How a Financial Services Giant Accelerated Their Application Modernization Efforts by 50%

The Customer

A Fortune 100 multinational American financial services firm.

The Challenge

An AveriSource partner, a Global Systems Integrator (GSI), sought an Independent Software Vendor (ISV) with a software platform capable of unearthing deeply entrenched business rules and data lineage within mainframe programming languages — including COBOL and Assembler. The GSI also needed the ability to seamlessly generate models as a low-code solution to create standardized and consistent new code in their target language (Java).

The Obstacles

Business rules are often deeply embedded in the source code of enterprise systems. Gaining insight into these rules is indispensable when tasked with managing, revising, expanding, or modernizing these systems. However, the extraction of this logic becomes significantly challenging, especially in complex legacy applications where Subject Matter Expertise (SME) and technical knowledge are sparse. Transforming the intricate data model and segregating data services into abstracted API services is not only pivotal to the migration process, but also fundamental to ensuring its successful execution.

The Approach

Rule Analysis

Analyze

The delivered suite of reports accelerated the process of requirements gathering while reducing SME input and increasing accuracy, which included:

• Business Rules: complete accounting of logic in control flow
• Rule Chaining: interactive extraction across process flows
• Sequence Diagram: end-to-end view of conditional flow
• Control Flow Diagram: graphical representation of logic flow
• Data Dictionary: details on variables and methods​

Business Process Mapping

Analyze

Analyzing program connections, data operations, jobs and transactions, the AveriSource Platform™️ automatically generated call chain diagrams of application “entry points.” These entry points were then mapped to the business functions they supported, reducing the need for SME input and accelerating the business rule extraction process. This business alignment capability also enabled the identification of obsolete and commodity processes for removal or replacement.​

Rule Extraction Methodology

Analyze

AveriSource's proven methodology empowered the GSI’s analysts to efficiently extract business rules from legacy applications with a minimum amount of prior application expertise. The method married business process mapping with unique business rule artifacts to give analysts a business-centric view of application source code and its underlying business logic. As a result, the AveriSource’s Platform™️ more than tripled the efficiency of requirements development.​

Code Modernization

Transform

The AveriSource Platform™️ harnessed the power of AI to modernize legacy code, streamlining the application modernization process. It automatically generated models as a low-code solution to create standardized and consistent new code in the target language. The AveriSource Platform™️ simplified development and seamlessly converted green screens to Angular projects, ensuring a smooth transition to the new application environment. ​Additionally, by employing rule chaining, users can now request a chain of rules related to the variable of interest and then receive the sequenced results instantly — without manually tracking control flow or how variables are passed between programs.

The Results

The AveriSource Platform™️ was deployed on the GSI’s private AWS Cloud EC2 instances, offering a robust solution to efficiently meet the customer's business requirements. The AveriSource Platform's Inventory, Discover, Analyze, and Transform capabilities significantly accelerated downstream project velocity by over five times, enhancing speed without compromising effectiveness or accuracy. The platform's source code and business rule analysis functions played a pivotal role in achieving these outcomes, processing five applications, documenting business rules, and generating Java microservices for cloud native consumption:

• AveriSource Platform™️ processed mission critical 5 COBOL and Assembler applications​
• The AveriSource Platform™️ accelerated requirements capture from the legacy applications and new application deployment time by over 50%
• AveriSource Transform generated Java which was 95% usable OOTB (out of the box) for cloud native deployment on AWS​