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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
old fogies & hackers, July 1, 2002
Legacy Systems are both challenge and opportunity for firms seeking to exploit eBusiness and beyond. This book is a necessary and very readable text for all 'old fogie' mainframers and 'hacker' PC types... as well as anyone intending to take control of in-house software to exploit any emerging technology and business opportunity effectively. While not glossing over serious technical, management, and cost issues, it is ultimately quite optimistic.COBOL is not dead, but growing, along with JAVA and some nascent competitors. CICS handles more activity than the Internet. Many eBusiness promoters have implied that one can hold core legacy systems constant... and only change the connecting data exchange software. In most cases, quite the opposite is true. Unfortunately, a lot of the valuable information about systems gathered during Y2K was discarded, instead of being used as a baseline for strategic optimization, integration, migration, package replacement, and - most definitely - data integration along the B2B and B2C models. This book walks the reader through a variety of scenarios based on real successes and failures, with software tools playing a key role. Perhaps most importantly, it refutes the myth that the COBOL language and COBOL systems do not evolve on a cost-effective basis. It also makes the case that the battlefield is not COBOL against JAVA, but embedded business rules, access to data, and communications vs. inertia. B2B and B2C open up internal corporate systems to communications from orders of magnitudes of new users - not all of whom are friendly, knowledgeable, and honorable. It is incumbent on IT management to take a renewed interest on the quality, discipline, and security mechanisms present in those legacy systems. Fortunately, it can be a manageable, cost-effective, and scalable process. To provide practical help, Ulrich provides an excellent list of tool vendors and products in the Appendix, noting that it is illustrative, not definitive. In fact, for anyone considering a legacy system transformation, this Appendix is a good starting point on ideas of how to leverage the quality and productivity of the IT staff. Indeed, companies may find tools already in corporate libraries, awaiting integration into a tool-based transformation methodology. As the methology takes hold, it becomes easier to cost-justify and to incorporate new tools to continue such leveraging. The author comments little on the reaction of the IT staff of addressing such tools and disciplines. From my own experience, I can add that technical staff initially fearful of 'loss of creativity' quickly discover that such application-independent tools multiply rather than diminish their options. The implicit standardization that tools bring to the table also fosters teamwork while reducing redundancy, paper-pushing, and busywork.
In short, I endorse the book wholeheartedly. I wish I had written it myself.
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