Best Practices in Targeted Legacy Modernization in Governmentdecisionmgt.com/dms-old/attachments/article/324/LegacyModerniza… · Agenda Challenges in Modernization Decision Making

Best Practices in

Targeted Legacy

Modernization in

Government James Taylor,

CEO

©2014 Decision Management Solutions 2

Your Presenters

James Taylor

CEO of Decision Management Solutions

We help clients to improve their business by applying business rules and analytic technology to automate and improve decisions

I have spent the 11 years championing Decision Management and developing Decision Management Systems

Claye Greene

Managing Director of

TechBlue

Works with clients to transform and modernize using innovative technologies and approaches

Specializes in the adoption of Decision Management and Service-Oriented Architectures

Over 15 years experience implementing software solutions

Agenda

Challenges in Modernization

Decision Making in Legacy Systems

The Value of Business Rules

Decision Management The Essential Framework

Decision Modeling in Legacy Modernization

3 ©2014 Decision Management Solutions

Challenges In Modernization

© TechBlue, 2014 5

The Cost Of Legacy Modernization

70%

Government Accoutability Office

reports that Federal agencies are

spending 70% of their IT budgets on

maintaining legacy systems.

Over $50 billion being spent on

outdated systems, instead of

developing new capabilities.

70% - 80% of the world‘s data resides on mainframes,

and is managed by over 200 billion lines of COBOL code

© TechBlue, 2014 6

The Impact Of Legacy Systems

• Lack of agility slows response in mission-critical systems

• Policies are buried in code with long change cycle

1

Operational Weakness

• Test and learn is not an option

• What you learn cannot be applied

2

No learning

• Maintaining legacy systems is expensive

• Changing them can be even more expensive

3

High operating costs

• New capabilities that secure systems are unavailable

• Patches to system security are more quickly outdated

4

Security risks

© TechBlue, 2014 7

Benefits Of Legacy Modernization

Legacy Modernization

Improve enterprise

architecture effectiveness

Standardize IT platforms

Strengthen IT investments

Modernize IT guidance and

training

Strengthen IT Governance

Enable Agile IT

© TechBlue, 2014 8

Several Modernization Approaches Exist

Retain as is Outsource Convert

Refactor Enhance Rebuild

Componentize Upgrade 1 2 Replace

Retire

But for many organizations, retaining, outsourcing, upgrading and

retiring aren‘t viable

© TechBlue, 2014 9

Modernization Challenges

And for other organizations, several factors influence the most

appropriate approach

Overall time of modernization Required personnel skills

Existing legacy reuse

Business process changes

Overall level of effort of modernization

Changes to underlying architecture

Overall cost of modernization

Dependency on legacy platform

Overall level of effort

Modernization risks

Decision Making In Legacy Systems

© TechBlue, 2014 11

Decision-making Matters

Decisions embedded in mainframe code, or modernized code (ie

Java, C#, etc)

Many struggle with getting the decisions in the hands of the

people that kow them best


Decisioning Problems In Legacy

High rate of change

Business-oriented decisions change more frequently than traditional IT pace of change

Reporting

Business decisions are not easily reported from within legacy systems

Business knows best

Business decisions are generally best understood by the business

Decisions are not processes

Business decisions are generally best managed independent of the business processes

