HCLT Whitepaper: Legacy Modernization

June 2012

Legacy Modernization

Modernize and Monetize

2
Legacy Modernization | June 2012

Contents
ABSTRACT 2

LEGACY SYSTEM 3

DRIVERS FOR LEGACY MODERNIZATION 3

MARKET OVERVIEW 4

HCL’ LEGACY MODERNIZATION 5

ABOUT HCL 9

ABSTRACT
According to industry estimates most of the business critical
applications for not only midsize companies, but also many Fortune
500 corporations run on legacy systems, due to the system’s excellent
performance and stability. CIO’s and IT managers handling these
applications constantly face challenges such as:
• High cost of supporting and maintaining the expensive legacy
applications.
• Inefficient, slow and less productive system compared to
competition.
• Unmitigated risk associated with lack of skill availability in the
resource market.
• Risk associated with running business critical application on
unsupported platform.
• Higher time to market due to large, monolithic, complex and
less productive systems.
• Integration with newer systems due to incompatibility with new
and different technologies.
Legacy Modernization pertains to a solution that adapts to
the on-demand needs of business – a move that will help slash IT
costs; promises even greater return when firms leverage existing
technology with emerging Internet standards to extend specific
business services to other applications, companies, and business
processes; introducing a new level of balance between maintenance
and responsiveness – a new level of business agility.
HCL’s legacy modernization solution offers enhanced flexibility
to your enterprise by modernizing and migrating your Legacy
systems to help you increase business responsiveness, lower costs
and mitigate risks.

© 2012, HCL Technologies. Reproduction Prohibited. This document is protected under Copyright by the Author, all rights reserved.

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LEGACY SYSTEM
Any technology, method, software and or hardware which is
continually to be in use in spite of development of new and more
efficient methods and technology is a legacy. Legacy systems utilize
obsolete programming languages or application programs that is
typically tough to manage.

IT’S AN ASSET!
• Functional
• Customized
• Well-tuned
• Supports mission critical operations
• Provides a competitive edge

OR

IT’S A LIABILITY!
• Uses old technology
• Requires hard-to-find skills
• Lacks documentation
• Hard to maintain
• Resists change, integration, and replacement

DRIVERS FOR LEGACY MODERNIZATION
Millions of investments, decades of development and Legacy system
support for hundreds of business critical application makes it IT
assets for any organization .On the other hand issues related to it
makes a compulsion to modernize these Legacy systems.
Today, however, as the platform seems to be ending its life cycle,
both ISVs and enterprises that rely on the platform are facing a real
problem.

ISVs CONCERNS:
Selling to new customers is becoming more difficult -As soon as a
prospect understands that a System i box is required, the sales process
becomes much more difficult. In addition, today’s customers are
demanding Web-based applications, and are unwilling to use green
screen applications.
Lack of available team resources -According to customers, there
are very few green-screen RPG courses conducted by IBM. These
courses are expensive and the number of people attending them is
quite low. Veteran green-screen RPG programmers are retiring, and
it is very hard to replace them or enlarge the development team.


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Training new users on System i applications takes too long, because
users find it hard to cope with unfamiliar function buttons (rather
than a mouse).
Adapting applications to meet customer demands takes too long.
Customers are accustomed to getting their requests met very
quickly (with modern integrated development environments (IDEs)
such as Visual Studio). Although RPG is considered a 3rd or even
4th generation language, compared to today’s modern languages—
not to mention their powerful IDEs—green-screen RPG is less
productive and lacks a rich third-party source for additional tools
and code libraries.
Existing customers are moving to new applications on more modern
platforms such as .NET, where there is a growing availability of
packaged applications.

ENTERPRISE CONCERNS
Shortage of specialized resources: Programmers knowledgeable in
COBOL or RPG are becoming difficult to find as more and more
reach retirement age. As a result, long-range staffing plans and
succession planning are issues that IT departments must contend
with to ensure business continuity.
Issues with integration: The AS/400 is not easily accessible by other
platforms. Proprietary applications negatively impact the ability to
integrate and interoperate with other systems such as Windows and
Unix.
Total cost of ownership: While the cost of hardware alone is not the
issue, the total cost of ownership increases due to the higher cost of
skilled resources as well as elevated license and support fees.
Lack of business agility: Outdated platforms such as the AS/400
can stand in the way of a corporation’s business agility. In order
to remain competitive, organizations need to rapidly respond to
changing market conditions, business requirements or to introduce
new products or services.
Lack of modern screens: RPG is the most common programming
language on the AS/400 and since it is character- based, modern
screens with graphic customization or web-enablement are difficult.

