Johannesburg, 14 Sep 2022
If it ain't broke, don't fix it. This quote is attributed to the US administrator Bert Lance, who spoke of governments when he said: "That's the trouble: fixing things that aren't broken and not fixing things that are broken."
Today's enterprises can relate to this logic, especially concerning digital transformation projects. They have broken systems that need fixing, but they also spend a lot of effort fixing systems that don't necessarily need those levels of intervention. Specifically, companies often face a dilemma: digital modernisation requires apps and systems to be upgraded and operate in the new technology norms. Yet those same systems often exist for good reasons. They work well, people know them and they've proven their ability to deliver. They store valuable data and processes. Their value to the organisation is evident.
Sometimes, such systems are replaceable with more modern alternatives. But they frequently have no true peers, leaving an enterprise with two choices: stick with the outdated technology or modernise the application by re-coding or refactoring it. Neither are good choices. The former keeps the enterprise behind and the latter is often a very technical, expensive and risky project. Furthermore, such projects create even more complexity, often leading to project failures, dissatisfaction with IT and desperate attempts to re-platform these applications from Adabas, Natural and COBOL to Java and .Net.
Fortunately, there is a third option: integration. Enterprises are saving considerable time and money by packing applications via application programming interfaces (APIs) and connecting them to modern systems and user interfaces. They don't have to abandon established business systems or attempt to shoehorn these systems into new paradigms. These advantages extend to mid-market and smaller companies as well: they can enable key business features using partner APIs or, like their enterprise contemporaries, leverage legacy systems without radical development overhauls.
mWtech is an expert at integrating different systems, even bringing mainframe systems into the web and cloud worlds. We help you fix what's broken in your modernisation journey and enhance the rest.
Integration that marries modern and legacy
We combine our business analysis, consulting, engineering and design expertise to deliver integration at enterprises. We align legacy interfaces and data sources powered by the likes of COBOL and Natural, using integration toolkits to expose those as web services available across the organisation.
Valuable elements such as mainframe data are usually 'raw' yet appropriate for applications that support legacy integrations, and enterprise service bus (ESB) integration can manage external legacy APIs.
Cobol and Natural engineering tools enable us to understand the detailed structure of legacy applications and identify the most important data flows. We leverage tools from vendors such as Software AG to create suitable integration, ESBs to combine and enrich services and API gateway to add value services such as security, monitoring and protocol switching.
Our experience has enlightened us on technically approaching legacy systems modernisation:
- Evaluate the pros and cons of automated vs manual migration.
- Reduce dependency on migration vendor frameworks.
- Prepare to deal with performance issues in normalised databases.
- Prepare to use stored data access procedures and a relational database management system (RDBMS) vendor.
- Avoid starting migration before substantial refactoring is completed.
- Maintain collaboration between Natural and Java development teams.
- Consider running old and new systems in parallel with an Adabas Event Replicator.
mWtech makes integration work
mWtech uses a top-to-bottom and model-driven approach, bringing clarity and consistency into the integration projects portfolio. We approach the data access problem from an enterprise architecture perspective, where data is earmarked for distribution to applications across the enterprise:
- Unlock code and data – optimise logic and re-use logic by external applications.
- Understand the challenges of remaining on the mainframe, such as restricted development and high operational cost.
- Envision rehosting Adabas/Natural on Linux – how many current issues could be resolved.
- Detail the modernisation roadmap.
mWtech provides end-to-end integration services, emphasising mainframe APIs, messaging, ESB products and API management. We streamline integration code development so that DevOps practices are implemented and continuously observed.
The advantage of our approach is starting small, often with zero footprints on the integrated platforms, and growing big quickly. This approach is visually driven, from the screens and the supporting data objects to the integration scripts, web services and web pages. The organisation is not required to commit huge resources to understand existing legacy applications thoroughly.
mWtech deploys a practical approach to consultation and producing working artefacts while in the evaluation process. We work through your organisation with enterprise and solution architects, infrastructure management, DBAs and developers. Additionally, we produce the implementation proposal, deliver proof of concept in your or our environment, and assist with cloud migration.
We offer free demonstrations of our process, helping you choose and motivate your environment's best modernisation and integration steps. Contact mWtech to learn more about our services or how we use integration to improve your business performance. Reach us at mwtech@middlewaretechnologies.co.za, (+27) 10 216 9114 or by visiting middlewaretechnologies.co.za.
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