Modernisierung

Application Modernisation

05.06.2003

This is a strong indication as to why the time is right to look again at the applications that are running the organisations. We have applications in control which are not understood. This has to raise the questions of how are these to be made to fit new business models when the inner workings are not fully understood, and how can business strategy change when the applications that control the business cannot?

A key business message in this Report concerns the wresting back of control from the applications; making them serve new purposes now and in the future. Whilst, hopefully, we will not have to go through another period similar to Y2K, nothing is certain, and a quick evaluation of the cost of fixing something that wasn't broken should be enough to exercise the mind towards studying the ROI of Application Modernisation.

Technology Issues

All the surveys carried out by Butler Group in recent months demonstrate that integration, security, and Web services are of primary concern to our readership. Insofar as Application Modernisation is low on the list of priorities, this Report may appear to be of little interest. However, a mere phrase should not be taken to indicate the totality or reach of a solution. Take for example the concerns so prevalent regarding integration. The easiest path to integration is by splitting integration and interoperability into two distinct areas. When it is discovered that many of the integration problems can be addressed by interoperability, much of the pain disappears.

The downside of this approach is that both integration and interoperability are difficult to achieve with procedural code bases. Componentisation is a proven and workable method of making both integration and interoperability easier to achieve. As componentisation is a central methodology to Application Modernisation, it follows that Application Modernisation is an effective precursor to integration.

As an extension to this, if integration is not to become an ongoing never-ending process, then componentisation has to take place. Carrying out straight integration into applications that do not comply with an object design paradigm will require decoupling and new integration when the application changes. Multi-tier application modelling overcomes some of these issues of change management, but in the final analysis true componentisation will need to take place in order for applications to become more agile in response to business change.

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