On the Role of Metadata in Visual Language Reuse and Reverse Engineering – An Industrial Case

AbstractCollecting metadata on a family of programs is useful not only for generating statistical data on the programs but also for future re-engineering and reuse purposes. In this paper we discuss an industrial case where a project library is used to store visual programs and a database to store the metadata on these programs. The visual language in question is a domain-specific language, Function Block Language (FBL) that is used in Metso Automation for writing automation control programs. For reuse, program analysis and re-engineering activities and various data and program analysis methods are applied to study the FBL programs. Metadata stored in a database is used to provide advanced program analysis support; from the large amount of programs, the metadata allows focusing the analysis to certain kinds of programs. In this paper, we discuss the role and usage of the metadata in program analysis techniques applied to FBL programs

Implementing the Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data Security Standard (DSS)

Underpinned by the rise in online criminality, the payment card industry (PCI) data security standards (DSS) were introduced which outlines a subset of the core principals and requirements that must be followed, including precautions relating to the software that processes credit card data. The necessity to implement these requirements in existing software applications can present software owners and developers with a range of issues. We present here a generic solution to the sensitive issue of PCI compliance where aspect orientated programming (AOP) can be applied to meet the requirement of masking the primary account number (PAN).  Our architecture allows a definite amount of code to be added which intercepts all the methods specified in the aspect, regardless of future additions to the system thus reducing the amount of work required to the maintain aspect. We believe that the concepts here will provide an insight into how to approach the PCI requirements to undertake the task. The software artefact should also serve as a guide to developers attempting to implement new applications, where security and design are fundamental elements that should be considered through each phase of the software development lifecycle and not as an afterthought

On the effect of exploiting gpus for a more Eco-sustainable lease of life

It has been estimated that about 2% of global carbon dioxide emissions can be attributed to IT systems. Green (or sustainable) computing refers to supporting business critical computing needs with the least possible amount of power. This phenomenon changes the priorities in the design of new software systems and in the way companies handle existing ones. In this paper, we present the results of a research project aimed to develop a migration strategy to give an existing software system a new and more eco-sustainable lease of life. We applied a strategy for migrating a subject system that performs intensive and massive computation to a target architecture based on a Graphics Processing Unit (GPU). We validated our solution on a system for path finding robot simulations. An analysis on execution time and energy consumption indicated that: (i) the execution time of the migrated system is less than the execution time of the original system; and (ii) the migrated system reduces energy waste, so suggesting that it is more eco-sustainable than its original version. Our findings improve the body of knowledge on the effect of using the GPU in green computing. © 2015 World Scientific Publishing Company

Developing Legacy System Migration Methods and Tools for Technology Transfer

This paper presents the research results of an ongoing technology transfer project carried out in coopera- tion between the University of Salerno and a small software company. The project is aimed at developing and transferring migration technology to the industrial partner. The partner should be enabled to migrate monolithic multi-user COBOL legacy systems to a multi-tier Web-based architecture. The assessment of the legacy systems of the partner company revealed that these systems had a very low level of decompos- ability with spaghetti-like code and embedded control flow and database accesses within the user interface descriptions. For this reason, it was decided to adopt an incremental migration strategy based on the reengineering of the user interface using Web technology, on the transformation of interactive legacy programs into batch programs, and the wrapping of the legacy programs. A middleware framework links the new Web-based user interface with the Wrapped Legacy System. An Eclipse plug-in, named MELIS (migration environment for legacy information systems), was also developed to support the migration process. Both the migration strategy and the tool have been applied to two essential subsystems of the most business critical legacy system of the partner company

Evaluating Legacy System Migration Technologies through Empirical Studies

We present two controlled experiments conducted with master students and practitioners and a case study conducted with practitioners to evaluate the use of MELIS (Migration Environment for Legacy Information Systems) for the migration of legacy COBOL programs to the web. MELIS has been developed as an Eclipse plug-in within a technology transfer project conducted with a small software company [16]. The partner company has developed and marketed in the last 30 years several COBOL systems that need to be migrated to the web, due to the increasing requests of the customers. The goal of the technology transfer project was to define a systematic migration strategy and the supporting tools to migrate these COBOL systems to the web and make the partner company an owner of the developed technology. The goal of the controlled experiments and case study was to evaluate the effectiveness of introducing MELIS in the partner company and compare it with traditional software development environments. The results of the overall experimentation show that the use of MELIS increases the productivity and reduces the gap between novice and expert software engineers

