Application Modernization Customer Successes
Relativity Technologies is the global leader in Enterprise Application Modernization solutions. We are committed to providing your organization with solutions to your most challenging business needs. Over 400 Relativity Technologies clients have relied on our solutions to accelerate initiatives to align their operations with their business objectives.
Transition Business Logic to a Business Rule Engine
Major Financial Services Provider
Application documentation and analysis uncover complexities and yield current understanding of a core system. Code re-factoring yields more efficient and maintainable applications -- with half the code.
This financial services organization automated its financing processes through a large and inflexible legacy application. To increase its flexibility, the organization sought to understand the structure and function of the application and develop a roadmap towards Enterprise Application Modernization. The sheer size of the application, with tens of thousands of legacy objects, required an automated analysis solution. The Modernization Workbench accelerated the roadmapping by delivering a base of metrics and documentation of the application. These metrics, combined with generated code quality measurements, allowed the organization to plan how to increase the efficiency of the application.
In an additional project for the organization, a systems-integration partner was charged with mining the business rules of a core financing application. The objective was to transition the rules to a leading business rule engine. Using the Modernization Workbench's business rule analysis features, including powerful, customizable queries, analysts were able to locate numerous rules buried within the code. The Modernization Workbench's querying and reporting tools provided analysts with detailed information about the rules' functions and behavior, simplifying documentation. The collected information was then readily exported from the Modernization Workbench's XML-based rules repository and loaded into the rules engine repository.
Reducing Application Complexity Boosts Efficiencies
Major International Bank
Application documentation and analysis uncover complexities and yield current understanding of a core system. Code re-factoring yields more efficient and maintainable applications -- with half the code.
This leading bank relied on a powerful system to manage its clients' investment portfolios. Written and maintained by a third party, there was a marked increase in application complexity and inflexibility. In the highly competitive financial services industry it is imperative for banks to be able to adjust business processes to meet emerging demands. But with little insight into the outsourced system, the bank's IT department could not rapidly translate business requirements into technical realities within the application.
After years of modifications due to changing business requirements, the code had grown to be significantly different than the original specifications. Further, the sheer size of the application had also contributed to its complexity, which meant that accurate and current documentation simply wasn't available. Without detailed information about how the application was structured, the IT team could not hope to efficiently maintain and enhance the system going forward.
During the initial assessment phase of the transition the Modernization Workbench provided the team with essential metrics and visualizations. It also uncovered critical pieces of information about the architecture of the application that would have dramatically impacted the IT team's ability to manage the application. By discovering these hurdles prior to the termination of its contract with the third-party, the bank was able to collect additional information necessary for application portfolio management.
Initially thought to be just 8 million lines of code, Relativity Technologies' software solution demonstrated that the application had grown to more than 20 million lines. The assessment also generated detailed metrics about the system like level of complexity and change frequency. The metrics and documentation that the Modernization Workbench created were so detailed that team members were able to quickly get up-to-speed on the functioning of the application and become highly productive. It also allowed the IT director to plan his resource allocation more effectively in anticipation of the transition. Relativity Technologies gave "us the foundation we needed to make and implement this strategic decision," said the IT director.
Once the analysis was in place, the Modernization Workbench was employed to re-architect the application. Migrating to a more standard environment and significantly reducing (by nearly 50 percent) the quantity of code employed while preserving the business processes of the application. The result: a more efficient and maintainable application that best supports the bank's business.
Extending Application Life via Modernization
National City Corporation
Business rule identification and application componentization yields modernized, web-enabled applications and reusable business logic; Return on Investment estimated to be 200-300%.
National City Corporation (NCC), one of the largest bank holding companies in the U.S. with over $100 billion in total assets, is no stranger to the realities of technology change. Like most financial services firms, NCC relies on its enterprise applications to run its business. In fact, those applications shape much of the firm's interactions with customers and partners. As a result, upgrading its Corporate Automation System (CAS) application to a Web-based environment, with greater flexibility, lower costs, and reduced maintenance issues became a significant priority.
NCC concluded that the most efficient, cost-effective way to harness the value of its existing assets and renovate its current application was through an Enterprise Application Modernization approach. To do so, they chose to work with Relativity Technologies and our market leading Modernization Workbench software platform.
The Modernization Workbench was deployed to accelerate the renovation of the CAS system. The Modernization Workbench analyzed the complex code and isolated the core business rules of the system. The componentized business logic could then be efficiently reused as part of the web-enabled architecture. By retaining this business logic, National City was able to ensure that its operations would be continue to execute in the manner they expected following the application modernization initiative.
"Relativity Technologies' Enterprise Application Modernization solutions enabled us to maintain the crucial functionality we depend on while allowing us to take advantage of new technologies and reduce costs -- with no disruption to our normal business activity," said a senior executive with National City. In fact, internal estimates put the return on investment as being 200 to 300 percent.
Leveraging the Business Value of Enterprise Applications
FEP, Administered by CareFirst Blue Cross Blue Shield
Business logic uncovered, componentized, and redeployed in a web-enabled application. Upgrade of database executed with no impact to the stability of the application
To build on its reputation for outstanding customer service, this leading U.S.-based healthcare payer decided to improve response times for its customers by streamlining its back-end claims processing systems and web-enabling customer support. Operating on 20-year old legacy applications, the payer's claims system had been substantially modified and enlarged, adding to its complexity and causing it to exceed several million lines of code. To rebuild the claims system from the ground up would take 6 to 7 years according to early estimates by the payer. Instead, the project team opted to deploy an Enterprise Application Modernization approach for its claims applications.
