COBOL to Java Banking Case Studies: ING Bank's Transition
ING Bank, one of Europe's top 10 largest, used SoftwareMining Translator to migrate 1.2 Million lines of
online and batch COBOL code(CICS/DB2 and JCL) to Java.
ING Bank, ranking amongst Europe's top 10 banks, utilized the SoftwareMining Translator to transition 1.2 million lines of online and batch COBOL code (CICS/DB2 and JCL) to Java.
Initially, the bank considered outsourcing their mainframe modernization and the rewriting of their legacy COBOL applications to Java. But after in-depth technical evaluations, cost and risk assessments, the decision was to execute the project in-house, leveraging SoftwareMining's COBOL to Java Refactoring Tool.
The culmination of the project spanned 18 months, with a substantial duration dedicated to rigorous testing, comparing results from over 2 billion transactions.
Financial Benefits
Transitioning from the mainframe brought about substantial annual savings, reaching tens of millions of Euros. These savings stemmed from:
- Migrating from Mainframe to a private cloud environment
- Capitalizing on the abundance and cost-effectiveness of Java resources
Operational Advantages
Shifting to Java also ushered in other benefits:
- Agile development for rapid system changes
- Enhanced stability: The new testing suite can be reused for impact analysis of future modifications
- Advanced development lifecycle courtesy of modern tools and libraries: from open-source logging to Maven for deployment
Reasons for Choosing SoftwareMining
Project Factors
Testing, the most significant part of the project, demanded the expertise of bank personnel familiar with system functionalities. This necessitated other smaller tasks to be managed in-house, harnessing a blend of the bank's resources, existing System-Integrators, and external contractors as required. The chosen approach yielded benefits like:
- Security: Ensuring no code or data ever exited the bank's infrastructure
- Enhanced management over expenditure, risks, and timelines
- Simpler phases of re-translation and re-testing amidst evolving COBOL code needs
Technical Aspects
- Precise Java code generation aligning with rigorous testing
- Producing Java code maintainable by developers
- Interoperability with the mainframe, achieved through SoftwareMining's libraries, which dynamically converted data files housing packed-decimal fields
- Persistent use of current (DB2) databases
- An MQSeries migration strategy enabling MQSeries communication and potential transitions to other message queuing systems
- Leveraging IBM CICS functionality via a SoftwareMining counterpart
- Smooth integration from JCL Migration to Unix Shell scripts and the newly translated Java code
Business Considerations
- Augmented maintainability of the bank's legacy infrastructure
- Cost reduction in operations
- Strengthened risk management processes
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