CM evolveIT can scale up to enterprise environments, so you can trust it to handle your most complex challenges.

A major project like migrating off the mainframe has to be done right. But for a leading ocean transportation company and an expert in maritime logistics and planning, IT was not its core competency. This CM First customer wanted to replace their mainframe with a package application for controlling worldwide shipments, and the most critical requirement was to make the transition without business disruption. The project, therefore, had to be done in phases, which meant critical connections, like CICS/MQ messaging, had to be maintained while the applications were migrated one by one.

The Challenge

Like many companies, they didn’t have updated diagrams of which applications connected with others, which messaged between applications and how all the I/O worked. They also didn’t have clean documentation of business rules. Even though they weren’t worried about porting all functionality—the package applications would take care of much of that—the possibility of missing critical interface elements or rules made the project very risky. As the migration progressed, they needed to be sure that triggers and interactions between migrated components and the mainframe were maintained.

The Solution

The company chose CM evolveIT to document business rules and the complex interactions between programs. Using the product’s sophisticated static analysis capabilities, they were able to understand which mainframe components could be decommissioned and in which order. They also were able to use the business rule mining feature to validate the package solutions covered all the critical requirements.

Using CM evolveIT ultimately helped them migrate the mainframe modules at a comfortable pace, and ensure they understood and could maintain communications and connections until the mainframe components were fully decommissioned.

The Results

Rather than embarking on the painstaking effort of reading every mainframe program and hand-documenting every aspect of the shipment system—a costly and risky exercise—automation delivered quick results, enabling them to plan a multi-step process with confidence. Using CM evolveIT ultimately helped them migrate the mainframe modules at a comfortable pace, and ensure they understood and could maintain communications and connections until the mainframe components were fully decommissioned.

What can automation do for you? When you plan out a project, look for ways you can exploit IT power instead of manpower to make large projects less costly, less risky and much faster. The economics can be very compelling too.

Click here to learn more about CM evolveIT.

Related Resources:

CM evolveIT Datasheet
CM evolve IT White Paper
CM evolveIT Use Case Video Series