Migration from Legacy to Reactive Applications in OutSystems

A legacy system is an information system that significantly resists evolution. Through a migration, these systems can be moved to a more modernized environment without having to be redeveloped. OutSystems is a software company with a platform to develop and maintain applications using abstraction to increase productivity. In October 2019, OutSystems launched a new paradigm to allow developers to build reactive web applications. Because of this, the applications implemented in the old web paradigm turned into legacy systems. The OutSystems’ approach to this problem was a manual migration. However, it discards a considerable part of the effort previously made on the legacy system. A well-founded case study took place and allowed us to classify the UI as the most prioritized feature, but coincidently, the major bottleneck in migrations. So, this project had the following objectives: (1) The design and implementation of an automatic migration approach capable of converting UI elements to accelerate the manual migration; (2) The integration of the developed tool in the OutSystems platform. To transform the OutSystems paradigm’s elements, model-driven transformation rules must be set to receive the source UI elements and produce the target equivalent implementation in the new paradigm (each according to their model). However, the trans formations may not be straightforward, and a set of elements may need to be migrated to a different implementation due to Reactive Web’s best practices. Via the creation and search of UI patterns, it is possible to make special transformations for such scenarios. As a result, a migration approach was developed, allowing for the migration of UI (and other) elements. To complement this objective, the developed tool was integrated into the OutSystems platform with an easy to use interaction. Performance and usability tests proved the necessity and impact the final result had on the migration problem. This dissertation’s objectives were fully met and even exceeded, accelerating the man ual migration by providing an automatic UI conversion. This provided a quality increase in the existing process and results, giving OutSystems and its users the possibility of evolving their applications with considerable less effort and investment.Um sistema legado é um sistema de informação que resiste à evolução. Através de uma migração, estes sistemas podem ser movidos para um ambiente modernizado sem necessitar de re-implementação. A OutSystems é uma empresa de software com uma plataforma para desenvolver e manter aplicações usando abstracção para aumentar a produtividade. Em Outubro de 2019, a OutSystems lançou um novo paradigma para desenvolver aplicações reactive web. Assim, as aplicações implementadas no antigo paradigma web tornaram-se sistemas legados. A abordagem da OutSystems ao problema foi uma migração manual, no entanto, esta abordagem desconsidera uma parte significativa do investimento feito no sistema legado. Uma análise permitiu classificar a UI como a característica mais priorizada, mas também como o maior obstáculo em migrações. Assim, este projecto tem como objectivos: (1) O desenho e implementação de uma migração automática capaz de converter os elementos de UI para acelerar a migração manual; (2) A integração da ferramenta desenvolvida na plataforma da OutSystems. Para transformar os elementos dos paradigmas OutSystems, transformações de modelos têm de ser definidas para receber os elementos UI e produzir a implementação equivalente no novo paradigma (de acordo com o seu modelo). No entanto, as transformações podem não ser lineares, e um conjunto de elementos pode necessitar de uma migração para uma implementação diferente devido ao Reactive Web. Com a definição e procura de padrões de UI, é possível fazer transformações especiais para esses cenários. Como resultado, a migração foi desenvolvida, permitindo a conversão de elementos de UI (e não só). Para complementar, a ferramenta desenvolvida foi integrada na plataforma da OutSystems com uma interacção de fácil uso. Testes de desempenho e usabilidade provaram a necessidade e impacto da ferramenta no contexto da migração manual. Os objectivos desta dissertação foram completados na totalidade, acelerando a migração manual com a automação da migração de UI. Isto traz um aumento da qualidade no processo existente e nos seus resultados, dando à OutSystems e aos seus utilizadores a possibilidade de evoluírem as suas aplicações com um esforço e investimento menores

A Planning Approach to Migrating Domain-specific Legacy Systems into Service Oriented Architecture

