Our Automated Natural Refactoring solution delivers modern, Cloud-enabled applications and databases that are functionally equivalent to their legacy counterparts, eliminating the hassle and expense of Natural, Software AG licensing, and the mainframe. This reduces cost, allows for deeper integration, and enables customization to meet business requirements.
CHALLENGES
Developers who understand Natural and Adabas technology are reaching retirement age and no one is trained to replace them, resulting in a steadily diminishing talent pool. As this shortage grows, the costs and risk of relying on Natural will continue to rise.
Mainframes running Natural cost as much as 4,500 per cent more to operate than equivalent Cloud counterparts. This quandry is compounded by Natural and Adabas' rising licensing and maintenance fees.
Companies are rapidly moving to modern environments and practices such as DevOps and the Cloud. Natural, Adabas, and the underlying systems that support them were not designed for modern IT, resulting in difficult integrations and limited flexibility.
OUR SOLUTION
Our Automated Natural Refactoring solution preserves the benefits of legacy systems while empowering organizations to leverage the advantages of newer platforms, especially the Cloud. This unlocks a whole new world of quality and scalability from automated testing to quality assurance, and the ability to leverage containerized deployments and orchestration with Docker and Kubernetes.
Many Natural transformation solutions create structurally similar programs in the target language but require additional re-engineering efforts to yield desired results. Our Automated Natural Refactoring solution, harnessing a powerful combination of our Application Transparency Platform (ATP®) software and an iterative transformation methodology, delivers a modern Java or C# application based on fully maintainable open systems.
Our Automated Natural Refactoring process was designed with the following requirements in mind:
Once the Natural applications and associated databases are refactored, Java and C# developers can extend application functionality for Cloud optimization using standard DevOps tools and CI/CD concepts that simply aren’t available for mainframe applications. Precious business logic from the legacy system is preserved, while levels of optimization can be applied to deliver efficiencies and business benefits such as elasticity, granular service definition, and easy integration with Cloud-native services.
Optional self-service Natural modernization
ATP, the software behind our Automated Natural Refactoring and Natural Rehosting solutions, can be licensed and utilized by customers or partners for self-service modernization initiatives as an alternative to our turnkey Automated Refactoring service. Natural code is loaded into ATP where developers can selectively refactor segments of code (programs, business rules, subroutines, etc.) within the environment at their leisure. It can be used indefinitely as a Natural rehosting environment, taking advantage of the Natural coding skills which already exist in-house. It can also be a steppingstone on the path to a Java or C# migration by way of ATP’s 'Save As' feature. Customers who elect self-service Natural modernization with ATP typically use our Automated Data Migration services to extricate their legacy environments from Adabas and migrate into modern relational models.
OUR PROCESS
We begin every modernization initiative with a discovery, free of charge. Our modernization experts work with you to understand and document your business and technical goals and objectives. Together, we gather information about your mainframe estate. Everything from infrastructure to language and database types and quantities are accounted for. The discovery concludes with a workshop where we recommend optimal modernization approaches based on information gathered, as well as rough order of magnitude (ROM) pricing, and estimated project durations and resource requirements.
The assess and design phase is performed using our automated tools to fully catalog and develop a complete understanding of the application, infrastructure, and operational components of a mainframe environment. It exposes mainframe artifacts that organizations did not know they had, relationships they did not realize existed, and assets that are no longer in use. Assess and design activities provide stakeholders with valuable insight to inform application modernization decisions such as disposition strategies and target environment architectures. It also mitigates cost and risk by highlighting potential challenges and how to overcome them. At the conclusion of the assess and design phase, all in-scope artifacts are accounted for, a detailed project plan is established, and the transformation process begins.
The transform phase includes the bulk of the automated Natural refactoring activities, the database and data modernization, and build-out of the target operating environment. During transform, we refactor pre-defined work packets, perform functional tests, and deliver them into the DevOps pipeline. While customer teams build, test, and deploy these work packets in the target environment, we refactor the next work packet, iterating until the entire mainframe estate has been transformed.
The test and deploy phase begins with the receipt of work packets through the DevOps toolchain as they are delivered from iterative refactoring activities in the transform phase. If issues arise, the work packet is passed back to us where we review the code, adjust our tooling, reprocess the work packet, and send it back into the DevOps pipeline to resume testing and deployment. This process repeats until the entire refactored estate has been deployed.
Prior to go-live, we refresh the target environment by transforming a final snapshot of the mainframe environment to account for changes that have taken place throughout the modernization project as part of normal business operations. Fortunately, since all adjustments and optimizations have been made to the automated refactoring tools and not the refactored code, this final refresh can be delivered into production over a weekend, eliminating code freezes.
Advanced works closely with you and your team to ensure a smooth transition into production. Part of this transition includes the cooperative construction and testing of a go-live production cutover plan to reduce the potential risks associated with application deployments. Advanced also provides on-demand assistance during the warranty period following production deployment, as well as post-transformation support of the modernized application.
"Advanced gave us a platform that would enable us to standardize. We have complex, distributed systems that require a more modern type of development. Going forward, we can further expand the student services platform and functionality."
Lubomir Bojilov, Chief Technology Officer and Executive Director, Student Information Systems and Technology
University of California, Santa Barbara
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by Tim Jones, Managing Director - Application Modernization
Over 35 years of Natural and mainframe modernization experience
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