three things you should know about automated...

Three Things you should know abouT

AutomAted RefActoRing when planning an applicaTion

modernizaTion sTraTegy

Three things you should know about Automated Refactoring when planning an application modernization strategy 1

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Digital technologies such as cloud, mobile, and cognitive computing create new opportunities for businesses all the time. When these technologies are implemented properly, businesses can save millions, create efficiencies, enhance quality, and improve product promotion. The challenge however for many IT organizations is they are strug-gling to maintain and update their outdated core systems. Retiring workforce, agility and higher costs are impeding innovation across organizations making legacy application modernization mission-critical to enabling businesses. Organizations must now decide on the correct modernization strategy that will enable them to upgrade their existing legacy systems to a more modern language and architecture in a clear and concise manner without compromising usability or impacting existing business operations.

What is software refactoring?Automated software refactoring, also known as code refactoring or code transformation, is a method of modernization that involves restructuring existing source code without modifying the behavior of the software. This method of updating legacy applications offers a number of advantages over other modernization strategies, including shorter development times, reduced costs, and fewer associated risks. Software refactoring has undergone significant advances over the last few years, with automated techniques and tools being used with huge success across all industries. This process is architecturally-driven, with artificial intelligence incorpo-rated into the translation toolsets. Owners of legacy applications are now rethinking how they might transform their applications, data,

and platforms, as intelligent tools translate legacy code and databases faster and with less risk than ever before.

While refactoring might not be the best choice based on the residual value of the application, there are several things that should be considered about automated software refactoring when planning your application

modernization strategy:



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1. Time to create value is shorter

Automated software refactoring has a much shorter delivery time than other methods of modernization. Instead of starting from scratch, refactoring attempts to improve code readability and reduce complexity by restructuring existing code. There are three main ways to do this: perform analysis on the existing source code to understand the business functions executed by the code and determine the best modernization strategy based on code patterns, modify the transformation rules to produce the desired target models in the new language to include any new enhancements and execute the code transformation process that automati-cally generates the new code base in Java or .Net for each component including a new database schema if required. Instead of re-inventing the wheel, these efforts are designed to improve the internal architecture of the source code and typically can be done in less than seventy percent less time than other options.

In contrast, there are numerous challenges to overcome when rewriting an application, all of which take time to iron out and test. Along with needing to specify and write the application from scratch, the will also need to write a new suite of test cases and throw away years of customer feedback and bug fixes. While it might seem like a good idea to

start with a clean slate, going back to square one can be a major barrier and carries sig-nificant risks for project delays and overruns.

Even in use cases where rewriting or replac-ing code is a good idea, it always takes much longer to create value compared to automated code transformations. Rewriting existing code will always stretch limited resources and time frames to the limit, with poor quality software often being the end result. In addition, rewriting or replacing a system doesn’t always protect user knowl-edge and typically requires additional time for training and change management.



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Software refactoring platforms provide the unique ability to create automated test classes during code transformation. This allows the execution of test cases to be fully automated across a parallel environment, which enables the modernization team to detect regressions and perform side-by-side code comparisons between the legacy appli-cation and the modernized version. There are a number of significant benefits to this when this type of testing can be performed.

Faster feedback—Potential defects are iden-tified and remediated quickly and communi-cation is improved between all stakeholders.

Accelerated results—Testing can be carried out repeatedly delivering faster results.

Reduced costs—While code refactoring often involves a high degree of testing, the execution of automated test cases reduces the time and effort required to deliver high quality modernized applications.

Higher test coverage—A higher number of tests can be executed against the modern-ized application ensuring that all major functions execute as expected.

2. Automated and parallel testing is simplified



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Modernizing any legacy software system is inherently risky. That risk can be seen as both a financial issue and a business opera-tions issue that influences a wide range of processes across an organization. Software refactoring helps to reduce the risks associ-ated with application modernization in three ways:

Business rules and can be extracted using software refactoring tools which ensures the core behavior of how things are supposed to work within the application are 100% completely understood mitigating the risk of overlooked requirements. In a rewrite or replacement strategy, the project team heav-ily relies on the ability of the subject matter expert to recall the intimate details of how the application should function and often time things are missed because it’s simply too complex of a task.

Secondly, code transformation projects are done based on fixed bid pricing. During the discovery process of a software refactoring project, the legacy application is analyzed to understand all of the underpinnings of the application including code structure, complexity of each module and its internal and external dependencies. This informa-tion provides the insight required to avoid

underestimated costs that can occur because of project overruns that happen more fre-quently than not for application rewrites or replacement projects.

Lastly, software refactoring is an automated process and after the migration is complete, the new codebase and interfaces remains similar to that of the legacy system, reducing the risk of upstream and downstream appli-cation impacts and it requires less end-user training.

While it’s impossible to mitigate all project risks associated with a modernization proj-ect, automated code refactoring can provide a lower risk-based solution to modernize core systems faster without disrupting the current business.

3. Risk is reduced compared to other options

Integritas Solutions is a software engineering company that specializes legacy software modernization. We help organizations transform their legacy applications into more modern languages faster with no disruption with our

automated code refactoring solutions powered by Morphis.

To find out more about our application modernization solutions and services email us at [email protected] or call at 888-272-2614 today.

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