Introduction

Much has been written and said about existing software systems over the past few years. Tools and solutions have come and gone as organizations have taken on and discarded numerous “silver bullet” strategies for addressing major business and IT challenges. Yet massive, aging software systems remain at the core of most every industry. Increasingly complex, yet fragile, software systems play a critical role in insurance and healthcare; banking and finance; defense and government; manufacturing and telecommunications; energy and utilities; transformation; retail and other industries.

The following Gartner quote states the strategic value of modernization.

“IT modernization reinstates IT strategic planning at the heart of the CIO cabinet. Most CIOs will need to develop new skills and competencies in their management teams to deal with the significant challenges of IT modernization.”

6 February 2008, ID Number G00154885, Andy Kyte & Dale Vecchio,

Architecture-driven modernization provides an enterprise with a wide variety of options for understanding, evolving and ultimately transforming critical software systems. Applying modernization options to existing software systems is no longer a tactical luxury or stop-gap measure for organizations. Rather, modernization now plays an essential and strategic role within an enterprise and serves as a vehicle for facilitating the alignment of IT with business strategy and business architecture. In addition, modernization opens up a variety of new options for executives as they consider the best way to leverage IT funding and avoid cost and project overruns common in many enterprises today.

To best convey the message of how modernization can address these needs, we offer this book as a testament to the fact that modernization provides real and quantifiable value to organizations. We included ten powerful modernization case studies that discuss how modernization solutions have been applied to a number of scenarios, across a wide variety of industries. In addition, we offer insights into why modernization is becoming more of a necessity as executives seek to find new and unique ways to leverage scarce resources yet still mobilize key enterprise initiatives.

Why architecture-driven modernization? We are frequently asked why the term “architecture-driven” is appended to term modernization. The answer is simple. For modernization initiatives and programs to gain long-term executive support so that the program remains successful and sustainable, modernization efforts must look at the broader impacts and benefits on the IT architecture and on the business architecture. We provide guidance on how to do this in Part I of this book.

Why a case study book? When we discussed writing a book with customers, clients, colleagues and our publisher, one message came through loud and clear. Organizations want to learn how other organizations have applied modernization in practice, including hearing about the successes and the pitfalls of these projects. In seeking out these case studies, we felt that offering a diversified view of modernization was important. We believe that we achieved this diversification from a regional, industry, platform and project approach perspective.

We also felt that any book on modernization case studies should present those case studies in a broader context. As a result, we have provided readers with a complete context and set of approaches for justifying, launching and implementing modernization initiatives. In other words, this book not only serves a basis for convincing your colleagues and management that modernization offers strategic value, but can also serve as an ongoing handbook that you will come back to again and again to continue to expand your understanding of modernization concepts and approaches.

We hope you get as much value out of this book as we gained in writing and editing it. In developing a book that included a number of contributions from additional authors for various case studies, we had an opportunity to see how modernization projects were evolving across international borders and industries.

Content Overview

Part I of this book provides a comprehensive overview of architecture-driven modernization. Chapter one, An Introduction to Architecture-Driven Modernization, is recommended for anyone who wants to understand why modernization is an essential element of one’s IT and business strategy. It discusses how to avoid past project failures and build a sustainable modernization program; discusses modernization benefits and cost justification options; modernization as an alternative versus an augmentation option; how modernization supports business architecture / IT architecture alignment; assessment, refactoring and transformation disciplines and unique benefits; and basic modernization principles. We hope that you can draw from the various studies contained in chapter one over and over again to justify your modernization efforts.

Chapter two, Modernization Technologies and Services, provides a comprehensive view of the various tool, technology, service and deployment options available and when they should be exercised. Chapter three, Modernization Standards Roadmap, provides insights into the key role of standards in the evolution of tools, technologies and the practice of modernization. Chapter four, Modernization Scenarios, overviews how modernization fits into various project scenarios, many of which are incorporated into the case study section of the book in Part II. 

Part II of this book provides ten case studies, each packaged into its own chapter. Modernization case studies covered a variety of industry sectors including insurance, banking and finance; defense; private and public sector healthcare; education; tourism and travel; energy and geophysical services; federal government; air traffic control; and retail. Existing and target platforms varied but ranged from mainframe to specialty environments. In addition, we included stories from four different countries.

Case study projects addressed technology and platform migrations and transformations; hybrid solutions that incorporated commercial-off-the-shelf-packages with existing software architectures, targeting a services oriented architecture (SOA); application and data architecture transformations, including migrations to relational database environments; and model driven architecture (MDA) migrations, including the migration to UML based environments. In addition, real world examples of how to procure and maintain funding for modernization efforts provide good insights into how to only launch these efforts and, just as important, how to sustain them.

Part III of this book contains a chapter entitled, Launching & Sustaining Modernization Initiatives. This chapter provides a list of modernization pitfalls – what to avoid; a set of guiding principles; how to setup a center of excellence; a modernization tool / technology strategy; a modernization service provide strategy; and a guide as to how to get started with a modernization initiative, including procurement strategies; and what to expect from modernization as time unfolds. Many times, books do not always offer the pitfalls associated with a given topic that authors may feel passionate about. However, we feel that it is important to understand when and how you can fall stumble in a modernization effort and how to avoid these situations.