Modernizing Legacy IBM i Application

About the Client

Based in Fort Worth, Texas, the client is a valuation consultant firm specializing in mass and specialty appraisals for industries like large industrial, oil and gas, and real estate. Along with valuation services, it provides end-to-end cartography, IT, mailing, and printing solutions.

  • Industry:Technology
  • Team Size: 5 Developers and 1 Architect
  • Project Tenure: Multi-year

Key Deliverables

  • Deciphering and understanding a legacy green-screen-based AS400 system
  • Transforming a green screen interface into a modern and intuitive web UI
  • Addressing long-pending customizations during new system development
  • Supporting new APIs and services with existing partner and third-party systems
  • Designing a system that could support diverse deployment environments
  • Ensuring system accessibility and optimal performance while migrating
  • Managing numerous reports and replicating their functionality in a new web application
  • Safeguarding a large amount of business-critical data during the transition

Prime Challenges

  • The client’s green screen-based AS400 application was difficult to access remotely and had limited options for usability.
  • New employees had to follow a steep learning curve before working on the application.
  • The legacy application was difficult to scale and accommodate growing business needs.
  • There was a lack of IBM i/AS400 talent to manage and maintain the application.
  • The application required high maintenance costs and complex enhancement efforts.
  • The report-centric application required significant development efforts to create diverse format-based reports or modify existing ones.

Proposed Solution

  • Initial Migration Steps: The team conducted a thorough assessment of the technical environment and business needs before deciding to transition the application into a web-based solution using modern technologies.
  • Considerations: They started jotting down the factors that may affect the overall system to ensure it runs simultaneously and is accessible during migration.
  • Customization Enablement: The team intends to make the application easy to amend and enhance as per the client’s requirements.
  • Usability Enhancement: They aim to transition the model in a way that enables business users with domain knowledge to operate the application.
  • Maintenance Reduction: The team wants to make the application an API-based one that can help lower infrastructure and maintenance efforts and costs.
  • Scalability Improvement: They intend to ensure the application can be scaled horizontally and vertically when business requirements grow and application loads increase.
  • Business Intelligence Tool Integration: The team aims to integrate a business intelligence tool that would simplify report creation and modification irrespective of their formats.
  • Deployment Decisions: They plan to deploy the application on the IBM i server initially, which can be transferred to their preferred servers in the future.

Tech Stack:

  • IBM i/AS400
    IBM i/AS400
  • RPG
    RPG
  • DB2i
    DB2i
  • Java 8
    Java 8
  • Spring Boot
    Spring Boot
  • Spring REST
    Spring REST
  • Spring Data JPA
    Spring Data JPA
  • Spring Cache
    Spring Cache
  • Spring Security
    Spring Security
  • Swagger
    Swagger
  • BIRT Reporting Engine
    BIRT Reporting Engine
  • SQL
    SQL
  • Maven
    Maven
  • Liquibase
    Liquibase
  • JWT
    JWT
  • JUnit
    JUnit
  • Angular
    Angular
  • Typescript
    Typescript
  • CSS
    CSS
  • HTML
    HTML
  • JIRA
    JIRA
  • Bitbucket
    Bitbucket
  • Git
    Git
  • IntelliJ
    IntelliJ
  • Visual Studio Code
    Visual Studio Code
  • Eclipse BIRT
    Eclipse BIRT
  • Postman
    Postman

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