transformation project have to be spelled out, while the true cost of today’s legacy (disruptions, maintenance issues, costly operations, and so on) is often hidden in other budgets. These must be spelled out if the transformation project is to be compared with the cost of doing nothing.

  23. Choosing a business partner - Follow the money Operations ‘Infrastructure’ suppliers Transformation Project Base Platform Provider Enabling Technology Mining Tools Conversion Tools System Integrator Outsourcer IS Department Customer Licence-driven revenues Project-driven revenues Operations-driven revenues

  24. In summary Transformation works It’s feasible to extend the business value of core legacy applications by migration to new platforms. Transformation is probably cheaper than rewriting or replacing a legacy application. Choose suppliers, tools and mix of transformation approaches based on future business needs and realities of the legacy portfolio. A first transformation project has a steep learning curve. It’s advisable to work closely with the experts to ensure success. Real savings are possible Horses for courses Alliances are key to success

  25. Thank you Declan Good declan@declan.vispa.com

More Related