Mainframe Application Modernization for Enterprise Developers

World®
’16
Mainframe Application Modernization
for Enterprise Developers
Ryan Johnson - Executive Director - Facet Consulting
MFX110V
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Abstract
Many organizations depend on enterprise applications to drive their business, and have invested
significantly in these, often over many decades. Despite best efforts, COBOL is still the dominant
programming language used in these systems. The challenge for these organizations is updating
and modernizing these complex enterprise applications at the speed the application economy
demands. Of the approaches to modernization, renewal is a sound option when balancing cost,
risk and the need to deliver value to the business as quickly as possible. CA Gen is an agile
development tool that will accelerate your developer productivity, reduce your maintenance
costs and future-proof your application for decades to come.
Ryan
Johnson
Facet Consulting
Executive Director

Agenda
MAINFRAME APPLICATION MODERNIZATION?
CA GEN: AN AGILE DEVELOPMENT SOLUTION
AUTOMATION COMPLETES THE PICTURE
DEMONSTRATION
SUMMARY
1
2
3
4
5

What is Mainframe Application Modernization?
§ Refactoring, re-writing, converting or replacing a
legacy application to align it more closely with
current business needs
– Meet the demands of business
– Address the failings of IT
§ It is not Application Migration
– Moving legacy applications to new platforms
– Focus is on reducing infrastructure costs
– Does not address core reason for Modernization
Create New Business Value From Existing Applications

Characteristics of a Mainframe Application
§ Large by any measure
§ Systems of Record
§ Mission critical
§ Mature and internally complex
§ Growing organically over decades
§ Outdated or non-existent documentation and
test plans
Enterprise Systems

Drivers for Mainframe Application Modernization
§ Demands of Business
– Application economy driving faster time to market
– More change – more often
– New channels and technologies to reach customers
§ Failings of IT
– Application complexity causing delays and increasing cost
– Applications are at risk of becoming unmaintainable
– Disparate technologies and siloed skill sets.
§ IT is constraining business from delivering results
From Business Driver to IT Bottleneck

Application Modernization Strategies
§ Manage Risk
– Acknowledge the application’s importance
§ Address both data and code
– Data is a critical asset
§ Accommodate application complexity
– Complex is normal
Elements of a Successful Modernization Approach

Application Modernization Options
§ Rewrite
– Let’s throw it away and start again
§ Replace
– Acquire one or more software packages delivering the
same functionality
§ Renew
– Modernize/Transform/Refactor what you currently have
How to Break the Deadlock?

§ Potentially the best outcome; but…
– Very high cost
– Very high risk of failure
– Very long project duration
– Long business change lockdown
§ Historically, very large projects
– Most are prone to failure
– Deliver fewest outcomes
Rewrite

§ A good option if..
– Package functional fit > 85%
– Your business is common
– IT is not a business differentiator
– Business will change for IT
§ If so, then…
– Lower cost, Moderate risk of failure
– Complex data migration
– Long Project Duration
– Moderate business lockdown
Replace

§ Compared to Rewrite/Replace
– Lowest risk
– Lowest cost
– Shortest project duration
– Shortest business lockdown
§ The best option when you have…
– Large quantities of data
– Unique business rules
– IT is a business differentiator
Renew

CA Gen: An Agile Development Environment
§ High Developer productivity
– Developer productivity increased through modelling and regeneration
rather than modification of target source
§ Scalability – Designed for Enterprise Applications
– Allows development teams to create and maintain large-scale business
applications for multiple platforms leveraging a single set of skills
– Produces stable and scalable applications – proven worldwide
§ Platform Independent
– Model driven development enables focus on business requirements
rather than technology. Generates 100% error free code
Characteristics of Agile Development

CA Gen: An Agile Development Environment
Multi-Platform Deployment Options
IBM Mainframe
DB2
Applications
CA Gen
Microsoft
SQL UDB
Applications
AIX/Solaris/HPUX
Oracle UDB
Applications
Linux: Suse/Redhat
Oracle UDB
Applications
GUI Windows3270 Screens
Application
technology
Application
deployment
platform
Application
delivery
channels
SOAP Web
Services
Proxies
Java and .NET
Web User interface Mobile

