The State of Washington Department of Licensing

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State of Washington Department of Licensing selects NETCOBOL for .NET

The Most Technically Viable Solution

Profile

The State of Washington Department of Licensing (WADOL) has a mature set of applications running on a Unisys 2200 mainframe. These applications, developed over 30 years, comprise close to 1.5 million lines of COBOL code, accessing thousands of files, large databases (DMS and RDMS), and hundreds of user interface screens, and are controlled by over 50,000 lines of job control language (Unisys’ ECL and SSG). The applications support the core of WADOL’s business.

Over the last few years WADOL has also built applications and expertise in Microsoft Windows and SQL Server.

Client Challenges

• Mainframes are expensive machines to purchase and maintain - often an order of magnitude more than similarly powered PC configurations.
• The software on the Unisys mainframe was perceived to be falling behind that available on other platforms in terms of usability and flexibility of data reporting.
• Independent Service Vendors (ISVs) are no longer developing addon tools for the platform.
• Workarounds created to provide more flexible reporting involve regularly downloading data to other platforms and, in some instances, entering data twice.
• With each year there are fewer people available who are experienced in the Unisys environment, and WADOL could foresee significant reduction in its internal group of experienced people through retirement.
• WADOL’s Unisys applications use Unisys’ proprietary 6-bit character set which limits the applications to using ALL UPPER CASE CHARACTERS. (Switching to ASCII on the mainframe would involve an expensive transformation project and increase disk space costs by over $500,000 per year.)
• Internal and external analysts warned WADOL that its operations could be at serious risk if it delayed a replacement/migration plan beyond June 2005.

To this end they issued an RFP describing their needs - basically to migrate all the applications supporting the various licensing activities including vehicle licensing and drivers licensing and other administrative services to the .NET Framework using COBOL or Visual Basic by May 2005.

Request for Proposal

Key elements of the Request for Proposal were:

• Migrate the remaining 35 Unisys based applications to Windows/SQL Server
• Use .NET-compliant COBOL or Visual Basic for the migration Perform the migration quickly with lowest risk possible
• Retain the current format, style and navigation of the user interfaces and reports
• All applications to be operating routinely on the new environment by May 31, 2005
• All migration work and any necessary end-user training to be provided by the vendor Priorities expressed as:
  
  1. Schedule
  2. Cost
  3. Scope
• Applications for migration consist of:
  
  • 773 ECL scripts
  • 788 COBOL programs
  • 1241 Procs - 323 Screens
  • 180 Electronic interfaces
• The project would start with a Proof of Concept on a particular application to demonstrate that the selected vendor could perform the migrations successfully, and to demonstrate that the technology performs as expected

The Fujitsu Solution

Fujitsu Consulting’s winning proposal met the RFP criteria in a way that minimized the migration risk while helping staff build contemporary skills. Utilizing the architectural similarities between the Unisys transaction processing system (DPS 2200), CICS and ASP.NET, Fujitsu proposed to transform the various parts of the applications into corresponding entities using a combination of NetKicks, NetCOBOL for .NET, SQL Server, and ASP.NET.

The key advantages of the Fujitsu approach were to:

• Minimize Source Code Changes (COBOL to COBOL):
  
  • Reduce risk by preserving investment in the business logic that’s embodied in the applications
  • Enable staff to build skills in new areas like VB.NET and Web Services without making current skills obsolete
  • Use Fujitsu’s NetCOBOL to generate native Microsoft .NET executables
• Use Fujitsu’s NetKicks to migrate TIP and DPS screens into ASP.NET Web Forms to create a thin-client Web application (IE)
• Provide a two-dimensional translator between the converted COBOL programs and the SQL database that allows the programs to access and update data as they did on the Unisys.
• Simplify maintenance, since there was no need to deploy special components on the client side
• Eliminate the need to upgrade client hardware
• Transform DMS/RDMS to SQL Server 2000
• Retain Sequential/Indexed file (legacy flat file) in the new .NET environment using NetCOBOL

To execute all the details of the proposed solution, Fujitsu Consulting provided teams of consultants already familiar with the Unisys and .NET environments.

Experience the Fujitsu Consulting Difference

Fujitsu, together with Microsoft, brings years of experience, credibility, skills and the tools to help you move forward with confidence to accelerate a migration process. Fujitsu Consulting's Legacy Modernization solution offering realizes the fundamental value of IT through measurably lowering the total cost of ownership. The company utilizes its award winning methodology with the latest technologies that are most responsive to a client's requirements.

By using NetCOBOL for .NET, Fujitsu can maximize the use of the existing COBOL code, minimizing the changes and consequently minimizing the risk. Through using NetCOBOL for .NET and NetKicks, Fujitsu Consulting's CICS migration solution, there will be minimal training required by both the programming staff and the end-users.

.NET makes the migration of COBOL applications easy, and with Microsoft .NET technology a lot of new opportunities are available once the migration is complete. Modern technologies, such as XML web services, are easily incorporated with Visual .NET to extend the legacy applications. NetCOBOL for .NET was designed specifically to leverage the .NET Framework to help developers accomplish this important task.

As the management- and technology-consulting arm of the US$45-billion Fujitsu group, Fujitsu Consulting integrates the core expertise of Fujitsu companies and its partners to deliver complete solutions to businesses and government in the areas of Information Management, Legacy Modernization and Managed Services. The scope of these offerings extends from strategic management consulting to the tiniest detail of infrastructure operations. Through its industry-recognized strategic methodology, Macroscope®, Fujitsu Consulting assists clients in incorporating more value into their investments and driving their leadership in the marketplace.

We work with you to create solutions and produce results that drive your business.