Relativity Technologies Updates Modernization Suite

August 21, 2007 Alex Woodie

Relativity Technologies this month unveiled a new release of its Modernization Workbench, a collection of tools designed to help development organizations better understand their business logic written in RPG and other languages. With version 8.0 of the tool, users will it easier to isolate the code that powers specific business processes and to track how it interacts with other parts of an application. A new browser-based dashboard was also added.

The Modernization Workbench works with a range of so-called “legacy” platforms, including System i, System z, Unix, and Windows systems, and helps users get a grip on their applications in preparation for modernization projects and platform migrations.

One of the chief functions of the Workbench is code analysis, a process that works on the i5/OS server in the same way as any other platform. Following the loading all the various components of an application into the repository, including RPG or COBOL business logic source code, CL screens, printer files, and DDS, the Workbench can perform various low-level actions on that data, including legacy understanding, or “knowledge mining,” where the tool performs data flow and execution path analysis.

With version 8.0, users are able to track individual pieces of code with a higher degree of accuracy and visibility than before. With this release, business analysts can assign metadata tags to chunks of code, which Relativity refers to as “black boxing.” With these tags in place, the analysts can then better track how the pieces of code are used when the application runs, using the Workbench’s code diagramming feature.

“So instead of a massive jumble of interrelated artifacts, we’re able to take it up a level and see how the conglomerations interact,” says Peter Mollins, a vice president with Relativity. “It gives a much clearer view and allows you to essentially extract out, or isolate, the logic of a particular business scenario.”

Version 8.0 also brings a new dashboard function designed to simplify the presentation of the Workbench’s analysis of business processes. The new browser-based dashboards present various bits of information about business processes, such as the value, risk and cost of running a given process within an application, such as a claims management system at an insurance company. With this information displayed, the thinking goes, decision makers can more easily see the attributes of applications that will effect their decision to modernize, migrate, scrap, or leave a legacy application alone.

“This role-based, visual information helps them optimize their resources and make well-informed decisions,” says Steve Maysonave, chairman, president, and CEO of Relativity Technologies.