3. Automated Legacy Portfolio Assessment 3
Abstract
This document is intended for use by HCL and its Business Partners. This document consists of
HCL approach for Four Steps Legacy Assessment Framework.
Legacy Assessment - Overview
Automated Legacy Assessment capabilities provide a 360 degree view analysis of business
function, technical function, operational cum cost of each functions. The framework is focused
on analyzing and understanding the current application portfolio and final recommendation
provides the business value with technical architectural fitness to deliver the future needs.
Legacy Assessment Framework
This 4 steps framework helps enterprises to get more value from their mainframes immediately. It helps
optimize and reduce costs, open them up for new experiences and user-centric applications. All this is
done in a non-disruptive manner, and without the need for full scale migration.
Discovery
Inventory
Analysis and
Data Collection
1
Digital
Documentation
HCL Tool Setup
2
Assessment
Prepare
Questionnaire
3
Recommentation
Develop
Recomentation
4
Finalize the
Scope
Generate Digital
Documentation
Score
Application on
Business and
Technical Value
1. Keep/AS-IS/
Retain
2. Retire/Replace
3. Re-Engineer/
Migrate
4. New
Development
HCL 4 Step Legacy Assessment Framework
Roadmap
Develop
Business Case
Implementation
Roadmap
Robust Legacy Assessment framework involves four steps and each step has its sub level
functions.
Discovery Phase
Digital Documentation Phase
Assessment
Recommendation
4. Automated Legacy Portfolio Assessment 4
DISCOVERY PHASE
Mainly the first step is to identify and catalogue the existing application and its definition.
Application Inventory is for collecting data of the current system
LEGACY ANALYZER
Legacy Analyzer (LA) : Automated Tool helps to modernize legacy application for digital and
hybrid cloud transformation.
Tool operates across multiple languages(Assembler, COBOL, PL1 and LDL) and environments
(Application Or Operating System) and parses different application component types, such as
source code, operating systems scripts, include files, screen maps, transactions, and messaging
system configuration data.
It produce visualize application’s internal structure and dependencies static code analysis
functionality.
Gives users the opportunity to select and configure their own analysis starting point and then
navigate across or drill down as dictated by the development, maintenance, or support task at
hand.
5. Automated Legacy Portfolio Assessment 5
DIGITAL DOCUMENTATION
Tool based Digital Documentation Repository enable comprehensive documentation and
dashboards for online, batch and business rule extraction, to facilitate sustenance of legacy
system.
ASSESSMENT
Our framework consists of the following models
1. Data collection model with process of Tool (by Legacy Analyzer) + Questionnaire based approach
2. Mathematical Scoring model for cross verifying business and technical value
3. Analytical model for providing recommendation.
6. Automated Legacy Portfolio Assessment 6
Business Value and Technical Value Assessment
In our framework, Business value and Technical value are rated based on their maturity level.
In each level, business & technical maturity is evaluated
Major components for Business Value
Business Value
Assessment
Business
Criticality
Functional
Value
Complexity
Major components for Technical Value
Technical Value Assessment
Operation Revision Transition
Functionality Performance Reliability Usability Maintainability Supportability Testability Portability Reusability
Inter
Operability
Mathematical Assessment Model, our scoring and assessment model evaluate the Business
Value and technical value.
AXi=∑ 𝑀𝑛
𝑘=0 Bk
AXi Business Value Score for ith
application
X axis for Business Value
Y axis for Technical Value
MBk Particular Business Value componets (Functional Value or Business Criticality or Complexity)
7. Automated Legacy Portfolio Assessment 7
For Ex:
Functional Value (FV) is one of the business value and consists of 5 questions
Each question has 3 statement values from 1 to 3, maximum is 3 and minimum is 1.
Functional Value scoring evaluation is average of
1
3
FV1 +
1
3
FV2 +
1
3
FV3 +
1
3
FV4 +
1
3
FV5
Result of Assessment
Based on our Collaborative, strategic summit approach, HCL analyze the business and technical
value of each application. The combination of the business value (BV) and the technical value(TV)
is then used to help inform the decision on what to do with the legacy system. strategic approach
that will scrap, remain, redevelop or replace applications.
1. Low TV and low BV: Running these systems will be expensive and the rate of return to the
business will be low.
Recommendation: scrapping these systems might be an alternative.
2. Low TV and high BV: The systems make an important business contribution and cannot be
scrapped. However, their low quality indicates that operational costs are high.
Recommendation: System transformation or replacement if a suitable system is available.
3. High TV and low BV: Means that the systems do not contribute much to the business but they are
on the other hand not very expensive to maintain.
Recommendation: It is not worth of replacing these systems. Keep AS-IS and continued as a
normal system maintenance mode.
4. High TV and high BV: These systems must be kept in operation but their high technical value
means that it is not necessary to invest in transformation or system replacement.
Recommendation: AS-IS or Normal system maintenance continued.
BUSINESS VALUE
Technical Value
High BV
and
Low TV
Low BV
and
Low TV
High BV
and
High TV
Low BV
and
High TV
8. Automated Legacy Portfolio Assessment 8
4-Step Assessment Approach
Automated Legacy Portfolio Assessment gives multi-dimensional view of all legacy existing
applications. An overall assessment and recommendation require a comprehensive approach
and knowledge about business strategies and future investments. Each application need to be
evaluated in different conditions. There could be several factors that influence how maintenance
and the future development of the application should be handled even though it is given high or
low ratings in the Assessment.
HCL introduced 4-Step assessment approach and it will acknowledge the business strategy and
future investments.
Step-1: Create the Inventory and define the scope
Step-2: Componentize the system (Functional/Technical) and create the automated digital
document and it evaluate technical value (80%) and business value (60%).
Step-3: Assessing each componentized application
Technical Value: 80% evaluation automated from DD tool and 20% is from questionnaire
approach.
Business Value: 60% evaluation automated from DD tool and 40% is from questionnaire
approach.
Step-4: Recommendation based on the portfolio assessment report.
9. Automated Legacy Portfolio Assessment 9
Assessment Deliverables
Legacy portfolio assessment provides various deliverables report
1. IT Roadmap: provides a detailed IT roadmap that discusses your business and IT environment and
provides in-depth research about the most appropriate IT modernization options. The roadmap
establishes a modernization path that takes into account business goals, resources, costs,
dependencies and competing projects.
2. Tool Based Digital Document: DD tool produce the componentized (Functional/Technical)
document and it have deep understanding of end-to-end application information, Business
Process information, Business Function decomposition, Application Flow, Program Flow, Job Flow,
Quick Data Analysis, Dead code report, Application Interface, CURD operation details and Metric
summary.
3. Assessment Recommendation: 4-Step Assessment Approach finds the technology architecture
aspect of application deployment and assesses the Business Value and Technical Value fitment,
Business risks, Technology risk and business utilization. Finnaly produce the recommendation
report
Total rewrite
Keep AS-IS
Modernization
Decommissioning, of Redundancies and duplication
Integration within Service Oriented Architectures
4. Modernization Strategy Document: This document accompanies the roadmap and supplies the
overall strategy for the transformation of your IT environment.
Assessment Benefits
legacy Portfolio Assessment Approach would provide the following benefits
Identify and address the application investment requirements
Helps to eliminate regional and redundant applications and develop strategies for selective
application restructuring, redesigning, retiring and redeployment
Ensure the investment in terms of business value and Technical Value
Ensures the proper prioritization of initiatives
Ensures the use of effective and common approaches across system
Implementing a higher degree of COTS solutions would have the following benefits
o Reduce the number of technologies
o Reduce the dependency on specialized resources
