In today’s IT world, the reality is that legacy and modern code bases are co-existing in most enterprises of any size. We really like this post from TechRepublic as an effective illustration of the problem. See point 10, which lists COBOL as one of the IT industry’s top 10 dying skills. In the same paragraph, however, the article also cites the difficulty of hiring COBOL programmers, and passes on IBM’s statistic that 70% of the world’s business data is still processed by legacy languages such as COBOL.

In our view, the IBM statistic represents a reality about the state of application modernization. Application modernization is an incremental task - mission critical applications are not replaced in a week or a month, so modern code must co-exist with legacy RPG and COBOL for the foreseeable future. The key is to implement a strategy to modernize while continuing to maintain and enhance legacy code bases.

Here are two strategies to investigate.

Ramp up metadata management

Repositories and analysis tools that work across domains like RPG, COBOL, Java, and C# can help organizations manage the transition. If you are an IBM i shop, that may mean turning to a tool like Databorough X-Analysis. For zOS and Unix enterprise shops, the CA Repository coupled with source code scanners can be an ROI enhancing option. By using these tools, analysts can zero in on the parts of the application portfolio that it makes most sense to modernize, and quickly assess the affect of change across both old and new code bases.

Use development frameworks that support both legacy and modern code bases

Application development environments that manage both modern and legacy code can help ease the transition to modern technology. IBM has done a good job with their RDx line of development tools that build on the popular Eclipse IDE. You can use RDx to maintain and debug RPG/COBOL simultaneously with Java and Web Services. And IBM EGL, which generates both Java and COBOL, is part of the RDx line. Another strong contender is CA Plex, the multi-platform code generator from CA. CA Plex generates RPG, Java, C#, and C++. With the WebClient i+ generator add-in, CA Plex also generates RIA/Ajax web applications.