MARKET OVERVIEW

HOW IT GOT HERE?
Prior to the turn of the century (2000) most modernization efforts
were manual in their attempt to convert old systems to new.
Manual efforts proved to be problematic, error prone, and extremely
time consuming and in many cases enormous failures costing
businesses millions of dollars in the attempt and in potential lost


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revenue. Many business leaders chose to continue spending on the
ancient systems electing to spend rather than risk a career-ending
failure attempt.
Systems continue to work and represent business-critical
functionality; if it aren’t broke don’t fix it, created the exasperated
situation many businesses have today

WHERE IT’S GOING?
Resources capable of maintaining legacy systems, specifically those
in COBOL, Pascal, Fortran, RPG, etc. are retiring from the work
force with no newly trained developers entering the field. For
systems to continue, business is forced to act now before it’s too
late. Artificial Intelligence techniques are being employed to build
automated translation tools in order to partially, or in some cases
fully, translate old legacy code, and databases to newer technologies.
Businesses need to stay current with technological trends to stay
competitive and that means mobile solutions, Web solutions, and
client server solutions.
Vendors continue to push the envelope to gain more efficiency with
their translation tools in producing highly optimized code, better
than that of custom generated code

HCL’ LEGACY MODERNIZATION

DISPELLING MYTHS ABOUT MODERNIZATION
Myth1.Modernization only refers to Technological enhancements?
Truth- Modernization is the building blocks of program design and
operation
• Policy Options
• Waivers
• Business Process Reengineering (BPR)
• Technology
Myth2. Modernization equates to the elimination of legacy systems?
Truth- Modernization does not equate to the elimination of the old
work-horse legacy system
However, it does require that the legacy system be in good working
order –the system needs to be stable and reasonably adaptable
Myth3. Modernization is the “magic bullet” that will increase
productivity, decrease staff and save $$?
Truth- Modernization If executed effectively, modernization can
increase productivity and/or result in cost reductions


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• BUT—overselling benefits can result in problems
• Managing expectations is critical
Myth4. IT has all the answers when it comes to modernization
efforts?
Truth- Modernization project should include strong partnerships

MODERNIZATION TRACK
HCL’ s Legacy modernization methodology consist of 4
stages-
• Planning –Planning stage includes Assessment and Strategizing the
Solution.
–– This involves number of steps-
–– Identify the issues that need to be addressed in Legacy system.
–– Identify the Risk involved in migration.
–– To-be architecture definition, which will recommend a future
state architecture that is best, suited to address all the issues
and risks.
–– Modernization strategy, which is the decision making step to
finalize the solution.
• Transform-Includes Proof of concept and transformation
implementation.
–– Modernize POC Module to validate the strategy.
–– This will act as the gateway for the implementation of the
solution. Transformation includes modularize the Legacy
application and then Re-write/Reface/Extend
• Validation- The functional and non-functional testing is done to
validate the application.
• Implementation- It includes deployment, parallel run,transition
and res-skilling process

Transformation Life Cycle
Stage 4:
Stage 1: Planning Stage 2: Transform Stage 3: Validation Implementation

Transformation Proof of
Assessment Transform Test Deploy
Strategy Concept

Gate Retrofits

 Transformation
Modernized
 Analyze POC Module  Deployment
Source System Plan Integration,
 Options Reface/ 
 Parallel run
 Risk Analysis  Approach Validate Re-write,  System Test,
 Requirements Modularize  Transition
 Deliverables Strategy Refactor,  UAT
 Assess  Decommission
Extend  Non-functional
Transformation  Effort estimate  Reskilling
Objectives  Cost, Timeline

Tools Management, Issue Management
Set Transformation Goals and Critical Success Measures
Review and Control Transformation Activities

Knowledge Management – Build Knowledge Repository

Quality and Risk Management

Project Governance and Communications Management


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SOLUTIONS
Integration via Service -oriented approach-Integration of Legacy
system with other newer distributed systems in a service –oriented
approach is the process of exposing business logic and data
embedded in legacy programs as well defined, reusable service. So
services designed on SOA principles can be integrated in any Legacy
application layer. The technique can be Screen Scrapping, Business
logic integration or data integration technique.
Re-hosting- is a non- invasive approach of migrating a Legacy system
to a new hardware platform. In Re-hosting the business logic and
data of Legacy application remains intact in the new platform. It
is often necessitated by the increasing power of the contemporary
system and the steady increase in the cost of Legacy system.
Re-engineering- is the bing bang approach to modernizing system.
It seeks to understand the existing system from code and process
perspective, design viable models and build new application on
that basis. It is ideal way to capture organizational knowledge and
migrate to new platform. Re-engineering is a two phase approach-
The first comprises of reverse engineering design and code artifacts
using tools. The second phase comprises of forward engineering
to a new platform and architecture, incorporating new business
requirements and functionalities.
Package implementation- is replacement of legacy applications, in
whole or part, with off-the-shelf software (COTS) such as ERP,
CRM, SCM, Billing software etc. This includes replacing the
home grown business applications with third party component
or application. This sometimes can be challenging because these
packages offer standard domain business process. Ideal way is to
reengineering or customizing these packages and rewriting business
logic. This is time consuming and expensive initially but drastically
reduces the maintenance and enhancement cost and give good
dividends over a period of time.

