Migrating a Large Scale Legacy Application to SOA: Challenges and Lessons Learned

Abstract—This paper presents the findings of a case study of a large scale legacy to service-oriented architecture migration process in the payments domain of a Dutch bank. The paper presents the business drivers that initiated the migration, and describes a 4-phase migration process. For each phase, the paper details benefits of using the techniques, best practices that contribute to the success, and possible challenges that are faced during migration. Based on these observations, the findings are discussed as lessons learned, including the implications of using reverse engineering techniques to facilitate the migration process, adopting a pragmatic migration realization approach, emphasizing the organizational and business perspectives, and harvesting knowledge of the system throughout the system’s life cycle. I

The institutional character of computerized information systems

We examine how important social and technical choices become part of the history of a computer-based information system (CB/SJ and embedded in the social structure which supports its development and use. These elements of a CBIS can be organized in specific ways to enhance its usability and performance. Paradoxically, they can also constrain future implementations and post-implementations.We argue that CBIS developed from complex, interdependent social and technical choices should be conceptualized in terms of their institutional characteristics, as well as their information-processing characteristics. The social system which supports the development and operation of a CBIS is one major element whose institutional characteristics can effectively support routine activities while impeding substantial innovation. Characterizing CBIS as institutions is important for several reasons: (1) the usability of CBIS is more critical than the abstract information-processing capabilities of the underlying technology; (2) CBIS that are well-used and have stable social structures are more difficult to replace than those with less developed social structures and fewer participants; (3) CBIS vary from one social setting to another according to the ways in which they are organized and embedded in organized social systems. These ideas are illustrated with the case study of a failed attempt to convert a complex inventory control system in a medium-sized manufacturing firm

COBOL as a Modern Language

The use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should, therefore, be regarded as a criminal offence. - Edsger Dijkstra (1) This statement may be hyperbole, but Dijkstra\u27s view on the language reflects underlying feelings about COBOL throughout the programming world. The language was created in 1959 to allow for interactivity between computation machines.(2) More than half a century later, COBOL is still used extensively in mainframes, computers designed for large-scale calculation and record processing. Numerous factors have contributed to the longevity of COBOL, including ease of use compared to its contemporaries and an upgrade to object orientation in the 1990s.(3) This longevity has also contributed to problems with COBOL. The chief criticism is that it has become difficult to learn as other programming languages become more user-friendly.(4) COBOL software tends to be verbose, even for simple tasks. It\u27s said that the average size of a COBOL program is 600 lines of code, whereas a Java program performing the same operation should be 30 lines or fewer.(5) Difficulties with the language will only increase as the workforce knowledgeable in COBOL\u27s use retire

Feasibility study of an Integrated Program for Aerospace-vehicle Design (IPAD) system. Volume 6: Implementation schedule, development costs, operational costs, benefit assessment, impact on company organization, spin-off assessment, phase 1, tasks 3 to 8

A baseline implementation plan, including alternative implementation approaches for critical software elements and variants to the plan, was developed. The basic philosophy was aimed at: (1) a progressive release of capability for three major computing systems, (2) an end product that was a working tool, (3) giving participation to industry, government agencies, and universities, and (4) emphasizing the development of critical elements of the IPAD framework software. The results of these tasks indicate an IPAD first release capability 45 months after go-ahead, a five year total implementation schedule, and a total developmental cost of 2027 man-months and 1074 computer hours. Several areas of operational cost increases were identified mainly due to the impact of additional equipment needed and additional computer overhead. The benefits of an IPAD system were related mainly to potential savings in engineering man-hours, reduction of design-cycle calendar time, and indirect upgrading of product quality and performance

An overview of decision table literature 1982-1995.

This report gives an overview of the literature on decision tables over the past 15 years. As much as possible, for each reference, an author supplied abstract, a number of keywords and a classification are provided. In some cases own comments are added. The purpose of these comments is to show where, how and why decision tables are used. The literature is classified according to application area, theoretical versus practical character, year of publication, country or origin (not necessarily country of publication) and the language of the document. After a description of the scope of the interview, classification results and the classification by topic are presented. The main body of the paper is the ordered list of publications with abstract, classification and comments.

The cleanroom case study in the Software Engineering Laboratory: Project description and early analysis

This case study analyzes the application of the cleanroom software development methodology to the development of production software at the NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center. The cleanroom methodology emphasizes human discipline in program verification to produce reliable software products that are right the first time. Preliminary analysis of the cleanroom case study shows that the method can be applied successfully in the FDD environment and may increase staff productivity and product quality. Compared to typical Software Engineering Laboratory (SEL) activities, there is evidence of lower failure rates, a more complete and consistent set of inline code documentation, a different distribution of phase effort activity, and a different growth profile in terms of lines of code developed. The major goals of the study were to: (1) assess the process used in the SEL cleanroom model with respect to team structure, team activities, and effort distribution; (2) analyze the products of the SEL cleanroom model and determine the impact on measures of interest, including reliability, productivity, overall life-cycle cost, and software quality; and (3) analyze the residual products in the application of the SEL cleanroom model, such as fault distribution, error characteristics, system growth, and computer usage