For business-oriented systems, getting the decisions in the hands

of the business should be a key strategic outcome of legacy

modernization


Improving Legacy System Decisions

Decision improvements

Improving the selection and allocation of work

Reducing and / or eliminating risk of fraud

Optimize

Fraud

Management

Improving detection of illicit transactions

Simulation (war-gaming) of mission-critical scenarios

Improved

awareness

Strategic

planning

Improving tactical response to hazardous situations

Protection

and safety

Decision improvements

Improved situational awareness and accelerating response time

Scenario simulation to optimize resource allocation and usage

Awareness

Simulation

Improved customer satisfaction through informed, proactive decisioning

Improved management and stewardship of government funds

Customer

relations

Fiscally

responsible

Increase the strategic and monetary value of enterprise data

Data value


Modernizing Decisions

Retain as is Outsource Convert

Refactor Enhance Rebuild

Componentize Upgrade 1 2 Replace

Retire

1. Refactor to find decisions

2. Componentize to separate them

3. Enhance them with business rules

Introducing Business Rules


Business Rules Drive Decisions

But are a black box in most legacy systems


Business Rules Deliver Transparency

© Decision Management Solutions, 2014 18

Example Business Rules

Total Number

of Orders

Most Recent

Order

Total Orders

last 12

months

Lifetime

Order Total

Customer

Status

>= 5 < 90 days > $10,000 Gold

>=10 < 180 days > $20,000 Gold

>= 20 < 360 days > $40,000 Gold

< 180 days > $1,000,000 Gold

> $2,000,000 Gold

If Patient’s DrugList contains “Drug1”

and Patient’s DrugList contains “Drug2”

then add “Drug 1 and Drug2 can interact in patients with high blood pressure” to

DrugConflictReasons

and set DrugConflictLevel to “Warning”

If thisPart is of type “Fuel Tank”

and thisPart < 1m from anyPart of type “Battery”

then move(thisPart)


Elements Of A BRMS

Decision

Service

Testing and

Debugging

Technical Rule

Management

Non-technical

Rule

Management

Impact

Analysis

Data

Management

Verification

and Validation

Deployment

Rule

Repository


Business Rules Management System

Design Transparency

Execution Transparency

Impact Analysis Collaboration


Business Rules Deliver Agility

ADD #2,+VCSDTFPD,RESULT=DTIN4A

ADD #1,+ZW0DTFPD,RESULT=DTOUT4A

CALL Z#SCMPDT,0,0,0,0,0,P2=DTIN4A,P3=DTOUT4A

ADD #2,+VCSNEXPD,RESULT=DTIN5A

ADD #1,+ZW0NEXPD,RESULT=DTOUT5A

CALL Z#SCMPDT,0,0,0,0,0,P2=DTIN5A,P3=DTOUT5A

SUB (ZW0NEXPD,#1),(ZW0DTFPD,#1),RESULT=ZW0#DAYS,PREC=DDD

DO WHILE,(ZW0#DAYS,LT,ZL0DW090,DWORD)

MOVE ZW0VALUE,2,WORD

ADD #2,+VCSNEXPD,RESULT=ZC1DTIN

CALL Z#SCMPDT,ZC1DTIN,(ZW0NXOUT),0,0,ZW0VALUE

CALL Z#SCNVDT,(ZW0NXOUT),(ZW1NXDT)

MOVE (VCSNEXPD,#2),ZW1NXDT,(4,BYTE)

CONVTB ZW1NEXPD,(VCSNEXPD,#2),PREC=D,FORMAT=(6,0,I)

CONVTD ZW0NEXYR,ZW1NEXPD+4,PREC=S,FORMAT=(2,0,I)

IF (ZW0NEXYR,LE,ZL025,2)

ADD ZW0NEXYR,ZL12000

ELSE

ADD ZW0NEXYR,ZL01900

ENDIF

while (the newExpirationDate of feeVehicle < the dateFeesReceived of feeVehicle + 90 days)

do {

the newExpirationDate of feeVehicle = the newExpirationDate of feeVehicle + 2 years

}

Which would you rather maintain?

©2014 TechBlue 22

The Benefit Of Business Rules

Decisions used by legacy systems

Business Rule Management Systems are the solution

Rule Repository

Decision Management The Essential Framework


The Good, The Bad And The Ugly

Impact Fact

Organizations are adopting business rules more today than any other time before

Most organizations that implement business rules focus on the technology first, forgetting about strategy and organization

Many organizations approach legacy modernization by extracting business rules and implementing in a BRMS

Good

Bad

Ugly

Organizations are accelerating operational performance, reducing risk and making better decisions

Organizations are struggling to create and sustain momentum for successful transformation into a decision-centric organization

Many business rules adoptions in legacy modernization require a major refactor within 2 years of initiation


Avoiding J.A.B.O.R.