TRANSFORMATIONAL PERSPECTIVE
Technique Re-facing Extend Full re-write/ New
package
Parameter
Solution feasibility Easy Moderate Challenging
Ease of Use for Business Low Moderate High
Retaining current Bus High High Huge effort
Proc
Performance High Medium Low
Compliance to Target Low Good High
Architecture
New Infrastructure Low Medium High.
Required
Reuse of existing IT High Moderate Low
Resources
Effort Investment Low Medium High
Overall Risk Low Medium High
Tooling options/ Vendor Hats, Jwalk , IBS –XT Java Tool box, Rdi 7.5 Java, J2EE, C#, .Net
Solution consideration Run time license required No runtime Runtime Framework
by Vendor


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WHICH SOLUTION IS BEST?
Choosing the best strategy (or combination of strategies) is non-
trivial, and involves understanding the business case, schedule goals,
resources available, residual value in the legacy assets, technical
details of the application implementations and deployments, and
appetite for assuming IT risk.
There is no single path from where you are to where you want to
go, if indeed you have identified your destination platform. Instead,
there are often multiple alternative paths, and no single alternative
may constitute the obvious choice. Each path will have advantages
and disadvantages, and each must be weighed appropriately in the
context of your unique organization. There is no one-size-fits-all
answer.

FACTORS DETERMINING RIGHT MODERNIZATION SOLU-
TION-
Cost of Migration- The total cost incurred (Hardware, Software and
professional service charges) in migrating using a given technique.
Effort of Migration –The total effort involved (Internal, by the client
and external by professional service providers) in migrating using
the given technique.
Elapsed time for migration – The time taken from the beginning
of the migration program to the implementation of the migrated
application by using the given technique.
Legacy Investment Reuse – The extent to which existing Legacy
system can be reused in the To-Be system
User Experience – The user experience of the modernized To-Be
system in comparison to existing system.
Business Process change-The Quantum changes required to optimize
the current system
Skill Set – Skills required to support and enhance the system in
future, after modernizing the existing system.
Business Functionality –How the modernized To-Be system can
solve business requirements.
Dependency on Legacy Platform- This factor determines the
dependency with legacy system exist post modernization.
Risk Mitigation- Risk involved in each of the solution for the
business.


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About HCL
About HCL Technologies
HCL Technologies is a leading global IT services company,
working with clients in the areas that impact and redefine
the core of their businesses. Since its inception into the
global landscape after its IPO in 1999, HCL focuses on
‘transformational outsourcing’, underlined by innovation
and value creation, and offers integrated portfolio of
services including software-led IT solutions, infrastructure
management, engineering and R&D services and BPO. HCL
leverages its extensive global offshore infrastructure and
network of offices in 26 countries to provide holistic, multi-
service delivery in key industry verticals including Financial
Services, Manufacturing, Consumer Services, Public Services
and Healthcare. HCL takes pride in its philosophy of
‘Employees First, Customers Second’ which empowers our
82,464 transformers to create a real value for the customers.
HCL Technologies, along with its subsidiaries, has reported
consolidated revenues of US$ 4.0 billion (Rs. 19,412 crores),
as on 31 March 2012 (on LTMbasis). For more information,
please visit www.hcltech.com

About HCL Enterprise
HCL is a $6.2 billion leading global technology and IT
enterprise comprising two companies listed in India - HCL
Technologies and HCL Infosystems. Founded in 1976, HCL is
one of India’s original IT garage start-ups. A pioneer of modern
computing, HCL is a global transformational enterprise today.
Its range of offerings includes product engineering, custom
& package applications, BPO, IT infrastructure services, IT
hardware, systems integration, and distribution of information
and communications technology (ICT) products across a wide
range of focused industry verticals. The HCL team consists of
over 90,000 professionals of diverse nationalities, who operate
from 31 countries including over 500 points of presence in
India. HCL has partnerships with several leading global 1000
firms, including leading IT and technology firms. For more
information, please visit www.hcl.com


HCLT Whitepaper: Legacy Modernization

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