COBOL System

Modernizations

Case Studies

Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC) engaged TSRI to support the modernization of a legacy COBOL system for the Bureau of Citizenship & Immigration Services. Automated services provided by TSRI included "As Is" documentaion, transformation to C++, re-factoring, and "To Be" documentation.

TSRI was selected for Northrop Grumman's "2002 Small Business of the Year Award" for services provided in this Tandem COBOL85 and Tandem SQL modernization to C++ and Oracle9i. The automated services provided by TSRI included "As Is" documentaion, transformation to C++, re-factoring, "To Be" documentation, and web-enablement.

The National Endowments for the Arts (NEA) attempted a manual modernization of 3 Wang COBOL administrative sub-systems. This manual effort ended in complete failure. NEA engaged TSRI to document, transform, re-factor, and web-enable these sub-systems. With these automated services, NEA attained a sucessful modernization.

STG, Inc. awarded a contract to TSRI for the transformation, re-factoring and documentation of a Department of Defense administrative system. This modernization involved the automated transformation of HP COBOL into object oriented C++ and re-hosting the system's database.

Premera Blue Cross needed to modernize an automated assembly system. TSRI was contracted to assess the system, transform its legacy Wang COBOL into C++, and re-factor the modern sytem. The legacy system was capable of self-generating COBOL code. After TSRI's efforts, the modern system accurately self-generated equivlent C++ code.

The U.S. Air Force's Weapons System Cost Retrieval System was written in COBOL, ran on an AMD-5890 platform, and used a flat file data base. TSRI was engaged to perform the COBOL to C++ transformation and to separate data manipulation commands from the business logic allowing for an upgrade to a relational database.

The U.S. Air Force's Core Automated Maintenance System consisted of a Unisys DMS 2200 database and over 3.5 million lines of Unisys COBOL code. TSRI generated 120 Gigabytes of high-fidelity UML documentation to facilitate integration with the Integrated Maintenance Depot System.

The Oregon's Public Employees Retirement System required the modification and integration of two subsystems comprising over 250,000 lines of COBOL II code. TSRI's assessment and refactoring services reduced the complexity, eliminated redundancy and removed obsolete functionality to support the consolidation the two subsystems.

The Defense Technical Information Center attempted to manually modernize and web-enable a UNISYS 2200 COBOL application. The time and expense in transforming less than one third of the system into Java prompted the selection of TSRI's automated sloutions to complete the project. The cost savings for DTIC are estimated at over $440,000.

Janus' cobol 2 cpp is the world's leading cobol to c++ and cobol modernization solution. TSRI is capable of cobol transformation to modern languages.

TSRI's approach to COBOL system modernization permits gradual integrated steps within a model-driven methodology. Each step adds to a repository of knowledge about the application portfolio and guides subsequent steps in the modernization process. TSRI's automated processes insure consistent code integrity so manual intervention is seldom if ever used. Human decision-making is introduced only when necessary to guide the automated processes.

TSRI legacy system modernization begins by applying transformation rules to generate a platform independent model from the legacy application source code. TSRI calls this the Intermediate Object Model (IOM™). Platform specific rules are then applied to the IOM™ to derive the modernized application's source code. Any changes to the model-driven modernization process are accomplished by modifying rules or models. The software tool set developed by TSRI containing these models, rules, and automated processes is called JANUS™.

UML documentation can be generated to support multiple views of all modernization products. Code models and UML design can be interchanged using XML Metadata Interchange (XMI) with other vendors' tools. JANUS™ traces all rules to every object model touched or created during the transformation process. TSRI solves the O(N-squared) language transformation combinatorial problem by transforming all legacy source languages into the IOM™, a common platform and language neutral model. From the IOM™ multiple modern object oriented target languages can be generated for platform specific targets. The IOM™ consists of a set of language constructs common to all languages. By using the IOM™ as an intermediate model, the inherently O(N-squared) language transformation problem is reduced to an O(N) problem and model driven processes for assessment, analysis, metrics, documentation and re-factoring are reduced to O(1) problems. These are consistently and uniformly solved for all languages and platforms within the IOM™.

As an Object Management Group (OMG) Platform Member, TSRI is a leading contributor to the Architecture Driven Modernization Task Force (ADM TF) where TSRI seeks to advance OMG standards supporting best practices. TSRI's JANUS™ technology tools and services adhere to the OMG ADM TF standards and recommended practices.