The planning work prior to implementing an SOA migration project is very important for its success. Up to now, most of this kind of work has been manual work. An SOA migration planning approach based on intelligent information processing methods is addressed to semi-automate the manual work. This thesis will investigate the principle research question: “How can we obtain SOA migration planning schemas (semi-) automatically instead of by traditional manual work in order to determine if legacy software systems should be migrated to SOA computation environment?”. The controlled experiment research method has been adopted for directing research throughout the whole thesis. Data mining methods are used to analyse SOA migration source and migration targets. The mined information will be the supplementation of traditional analysis results. Text similarity measurement methods are used to measure the matching relationship between migration sources and migration targets. It implements the quantitative analysis of matching relationships instead of common qualitative analysis. Concretely, an association rule and sequence pattern mining algorithms are proposed to analyse legacy assets and domain logics for establishing a Service model and a Component model. These two algorithms can mine all motifs with any min-support number without assuming any ordering. It is better than the existing algorithms for establishing Service models and Component models in SOA migration situations. Two matching strategies based on keyword level and superficial semantic levels are described, which can calculate the degree of similarity between legacy components and domain services effectively. Two decision-making methods based on similarity matrix and hybrid information are investigated, which are for creating SOA migration planning schemas. Finally a simple evaluation method is depicted. Two case studies on migrating e-learning legacy systems to SOA have been explored. The results show the proposed approach is encouraging and applicable. Therefore, the SOA migration planning schemas can be created semi-automatically instead of by traditional manual work by using data mining and text similarity measurement methods

Factors Affecting Success in Migration of Legacy Systems to Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) - Shared Experiences from Five Case Companies

Background: The term ‘legacy systems’ refers to existing Information Systems that have been deployed in the past and have been running critical business processes within an enterprise in its current IT architecture. Based on their important role, legacy systems are considered the heart of a company’s operating enterprise system and therefore are of significant business value to the company. Therefore IT architects have not neglected the value these existing assets can bring to the adoption of service-oriented architecture and have been studying different methods and factors to migrate the legacy investments into the new architecture and take advantage of their business value. However, not in all cases has the process of migrating legacy systems into SOA been successful. In fact, the level of success in adapting the legacy systems in a company with the new service-oriented architecture is dependant on some factors which vary from one legacy infrastructure and series of business processes to another. There is no quick fix to transforming the existing legacy assets which highlights the fact that considering the right factors to reach legacy system migration success in a specific company is of key value. Therefore, we hereby studied the factors influencing success of migrating these legacy investments into SOA in five different companies which include a Large European Bank, SAS, a Large globally-known Company in Sweden, Sandvik AB and a large UK Bank. Purpose: To identify factors affecting successful migration of legacy systems into SOA in five companies. Method: The main adopted research method in this study has been interviews for different case studies. Through separate interviews, critical success factors of migrating legacy systems into SOA have been collected and identified in each case. Finally collected results are analyzed and presented as the recognized factors affecting successful migration of legacy assets into SOA in five different enterprises with their own Information System infrastructures. Conclusion: The success factors identified include potential of legacy systems for being migrated, strategy of migration, SOA governance, the business process of the company, budgeting and resources, legacy architecture, close monitoring, dependence on commercial products, information architecture, testing and technical skills of the personnel. Out of all these factors, only three factors have been applied and mentioned by all the case companies in this study, which are the potential of legacy systems for being migrated into SOA, strategy of migration and SOA Governance

Einflussfaktoren für erfolgreiche Datenmigrationen im Rahmen von IT-Projekten.

Mit dem Unternehmenswachstum altern auch die Systeme, welche nach einer bestimmten Anzahl an Jahren das Ende ihrer Lebensphase erreichen und nicht mehr verwaltet werden können. Dieser Grund ist einer von vielen, weshalb Systeme in Unternehmen abgelöst und durch neue ersetzt werden. In den meisten Fällen werden Daten aus dem Altsystem in das neue System übernommen. Es findet sich zunehmend Literatur zum Thema Datenqualität in Zusammenhang mit Datenqualitätsmanagement oder Data-Warehouse-Systemen. Deshalb untersucht die vorliegende Bachelorarbeit den Einfluss hoher Datenqualität und effektive Migrationsplanungen für den Erfolg der IT-Projekte. Obwohl die Datenmigration ein bekanntes Verfahren ist, scheitert die Mehrheit aller Datenmigrationsprojekte. Es wird daher davon ausgegangen, dass die Ursache des Problems auf die Unterschätzung der Faktoren Datenqualität beruht und die Migrationsplanung unzureichend definiert wird. Daher ermittelt diese Bachelorarbeit die Antwort auf die Frage, welchen Einfluss eine hohe Datenqualität und effektive Migrationsplanung auf den IT-Projekterfolg hat