Our Automated VSAM Migration solution delivers modern Cloud-enabled databases and supporting applications that are functionally equivalent to their legacy counterparts. Our software converts VSAM files into a relational database, providing instant access to vendor and third party tools for reporting, monitoring, maintaining, and documenting. In addition, it allows the data to be accessed and analyzed by a vast talent pool of DBAs with modern skillsets.
CHALLENGES
Developers and database administrators who understand mainframe 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 legacy systems will continue to rise.
Successful digital transformation and business agility hinges on good data. Non-relational databases and the underlying assets that support them were not designed for today’s business demands or modern IT. This results in difficult integrations, inaccessible data, and limited flexibility.
Mainframes cost as much as 4,500 per cent more to operate than equivalent Cloud counterparts. This figure is compounded by rising licensing and maintenance fees for ancillary mainframe applications and databases.
OUR SOLUTION
Our Automated VSAM Migration solution includes the generation of a new relational database to replace the functionality, redefinitions, type-of-record indicators, and other data element structures that are currently part of most VSAM files. The new target database can reside on or off-mainframe, and can use any of the standard relational database management systems (SQL Server, Oracle, Db2, PostgreSQL).
Automated VSAM Migration provides a complete replacement for all legacy database functionality including multi-view records, occurring fields, indexes, and more. The resulting database is fully relational, primary keys and index definitions are automatically created, and all constraints are generated into the resulting DDL. Table spaces, indexes, table names, and column names are all generated according to your naming standards.
The VSAM data extract and relational load process is simple, straightforward, and fast. We can provide a number of extract variations for customers that have special requirements for a short VSAM data migration window. Our Data Migration software gives us numerous capabilities for tailoring your data migration so that the new database meets your requirements.
The VSAM files can be re-collected and processed through our Automated VSAM Migration software anytime throughout the project lifecycle. This prevents the need to put a freeze on changes to the VSAM files and structure, a huge win for critical business systems that change often.
Refactoring ancillary applications
Our Automated Refactoring solution provides a turnkey modernization of the applications and languages that use VSAM files including COBOL, PL/I, Assembler, JCL and Procs for VSAM applications.
This 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 automation and scalability from automated testing to quality assurance, and the ability to leverage containerized deployments and orchestration with Docker and Kubernetes.
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 data, 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 data migration decisions such as ancillary application 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 refactoring activities associated with ancillary applications, the database and data conversion, and build-out of the target operating environment. Our tools generate the new target DDL, a set of custom extract programs, and the related JCL that extracts the data to a set of sequential delimited files, and generates the load syntax required to populate the new relational databases using the target database's load utility. These relational databases are delivered ready for creation and population, including the target DDL for the database definition, appropriate extract programs, JCL for extract execution, and load syntax for populating the relational tables. During transform, we also refactor applications in 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 and data migration tools and not the refactored code or converted databases, this final refresh can be delivered into production over a weekend, eliminating code freezes.
We work 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. We also provide on-demand assistance during the warranty period following production deployment, as well as post-transformation support of the modernized application.
“We were looking to accomplish two things with the pilot. The first was to prove the solution would work on GE hardware under our roof. The second was to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt to our users that their UI wasn’t going to change.”
Marc Rubel, Executive Director of Application Development
GE Capital
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Over 35 years of mainframe modernization experience
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