Developing legacy system migration methods and tools for technology transfer
Software—Practice & Experience
Evaluating legacy system migration technologies through empirical studies
Information and Software Technology
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The adoption of the Internet technologies favors thediffusion of Web-based applications. However, thedevelopment of new applications exploiting the moderninterfaces and distribution channels have to face theproblems connected with the integration of existing softwaresystems. This aspect often requires the migration of legacysystems toward the Web technologies. They encapsulate agreat deal of knowledge and expertise about the applicationdomain and cannot be simply discarded.Many of the migration strategies proposed in theliterature assume that the underlying software system is(semi)decomposable where the interface component isseparated from the business logic and the data modelcomponents. In this case, the interface component can be re-implemented,while the other ones are encapsulated intosoftware wrappers. Unfortunately, legacy systems are veryoften non-decomposable and alternative solutions areneeded. This paper proposes an approach for migrating anon-decomposable software system. The approach consistsof redirecting the request of input/output operations to thelegacy system by using screen and database proxies. Theapproach has been applied successfully to Cobol softwaresystems with a character-based user interface.