IBM IMS/DB? Modernization Now!

"If it wasn’t for IBM IMS/DB, we would have re-platformed our applications already"

Fast and reliable used to be the key factors for selecting IMS/DB as database system for mission critical data. During the last decades SQL databases have become as performing on a whole range of (cheaper) platforms. Also, the knowledge of IMS/DB is dwindling while at the same time SQL DBA’s are easier to find. The data however, that is stored in those mainframes databases, is nowadays needed and used in a much wider range of applications. These applications are running on mobiles and in the cloud. Providing the data from your existing IMS/DB applications to such modern apps is not an easy task. SQL databases are better equipped for it but that means a continuous replication of data.

The real solution would be to keep the implemented business logic but have the data in a SQL Database. For this major exercise a lot has to be changed in your applications. All these changes of the data access architecture and logic means a lot of work and risk of errors. Hence a lot of testing is needed.

Automation could minimize many of these efforts. It is this task that AMELIO Modernization Platform can perform for you: 100% automatically with only a short freeze period and a limited test impact.

Automatic Transformation

AMELIO Modernization Platform provides a fully configurable Software Modernization Factory. It imports and analyses all your source code. All relevant issues are identified and the factory is prepared for a modernization according to your wishes. Selected parts of the application, that cover all the identified issues, are modernized to validate the future situation. After extensive Meta-Level testing of these selected parts, the rest of applications are fed into the factory and the final modernization is performed.

This strategy enables you to adapt your future environment to new wishes or effects discovered during testing without redoing anything. It also enables normal maintenance during most of the modernization project. Only shortly before the final migration a short freeze is necessary. This enables you to adjust the outcome of the final modernization until very late in the project without the risk of running out of time and budget.

Meta-Level Testing
If an 100% automated process performs a task we can assume that, in contrast to human intervention, it always performs this task in the same reliable manner. It is therefore not necessary to test the outcome of all individual tasks that have been performed by an automated process. In our case a representative subset of the applications changed is enough to prove the correct functioning of the factory. This is what Meta-Level testing is about.

Here you find more information about AMELIO Modernization Platform and its extremely power for automated modernization of your applications. Get in touch right now – we are ready to help.