Don’t forget about the “Decision” in Decision Management

• Don’t just jump in and start writing code

• Focus on decisions, not rules. Avoid J.A.B.O.R. (Just A Bunch Of Rules)

[jab-er] –noun : indistinct, nonsensical talk; gibberish

• Adopt a proven methodology for harvesting, expressing, authoring and maintaining decisions

• Don’t forget about governance

• Don’t move your legacy application to a new platform

You are here to better manage your decisions,

not manage more code


5 Steps to Success

Analyze the

code to find,

isolate the

decisions

Retire the replaced

legacy code

Use the BRMS to

redeploy the

rules as a

Decision Service

accessible to the

legacy system

Work out the

rules for these

decisions and

document them

in a BRMS

Model the

decisions so you

understand

them

Analyze

Step 1 Step 2 Step 3 Step 4 Step 5

Model Organize Redeploy Retire

How to approach business rules adoption from

legacy systems

Decision Modeling in Legacy Modernization


How To Describe Decisions

Information

• What is needed?

• Where does it come from?

Know-how

• How to make it

• How to improve it

Precision

• Exactly how?

• Specificity without technical details


Decisions Require Information

“Validate Tax Return” requires Return and Citizen information

“Calculate License Fee” requires Vehicle and Applicant information


Decisions Require Knowledge

“Validate Tax Return” requires Tax Regulations

“Calculate License Fee” requires Legacy System and Vehicle Code


Decompose Decisioning

What is required to make decision?

Information

Guidelines, policy

Expertise

Regulations

Predictive Analytic Models

Data Mining Results

The results of other decisions


Decisions Require Decisions

These decisions must be made first

Scale up and down

©2014 Decision Management Solutions

Develop A Decision Model

Decision Modeling and Notation (DMN)

“… provide a common notation that is readily understandable by all business users... DMN creates a standardized bridge for the gap between the business decision design and decision implementation.”

Use Cases

Modeling Human Decision-making

Modeling Requirements for automated Decision-making

Implementing automated Decision-making

OMG Beta Specification

Released Standard expected mid-2014

Decision Management Solutions, IBM, Oracle, TIBCO, FICO, Escape

Velocity, KUL, Model Systems, KPI, Visumpoint

©2014 Decision Management Solutions


Case: State Agency

Key objectives

Don’t require complete rewrite of legacy

Usable by non-technical analysts

Comprehensive business control

It must run quickly and scale on all platforms

Identified key decision – “What is correct fee”

Externalized just that decision


Case: State Agency

Outcome

2,000+ rules stored in central repository

60,000+ transactions/day across batch and online

Rules easily updated by non-technical business people

Benefits

Managed, demonstrable compliance

Rapid response to policy changes

ROI example

First day there was an error

Fix took 15 minutes v 2-8 hours: 87%-97% reduction

Questions?

Recap and Next Steps

Succeed With Decisions


Modern Systems = Higher Performance

Modernized Platform

More and more, Federal Agencies require access to, and

incorporation of more recent information technology trends to

meet mission critical requirements

Without modernized platforms, old systems will continually hold

back Agencies from accelerating and sustaining higher operational

performance

Big Data Cloud Decision

Management Optimization

Decisions First

Decisions first, rules second

Make Decisions part of Business Architecture

Adopt Decision Modeling


DecisionsFirst Modeler

Social, collaborative, cloud-based Decision Management modeling software that puts decisions at the heart of your

business architecture, building better requirements and driving successful business rules implementations


decisionmanagementsolutions.com/decisionsfirst-modeler

http://decisionmanagementsolutions.com/decisionsfirst-modeler



Thank You

James Taylor [email protected]

Claye Greene [email protected]

More on Decision Management at

decisionmangementsolutions.com

techblue.com

mailto:[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

http://www.decisionmanagementsolutions.com/

http://techblue.com/

Documents

Best Practices in Targeted Legacy Modernization in Governmentdecisionmgt.com/dms-old/attachments/article/324/LegacyModerniza… · Agenda Challenges in Modernization Decision Making