io - case study - efficient and sustainable cobol maintenance

8/2/2019 iO - Case Study - Efficient and Sustainable COBOL Maintenance

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Case Study: Efficient and sustainable Maintenance of Delta Cobol2

Technology Domain Model

l e g a c y r e d u c t i o n a b s t r a c t i o n

AnalysisAbstraction

Hints Provider

Legacy SystemModel

Starting pointThe group-life system was developed inthe early 90 th in Delta Cobol and is run-ning on a mainframe. It consists of approx. 10 million lines of code.

The main goal of the entire moderniza-tion project is the minimization of riskdue to fading skill sets and the reductionof the high maintenance cost the systemcauses today.

Project organisationThe modernization project is composedof several subprojects covering followingareas:

- Technology modernization to improveoperating processes.

- Re-engineering of problem modules,to minimize project and release cycles

- Replacement of DMS modules with aCOTS software package.

- Efficiency and costs of perfective andcorrective maintenance.

This last area, efficiency and costs of maintenance, was defined as crucial, notonly for the offered support to the otherproject streams, but because of its signifi-cance for future daily operations: a moreefficient execution of maintenance tasksand a comprehensive understanding of structural and behavioural characteristicsof the system.

Only the result of a complete analysis onboth, the fine- and coarse-grained level,allows for the identification and realiza-tion of the significant saving and optimi-zation potential.

The selection process for a competentpartner was of high importance anddriven by two decision criteria: shortterm value leverage for the other projectstreams, and incremental value deliveryto maintenance tasks. The customer waslooking for a solution, not a product.

Solution approachInteractive Objects offers, as partof the Business IT Transformationapproach, a solution for reverseengineering and incremental re-documentation, MoRE, whichsupports and optimizes the ongo-ing maintenance processes andhelps to choose and define opti-mal migration strategies.

We offer a flexible solution toolkit com-prising methods and tools for maintainingand modernizing legacy applications atcalculable and low risk.

Together with the customer we use thepart of our complete solution that allowsfor analysis and incremental re-documentation of the Delta Cobol appli-cation, and embedded two new transpar-ent phases in the maintenance process:

reduce and recover.

The reduce phase reduces the complexity.The Delta Cobol code is parsed and de-pendencies of programs, statements anddata tables are visualized. Less relevantdetails are ignored (not shown). The deci-sion about relevance is configured on aproject by project basis.

Relevant elements are shown in graphicalrepresentations providing navigation

facilities from all graphical elements tothe source code and vice versa.

In the recovery phase the results of the reduce phase are converted intomore abstract models e.g UML mod-els. This abstract level facilitates thediscussion of business processes be-tween business and IT department.New requirements can be discussedand integrated as well as existingprocesses can be re-engineered and

optimized.

The process of abstraction is addition-ally supported by the solution toolkit

by offering hints to potential entities, andprocesses.

In order to provide a complete traceabil-ity and understanding of the system, theabstract model elements are linked to thegraphical representations of the code aswell as to the code itself. Navigation

along the different abstraction levels,system artefacts and technologies lever-age more efficient searches and reliabledependency analysis.

The abstract level builds the startingpoint for impact analysis for new re-quirements and enables the implementa-tion of efficient and productive mainte-nance processes. It makes the entiresystem understandable to all involved

stakeholders, from developers to busi-ness experts.

Multidimensional AnalysisApplication developers already startedusing concepts like separation of con-cerns, frameworks, etc. A living exampleis manifested by this customer with two“home-made” frameworks to control theworkflow of the business processes andthe dialogs involved in these steps.

In order to provide a complete under-standing of the system, we extended therecovery features to handle these addi-tional information sources. This enabledthe customer to increase efficiency andquality of analysis and maintenance, as allthree major elements (business processdesign, dialog design and code) becamean integrated part of daily analysis andmaintenance tasks.

Additionally this extension helped toreduce the communication barrier be-tween business and IT, as the knowledge

Customer Statement:„during the Proof of Concept Interactive Objects (iO) clearly went the extra-mile to provide the most optimal coverage for our needs. Thisand iO’s bullet-proof business casebased on their processes andsupporting tools have been crucialcriteria for selecting iO. We arelooking forward to the results of the

next milestone and hope to extendthe results within other depart-ments.“



Case Study: Efficient and sustainable Maintenance of Delta Cobol3

UseCase

HighLevel

Activity

Screen

Source

Abstract

Low LevelActivity

Dependencies

about the system was made available todifferent stakeholders.

Role based perspectives/ viewsInteractive Objects’ MoRE solution offersseveral views on the existing system,which are tailored to the needs of thedifferent stakeholders involved in themaintenance and modernization processe.g.:

• project managers• business analysts• software architects• software designers• developers

The “screen“ perspective for instanceshows the user interfaces as they areknown by the applications user. The navi-gability allows for the navigation from the“screen” to the corresponding code andvice versa. That feature eases the defini-tion of change requests for the user andeases the realization of change requestsfor the developer.

The navigability through the differentperspectives helps to identify potential

side effects in case of extending or chang-ing steps in the existing business proc-esses. This reduces the risk, increases thequality, and decreases the testing ef-fort/cost.

Customer valueThe customer value of this approach canbe summarized as follows:

► Increased efficiency of the futuremaintenance process and change re-quest realization. Less effort and bet-ter communication between user,business analysts and IT responsible.

► Lowered risk caused by fading skillsdue to well documented applicationusing abstract models instead of justcode.

► Improved quality due to completeanalysis and graphical representationof dependencies on different levels of abstraction. Enabling re-use all levels.

► Cost reduction due to increased effi-ciency and high quality of deliver-ables. Avoiding potential cost drivercaused by fading legacy technologyand application skills.

► Supporting the definition of and deci-sion for the adequate migration strat-egy.

► Controlled Off-shoring : allows a clearand efficient definition of off shoredevelopment tasks and an integratedmonitoring of quality, correctness andaccuracy of deliverables.

GermanyInteractive Objects Software GmbHBasler Straße 61D – 79100 Freiburg

GermanyPhone: +49 761 400 73-0Fax: +49 761 400 73-73

io - case study - efficient and sustainable cobol maintenance

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