Herramienta que automatiza la configuración de conectores para la integración de sistemas heredados

Elabora una herramienta que permita la configuración de conectores para la integración de sistemas heredados, utilizando para ello adaptadores, que permitan la transformación de mensajes entre distintos sistemas heterogéneos, y Servicios Web para llevar a cabo la interoperabilidad. Uno de los beneficios de aplicar este tipo de integración, es que no hay que realizar cambios en los sistemas para poder comunicarlos unos con otros, sino que, a través de conectores, se adaptan interfaces estándares que hacen posible la integración de los sistemas. A efectos de poder adaptar los procesos de negocio a nuevos escenarios tecnológicos, las organizaciones se han visto en la necesidad de integrar sus sistemas, con la finalidad de poder generar mayores ventajas competitivas. Sin embargo, esta es una tarea ardua debido a que muchos de los sistemas están basados en arquitecturas monolíticas y rígidas. Este es el caso de los Sistemas Heredados, los cuales, pese a que son considerados obsoletos, son de misión crítica para la organización. Otras de las características de estos tipos de sistemas, es que las organizaciones se resisten a reemplazarlos, debido a que, a lo largo del tiempo han demostrado su fiabilidad y seguridad. Debido a las características descritas, es importante para las organizaciones mantener la lógica de negocio que se encuentra incluida dentro de estos tipos de sistemas, ya que es muy difícil en la mayoría de casos tratar de migrarlos, pues no siempre cuentan con la documentación completa que se pueda utilizar para la construcción de un nuevo sistema.Trabajo de suficiencia profesiona

Integración de sistemas heredados utilizando web services

Hoy en día, la mayoría de las organizaciones se encuentran adaptando sus procesos de negocios a los nuevos escenarios económicos y tecnológicos, a efectos de poderse mantener competitivas en estos. En ese sentido, la modernización e integración de sus Sistemas de Software son tareas indispensables para lograr ese objetivo. En algunas organizaciones, el portafolio de Sistemas de Software esta compuesto por los llamados Sistemas Heredados, los cuales en la mayoría de casos, por dar soporte a funciones de misión crítica de la organización, es necesario modernizar e integrar. La modernizacin e integracin de Sistemas Heredados no es una tarea fcil sino imposible de lograr, dada las caractersticas de estos sistemas, como por ejemplo tener una estructura monoltica, estar desarrollados con tecnologa obsoleta, poseer poca o nula documentacin, etc. Tradicionalmente, los esfuerzos de integracin de estos sistemas apuntan al reemplazo total (rediseo) o gradual (migracin) de estos sistemas. En muchos casos, estos esfuerzos han fracasado dado que los nuevos sistemas no tenan las mismas funcionalidades de los Sistemas Heredados, debido principalmente a que la documentacin era muy pobre. Una estrategia mas simple, es la de dotar de un nuevo visual al sistema, o sea desarrollar una especie de envoltorio grafico (wrapping) que permita acceder a sus funcionalidades. Esta estrategia es muy ampliamente utilizada. Con el advenimiento del concepto de Reuso de Software y dado que los Sistemas Heredados poseen funcionalidades que han demostrado su confiabilidad a lo largo de los aos, seria interesante exponer estas para que puedan ser utilizadas en la construccin de otros sistemas. En ese sentido, la aparicin de nuevas tecnologas computacionales, como por ejemplo Web Services, permite que estas funcionales puedan ser reutilizadas en el desarrollo de nuevos sistemas, con lo cual se consigue revitalizar a los Sistemas Heredados. Es objetivo de esta tesis, es mostrar la utilización de la tecnología de Web Services como una nueva estrategia de integración de Sistemas Heredados.Tesi