Pragmatic cost estimation for web applications

Cost estimation for web applications is an interesting and difficult challenge for researchers and industrial practitioners. It is a particularly valuable area of ongoing commercial research. Attaining on accurate cost estimation for web applications is an essential element in being able to provide competitive bids and remaining successful in the market. The development of prediction techniques over thirty years ago has contributed to several different strategies. Unfortunately there is no collective evidence to give substantial advice or guidance for industrial practitioners. Therefore to address this problem, this thesis shows the way by investigating the characteristics of the dataset by combining the literature review and industrial survey findings. The results of the systematic literature review, industrial survey and an initial investigation, have led to an understanding that dataset characteristics may influence the cost estimation prediction techniques. From this, an investigation was carried out on dataset characteristics. However, in the attempt to structure the characteristics of dataset it was found not to be practical or easy to get a defined structure of dataset characteristics to use as a basis for prediction model selection. Therefore the thesis develops a pragmatic cost estimation strategy based on collected advice and general sound practice in cost estimation. The strategy is composed of the following five steps: test whether the predictions are better than the means of the dataset; test the predictions using accuracy measures such as MMRE, Pred and MAE knowing their strengths and weaknesses; investigate the prediction models formed to see if they are sensible and reasonable model; perform significance testing on the predictions; and get the effect size to establish preference relations of prediction models. The results from this pragmatic cost estimation strategy give not only advice on several techniques to choose from, but also give reliable results. Practitioners can be more confident about the estimation that is given by following this pragmatic cost estimation strategy. It can be concluded that the practitioners should focus on the best strategy to apply in cost estimation rather than focusing on the best techniques. Therefore, this pragmatic cost estimation strategy could help researchers and practitioners to get reliable results. The improvement and replication of this strategy over time will produce much more useful and trusted results.Cost estimation for web applications is an interesting and difficult challenge for researchers and industrial practitioners. It is a particularly valuable area of ongoing commercial research. Attaining on accurate cost estimation for web applications is an essential element in being able to provide competitive bids and remaining successful in the market. The development of prediction techniques over thirty years ago has contributed to several different strategies. Unfortunately there is no collective evidence to give substantial advice or guidance for industrial practitioners. Therefore to address this problem, this thesis shows the way by investigating the characteristics of the dataset by combining the literature review and industrial survey findings. The results of the systematic literature review, industrial survey and an initial investigation, have led to an understanding that dataset characteristics may influence the cost estimation prediction techniques. From this, an investigation was carried out on dataset characteristics. However, in the attempt to structure the characteristics of dataset it was found not to be practical or easy to get a defined structure of dataset characteristics to use as a basis for prediction model selection. Therefore the thesis develops a pragmatic cost estimation strategy based on collected advice and general sound practice in cost estimation. The strategy is composed of the following five steps: test whether the predictions are better than the means of the dataset; test the predictions using accuracy measures such as MMRE, Pred and MAE knowing their strengths and weaknesses; investigate the prediction models formed to see if they are sensible and reasonable model; perform significance testing on the predictions; and get the effect size to establish preference relations of prediction models. The results from this pragmatic cost estimation strategy give not only advice on several techniques to choose from, but also give reliable results. Practitioners can be more confident about the estimation that is given by following this pragmatic cost estimation strategy. It can be concluded that the practitioners should focus on the best strategy to apply in cost estimation rather than focusing on the best techniques. Therefore, this pragmatic cost estimation strategy could help researchers and practitioners to get reliable results. The improvement and replication of this strategy over time will produce much more useful and trusted results

Symbolic execution and the testing of COBOL programs

The thesis is in two parts. Part one is a review of existing work in the area of software testing and more specifically symbolic execution. Part two is a description of the symbolic execution testing system for COBOL (SYM-BOL). Much of the work presented has been published or accepted for publication. Part one commences by introducing the aims of software testing and is followed by a review of the tools and techniques of software testing that have been developed over the past 25 years. A simple taxonomy of software testing techniques is given. One potentially powerful technique is symbolic execution. The principles of symbolic execution are described followed by the problems in applying symbolic execution. Part one is completed by a review of existing symbolic execution testing systems. No symbolic execution testing system has previously been built for a commercial data processing language such as COBOL. Part two commences by outlining the features of the SYM-BOL system and describes the user strategies that may be employed when using the system. The system generates an intermediate form in stages by transforming the source program into one that contains only a limited number of language constructs. Path selection can be automatic or undertaken by the user. In both cases the results of the symbolic execution already undertaken are available to the path selector to help reduce the likelihood of selecting an infeasible path. A description of how the Nag-library linear optimizer E04MBF is used for feasibility checking is given. Feasible solutions are turned into files of test cases. Simple assertions may be included in the source program which do not affect the normal execution of the software but which can be verified by inclusion in the symbolic execution