To begin the initiative, the Modernization Workbench was used to better understand the complex application code. Analysis tools of the Modernization Workbench generated documentation and graphical representations of the various programs, allowing professionals to identify the sections needed to be preserved, restructured, or eliminated. With the analysis of the system complete, Relativity Technologies' consulting partners used the Modernization Workbench to uncover the system's business rules buried throughout the application. Doing so allowed the payer to reuse and simplify processes -- leveraging the existing investment made in their applications.
The combination of Relativity Technologies and our consulting partner, Capgemini (now part of Accenture's Health and Life Sciences practice), has helped to unlock the critical assets contained in the payer's legacy applications and to convert those assets into flexible, standalone, and Internet-ready components. Further, by componentizing the business logic spread throughout the program and modernizing the overall architecture, the claims system is simpler to maintain and easier to adapt to changes in industry conditions.
The bottom line: with help from Relativity Technologies, our client stays ahead of the pack in an increasingly competitive and cost-conscious world. Now, the Web-enablement and modernization gives FEP's customers, health care providers, and claims processors real-time access to claims information.
Enterprise Application Modernization "allows companies to embrace the Web and other emerging opportunities while increasing their ability to respond to shifts in strategy. And through our partnership with Relativity Technologies, we can provide these advantages more efficiently by using the powerful Modernization Workbench," said Ron Bissetta, principal with Capgemini.
Application Modernization through Business Rule-Led Redevelopment
Leading International Insurer
Business rules efficiently uncovered and documented, enabling a rapid transition of existing business processes to a better-supported application.
The development organization of one of the world's largest insurance groups analyzed its portfolio of enterprise applications and identified a risk. A core legacy application was built on an aging technology that has been rapidly declining in use and support. Without adequate support or resources within their company to manage the system the stability of this critical function was jeopardized. Further, the cost to support the system was steadily increasing, and bottlenecks in the development group meant that changes in business processes were not being quickly reflected in the supporting information technology. As a result, the insurance company turned to Relativity Technologies for help.
Relativity Technologies' powerful Modernization Workbench analyzed the application, identifying and cataloging the core business rules of the system. The standards-based repository of business logic provided the foundation for building functional specifications based on the reality of the insurer's existing, proven legacy processes. The resulting modernized application was far simpler to manage, and still maintained the business logic that the company considered to be a competitive advantage. By using the Modernization Workbench to manage the process, execution was less risky and more timely - resulting in a quick delivery of the modernized system.
Accelerating Redevelopment through Business Rule Management
U.S. Federal Agency
More than 5,000 business rules discovered and understood; yielded accurate, current functional specifications that sped redevelopment activities.
One of the largest arms of the US federal government opted to migrate from an aging language to the more modern Java environment. Among the last few systems on this aging platform was a particularly important application that controlled financial relationships between the agency and its millions of clients, making it a critical yet highly complex system.
But without detailed knowledge of how the system and its business rules functioned, this was a significant challenge. To accelerate the process, the agency turned to the professionals of RFD & Associates and Relativity Technologies' Modernization Workbench software platform.
When an application is modernized, it is important to ensure that this business logic is carried forward into the new system. To neglect this requirement is to risk losing important functionality, or to have the application function in an unexpected way. As a result, RFD and its consulting partners knew that the discovery of the current business logic was necessary in order to test the modernized system. Doing so would ensure that new application's business rules would be identical to the current system.
RFD chose the Modernization Workbench because of its proven ability to accelerate the discovery and management of hidden business rules. Within just a few weeks RFD's professionals were experts in the use of the software platform.
"Relativity Technologies' software delivered exactly what we needed at exactly the right time," said Anne Davison, president of RFD. "Throughout the application's nearly one million lines of code were buried more than 5,000 business rules. Discovering these rules manually would have consumed an extraordinary amount of time. Instead, our consultants were able to deliver new development specifications ahead of schedule based on the reality of the existing system. And because of the thoroughness of the combined solution, we were able to ensure that all of the business logic was carried over to the converted application."
The result was that the government agency could rely on complete and accurate specifications that exactly matched the current application - accelerating the transition to the standard, lower-cost environment.
Application Understanding Yields Significant Returns
State of Connecticut
Reports, visualizations, and metrics yield rich understanding of a highly complex application, significantly reducing risk and encouraging connectivity with modern technologies.
The Connecticut State Police, Department of Information Technology (DOIT) operates CONNECT, a legacy communications system that enables officers to access municipal, state and federal law enforcement information through desktop computers or terminals in police vehicles. As mobile technology has become more pervasive, the DOIT recognized that there was an opportunity to give officers more direct access to CONNECT through car terminals, cellular phones, and personal digital assistants.
But before the DOIT could provide this functionality it needed to fully document CONNECT, including the various processes, interfaces, and communications used. Given that there was little existing documentation on the 25-year old system, and only one person who had thorough knowledge of CONNECT, this presented a challenge.
"Early on, we recognized the value of using [the Modernization Workbench] to document the CONNECT system," said Joe Houde, Project Management Consultant to the DOIT. "Results would be more accurate, consistent and faster than if we used people to perform this painstaking and repetitive task. We selected CGI (Relativity Technologies' partner) because of its extensive experience in adapting existing systems to modern environments using the Modernization Workbench."
The powerful Modernization Workbench was immediately deployed to create reports and diagrams that always reflected the latest version of the CONNECT application. These reports documented the interactions deep within each system, allowing analysts to rapidly understand the complex application. Further, with the Modernization Workbench vital business rules and the associated workflow within CONNECT were isolated, further refining the DOIT's understanding of their own system and their ability to manage it. Now armed with detailed information about the application, the DOIT has the information it needs to plan further Enterprise Application Modernization of CONNECT.
Said Joe Houde, "CGI and Relativity Technologies delivered as promised and the department is now able to accelerate with confidence into the next phase of modernizing our system."
