Modernization Workbench®
Business Benefits of Application Modernization
The Modernization Workbench increases the business value of existing enterprise applications.
The Modernization Workbench extracts business intelligence from application portfolios. The industry-leading technology enables the complete Enterprise Application Modernization lifecycle, permitting users to understand, manage, modernize, and maintain their core legacy applications.
Unlike high-level scanners or niche tools, the Modernization Workbench provides rich technical and business insights across dozens of languages -- on mainframe, mid-range, and distributed environments -- in 70% less time than alternative approaches. The platform generates and then stores this detailed application knowledge in a standards-based repository. This centralized access allows even remote users to leverage the best in class tools for application modernization and application management. Users can rely on the Modernization Workbench to analyze a diverse array of legacy applications, including those developed in Cobol, PL/I, RPG, Visual Basic, C/C++, Java, and more.
Users can combine this rich technical insight with intelligence about how the applications support core business priorities like efficiency, availability, risk, and security. Organizations can leverage this knowledge to identify, prioritize, and execute modernization initiatives that realign applications with your business goals.
The platform offers multiple modules that leverage the collected information to accelerate knowledge transfer, IT governance / application portfolio management, application modeling, SOA enablement, sustaining engineering, and other high-value activities. And through the Enterprise Application Modernization Framework, third-party technologies can be readily integrated with the platform to yield customized modernization solutions.
The Modernization Workbench includes these modules:
- Application Analyzer™ provides deep business and technical understanding and governance of complex application portfolios.
- Application Express™ provides rapid access to application analysis via Integrated Development Environments.
- Application Portfolio Manager™ provides browser-based dashboards that enable users to identify, prioritize, and execute modernization initiatives.
- Business Rule Manager™ enables organizations to discover, govern, and extend the value of existing business logic.
- Application Remodeler™ enables the rapid modeling and leveraging of business processes embedded within existing applications.
- Application Architect™ renovates complex applications to be efficient, flexible, and SOA-ready.
- Function Point Analyzer generates fast, repeatable, and standards-based function point counts of existing software.
- SOA Analyzer™ accelerates the path to SOA-ready enterprise applications.
- Transformation Assistant™ accelerates the modernization of legacy applications to flexible Java code.
The Modernization Workbench enables the entire Enterprise Application Modernization lifecycle. This allows organizations to:
Understand Enterprise Applications
Enterprise applications tend to become more complex and less understood over time. Documentation gradually loses its relevance, subject matter experts move to other roles, and the pressures of daily maintenance lead to rising complexity. This impairs management's ability to develop an application modernization roadmap that aligns applications with business priorities.
The Modernization Workbench answers this challenge with thorough inventories and documentation across the application portfolio. The platform demystifies millions of lines of code, offering dynamic visualizations and powerful reports on even the most complex legacy enterprise applications. In fact, customer-led ROI studies have shown that the Modernization Workbench generates documentation 70% more quickly than manual approaches.
Further, users can rely on the Modernization Workbench to harvest business rules and business processes 74% faster than alternative methods. Users can also overlay 'business context' onto their software assets. This groupings organize software assets based on how they support business processes, where they are managed, and other meaningful groupings.
The resulting models provide further insight into the structure and behavior of an organization's operations and their underlying applications. Armed with these details, managers can focus effort and resources on core business priorities, and plan their path to flexible, efficient, and modernized enterprise applications.
Principal modules deployed:
Manage Enterprise Applications
Enterprise applications automate the very core operations of today's businesses. As a result, it is imperative that managers employ effective IT governance over their application portfolios. This application portfolio management permits managers to make intelligent decisions regarding paths to Enterprise Application Modernization that yield the most value from their existing applications.
The Modernization Workbench offers metrics dashboards that give users detailed insight into where applications diverge from business goals. Managers can rely on this data to determine which applications and business processes should be priorities for modernization activities, like SOA enablement or outsourcing, and which should be returned to maintenance.
Unlike high-level scanning tools that merely offer surface details about the application portfolio, the Modernization Workbench provides a complete solution. Once the Modernization Workbench has enabled decisions to be made, other professionals can drill deeper into the Modernization Workbench's repository and functionality to execute the selected legacy application modernization and application maintenance strategies.
Principal modules deployed:
Modernize Enterprise Applications
The next stage in the Enterprise Application Modernization lifecycle is to execute on the identified opportunities. How an application or business process is modernized can take many forms. For some organizations, modernization may involve redeveloping an application in a better-supported language. The Modernization Workbench enables this activity through analysis and business rule and process discovery that speed the transition of applications' essence to redevelopment specifications.
For other organizations, modernization may involve leveraging business processes in a service-oriented architecture (SOA). The Modernization Workbench accelerates these initiatives through SOA-focused analysis and the ability to isolate business logic into SOA-ready components. For still other organizations modernization may involve retiring a non-core process from the application portfolio. The Modernization Workbench speeds this process by analyzing interfacing systems that could be impacted by the retirement.
Regardless of which of the many paths to legacy application modernization that an organization takes, the Modernization Workbench accelerates the initiative. Unlike niche vendors that enable just one form of application modernization, the Modernization Workbench enables a broad spectrum of initiatives -- increasing your flexibility.
Principal modules deployed:
Maintain Enterprise Applications
The average organization spends 60-80% of its budget simply maintaining existing systems. To encourage application efficiency and operational flexibility, these organizations must liberate resources from inefficient maintenance practices. The Modernization Workbench enables this through rich analysis and documentation capabilities that improve the efficiency and responsiveness of maintenance teams. In fact, customer-led ROI studies have shown that large change requests are completed in as much as 50% less time than with alternative approaches.
The Modernization Workbench also provides insights for managers to locate, understand, and specify enhancements to existing business logic. Developers can bridge the gap between technical reality and business requirements through the Modernization Workbench's unparalleled ability to abstract business insights from existing applications. Once executed, the Modernization Workbench repository ensures that business knowledge is retained, keeping knowledge retention levels up. This is especially important as companies struggle to keep domain expertise following outsourcing and employee retirement.
Principal modules deployed:
Additional Papers