Automation Completes the Picture
§ Migrating COBOL applications to CA Gen offers
– New application delivery choices to support today’s business delivery demands
– Consolidation of application technologies to simplify infrastructure and reduce
skillsets
§ CA Gen is a superset of COBOL capabilities
– Delivers all existing COBOL mainframe application delivery
– Additionally offers GUI, Web, Web Services and Mobile channels
– Additionally supports Microsoft, Unix and Linux distributed channels
§ Automated solution to migrate COBOL applications into CA Gen
Automated COBOL to CA Gen Migration Now Available

The Modernization Approach
§ Automated transformation with ModelCVS STS©
§ COBOL to CA Gen developed with CA Technologies
§ Object modelling approach to transformation
– Consistent
– Scalable
– Faster time to market, minimizes business-change lockout
§ Proven transformation technology
– Over 1.6 billion lines of application code migrated
How to get from here to there?

The Transformation Process
3. Refactor
2. Analyse
100%
Automated
Extraction
Application business rules
and data structures
1. Extract
4. Transform
100%
Automated
Transformation

§ Parsing the Source Code
– Validates the source as COBOL
– Lexical analysis
§ Storing it as a meta model instance
– Creates the initial object model
– Self validating
– Basis for subsequent analysis
Extraction

§ Understand and document the ‘As-Is’
Application before Modernizing
§ Categorize the Application Architecture
– Presentation Layer
– Business Logic Layer
– Persistence Layer
Analysis

§ Deep Dive Analysis
– Data Flow (global, local variables)
– Calling Hierarchy
– Persistence (Data Base, File Usage)
– System Interfaces
– Business Rules
– Program Templates/Patterns
Analysis

§ Semi-Automatic Architectural Restructure
– Eliminate GO TO statements, Recursion and REDEFINES
– Eliminate technical artifacts (e.g. CICS or DB2 parameters)
– Merge Sections and Paragraphs into single CA Gen routines
– Service Oriented Decomposition (Building Utilities and
Isolated Services)
§ Focus on delivering well structured application architecture
Refactoring

§ Transformation into the CA Gen model
– Data Structure
§ Tables
§ Relationships
– Application Logic
§ Procedures
§ Action Blocks
– User Interface
Transformation

Lets Take a Look at This in Action
§ From COBOL to CA Gen
Demonstration

Proven Technology
§ AUSTRIAN MINISTRY OF DEFENSE (BMLV)
– Foundation customer for development of ModelCVS technology
§ ISBank, Turkey
– 15 Million Lines of automated COBOL refactored
– 1500 IMS databases migrated to DB2
§ AEGON INSURANCE, The Netherlands
– Consolidated DB technology – IDMS to DB2 (300+ tables)
– 5 Million lines of automated COBOL refactored
STS Reference Customers

Modernize your Mainframe Applications with CA Gen
Many organizations depend on Enterprise Applications to drive their business, and have invested significantly
in these, often over many decades. Despite best efforts, COBOL is still the dominant programming language
used in these systems.
The challenge for these organizations is updating and modernizing these complex, enterprise applications at
the speed the application economy demands. Of the approaches to modernization, renewal is a sound
option when balancing cost, risk and the need to deliver value to the business as quickly as possible.
CA Gen is an Agile development tool that will accelerate your developer productivity, reduce your
maintenance costs, and future-proof your application for decades to come.
Automated transformation from COBOL to CA Gen is something that you should consider as a modernization
option.
Summary
A Few Words to Review

Modern Application
Development
Mainframe Theater
Continuous Development and
Testing
Mainframe Theater
Must See Demos

Questions?

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Thank you.

Mainframe and Workload Automation
For more information please visit ca.com/appdev

Mainframe Application Modernization for Enterprise Developers

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