Large Credit Union Processor Migrates
to Sun Solaris Platform With Java Middleware
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Business Challenge An Alabama Credit Union Processor is a Credit Union Service Corporation wholly owned by eight of its user Credit Unions and the Alabama Credit Union League. These represent total assets of more than $2 billion. The processor currently provides solutions to over 150 credit unions of all sizes. XXX was to move Vision ClearPath product from a Unisys NX Series ClearPath platform to a Sun Solaris platform.
Solution The objective was to:
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Integrate with Oracle 9ias J2EE application server
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Produce a system with the current functionality of the Vision ClearPath product.
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Change exsisting specification files and methods to deliver on the Sun Solaris with minimum changes
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Produce a product compliant with Sun Solaris, Micro Focus COBOL and the Oracle9i database.
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Provide a COMS replacement, convert database schema from DMSII database and load it into Oracle
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Provide and support database conversion software for the construction phase
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Undertake unit and final quality assurance testing with our verification regression testing toolset
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Have everything up and running for final acceptance testing within seven months
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Convert current customers to the new system after parallel production quality assurance
The Vision product was accessing a DMSII database on the Unisys platform, and on the Sun Unix platform the product would be utilizing Micro Focus COBOL, along with an Oracle 9i database. We applied their Data Transformation toolset which provided a DMSII schema translator, DMSII data extractor and Oracle9i data loader, to establish an initial test database and later a full test database. We also provided the credit union processor with the license to utilize these tools as required in the future to bring across customers to the new environment on an organized schedule.
The migration made virtually no change to the existing programs, and also left the screen management files and report definition files intact. We implemented our eMCS product to replaced functionality which was in current use of COMS so that the interfaces to their Java programs remained the same.
The Processor's Director of R&D said, “XXX's generates the cleanest, most logically laid out and efficient code of any other vendor. The output is formatted (to the standards set by us) so all applications are consistent and readable by all programmers not just the original coder. XXX's use of Methods that can call other Methods, dramatically reduces the lines of code to be maintained. All instances of a routine can be modified in one change to the Method instead of us finding each instance in our 1,400 applications, screens and reports. In fact XXX's view of Methods, screen and report definitions are structured ‘component like modules’ that can be maintained independently of their program logic code,” the Director concluded.
The converted code was delivered over one month earlier than the contract specified. The customer had their final acceptance testing completed and XXX had virtually zero conversion errors to fix.
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