Terence James Systems Limited has been developing and supporting business software since 1979. Relying on its strong expertise in financial applications, TJ Systems offers a leading financial and management accounting (FMA) solution to companies throughout Europe and North America. What’s more, the firm develops and supports a number of custom software applications and provides a complete range of complementary implementation and support services.
BUSINESS SITUATION
3To meet the needs of the growing population of HP-UX users and protect its competitiveness, TJ Systems decided in 1995 that it needed to migrate its flagship FMA application from the HP e3000 platform within a six-month period, to meet market demands.
CHALLENGE
TJ Systems develops and supports the Financial and Management Accounting (FMA) application. Over the product’s 15-year history, customers have come to appreciate its features, functionalities and user-friendliness. FMA is a COBOL-based application originally designed for use on the popular HP e3000 platform. However by 1995, it had become clear that HP e3000 was a declining market for new applications. TJ Systems was eager to respond to market demands to support the solution on other platforms, such as the HP-UX.
In considering the best way to support the product on these newer platforms, the company had four key priorities. First, it was eager to maximize the value of the existing application source code. After all, the company had spent several years developing highly efficient and proven code. Therefore, redeveloping the application from scratch was an unrealistic option. Next, as TJ Systems planned to continue supporting the application on the HP e3000 while making it available on other systems, it was important to maximize development efficiency by maintaining a single set of source codes. Additionally, to maintain its competitiveness, it became critically important for the company to identify a rapid and cost-effective solution to respond to customer needs. Finally, the company was hoping to minimize the amount of time in which its personnel resources would be detracted from their primary responsibilities.
MIGRATION OPTIONS
TJ Systems briefly considered other options, including the use of different 4GL or database tools to redevelop the whole set of applications. The firm quickly dismissed these options, however, as none of them could respond to the company’s fundamental objectives. For one, TJ Systems anticipated that any redevelopment effort would require a minimum of two years to complete. In addition, the exercise would prove prohibitively expensive and divert its skilled application developers away from their key responsibilities, namely ongoing product enhancements. What’s more, redeveloping a proven application from scratch would likely prove to be a highly risky endeavour!
THE AMXW SOLUTION
TJ Systems therefore chose AMXW, as it was — and continues to be — the most comprehensive solution on the market today to migrate third generation language applications and a variety of database types to open environments. Using this tool, the professionals at TJ Systems were able to migrate their COBOL source code easily and port the TurboImage database to the Oracle relational database management system.
VALUE TO BUSINESS
Using Fresche Legacy’s AMXW (Automated Migration to UNIX or Windows) migration tool, Lewis Bakeries was able to complete its transition objectives on schedule within an aggressive time frame. The custom migration training provided by Fresche Legacy’s migration consultant and Lewis Bakeries’ active involvement in the knowledge transfer and use of tools resulted in a successful migration project.
Key Benefits
Offers support for MPE Intrinsics
AMXW offers strong support for MPE file and database intrinsic calls — the software functions required in HP e3000 programs, but that are not included in any of the international standard programming languages. The AMXW source code translator automatically adapts affected routines to render the code compatible in other environments, such as UNIX.
Provides a rapid and cost-effective solution
The solution proved to be the fastest and most cost-efficient solution for TJ Systems. In fact, within only a matter of days, programs were running in the UNIX environment and the entire project (including over 650,000 lines of code) was completed within four months — a fraction of the time that would have otherwise been required if the company had chosen to pursue other options. AMXW was therefore instrumental in helping TJ Systems rapidly address emerging market needs for application support on alternative platforms.
Protects valuable application code
AMXW enabled TJ Systems to capitalize on 15 years of product development. As such, the company was able to maintain its proven, high-performing code moving forward.
Enhances development productivity
The solution facilitates efficient ongoing development. TJ Systems is able to maintain a single set of HP e3000 source codes which is then migrated to the HP-UX environment.
Since new releases of FMA are still being actively developed, this migration process continues to be used — sometimes three or four times a day! This allows the company to provide identical versions of its flagship product: FMA 3000 and FMA-UX! TJ Systems is committed to supporting FMA under MPE/iX for as long as it still has HP e3000 users.
THE RESULTS
TJ Systems was able to migrate its FMA application to HP-UX cost-effectively — in just four months. In addition, the company did not need to compromise any of the product’s original features and functionality and the effort did not detract TJ Systems’ technical personnel resources away from their vital core responsibilities. The result is a completely transparent, centrally managed, solution that operates on the platforms that best suit their customers’ needs. For more information about FMA financial applications, visit www.tjsystems.co.uk.
FRESCHE LEGACY’S COMPLETE PORTFOLIO OF MIGRATION SERVICES:
Comprehensive migration assessment
Migration planning and analysis
Complete project management
Implementation
Database porting tools
3GL and 4GL migration
Industry-certified technical support