Reengineering takes existing information technologies and systematically redevelops various areas of that system to use either new techniques or technologies while retaining existing business rules and data.

However, before systems can be reengineered it is often necessary to first convert them to use new databases, user interfaces, computer hardware or computer software languages.

Automated conversion allows this first step to take place in an efficient and, most importantly, consistent manner.

Manual conversion projects use large numbers of programmers to sift through software systems by hand and make changes to these systems.

This technique is typically unreliastic when:

• The source code is massive and complex
• The original source language and the new source code languages are dramatically different
• The conversion requires complex changes be made over and over again.

The most common problem with manual conversion when any or all of these conditions exist are:

• Error rates tend to be very high
• Errors are made un-uniformly varying by conversion programmer skills
• When a system begins to be converted it ideally must be “frozen” and not changed during conversion. Practically, these freezes breakdown in manual conversions as maintenance changes must be made during the long periods of time required for manual conversions.
• Conversion coding techniques and style vary with conversion programmers
  
  

Lexpar’s ASCS approach addresses these problems by automating conversion using advanced compiler techniques.

Essentially, ASCS is “taught” the rules for changing the existing software and then the ASCS programs automatically make these changes very rapidly and uniformly.

The benefits of using ASCS rather than manual conversion techniques are substantial:

• Conversion programming techniques are uniform and appear to have been made by one “virtual” programmer.
• Errors in conversion are made in bulk, throughout all the programs but they are corrected in bulk as well making defect repair quick and uniform.
• The time during which a system must be “frozen” is minimal since the actual conversion of source is usually accomplished in days or hours.

ASCS has been used to convert COBOL Legacy systems from:

• Computer Associate's IDMS to relational databases like IBM's DB2
• VSAM and IMS to DB2
• Computer Assoicates MetaCOBOL to IBM's CICS and DB2

See our whitepaper on MetaCOBOL conversion tools and for more information contact Lexpar today.