MngRisk –A Decisional Framework to Measure Managerial Dimensions of Legacy Application for Rejuvenation through Reengineering

Er. Anand Rajavat Computer Science & Engineering

Shri Vaishnav Institute of Technology And Science Indore, M. P., India

anandrajavat@yahoo.co.in

Dr. (Mrs.) Vrinda Tokekar Information Technology

Institute Of Engineering and Technology(DAVV) Indore, M. P., India

Vrindatokaker@yahoo.com

Abstract— Nowadays legacy system reengineering has emerged as a well-known system evolution technique. The goal of reengineering is to increase productivity and quality of legacy system through fundamental rethinking and radical redesigning of system. A broad range of risk issues and concerns must be addressed to understand and model reengineering process. Overall success of reengineering effort requires to considering three distinctive but connected areas of interest i.e. system domain, managerial domain and technical domain. . We present a hierarchical managerial domain risk framework MngRisk to analyze managerial dimensions of legacy system. The fundamental premise of framework is to observe, extract and categories the contextual perspective models and risk clusters of managerial domain. This work contributes for a decision driven framework to identify and assess risk components of managerial domain. Proposed framework provides guidance on interpreting the results obtained from assessment to take decision about when evolution of a legacy system through reengineering is successful.

Keywords- MngRisk,Reengineering,legacy System

I. INTRODUCTION During its life, a legacy system [1] is subjected to many

maintenance activities, which cause degradation of the quality of the system. When this degradation exceeds a critical threshold, the legacy system needs to be modernized [2].Most of the legacy system we use have complex design structure; have inefficient coding and incomplete documentation. Modernizing legacy system to meet continual changing user and business needs is difficult. However organizations must consider modernizing these legacy systems to remain viable. Over the past few years, legacy system reengineering has emerged as a popular modernization technique.

Reengineering is the systematic transformation of an existing system into a new form to realize quality improvements in operation, system capability, functionality and performance.[3] The goal of software reengineering[4] is to redesign existing software system to increase productivity and quality of system. Unfortunately most reengineering projects are only concentrated on functional aspects of reengineering, however, system managerial and technical aspects play an important role in the successful improvement of the legacy system through reengineering. Software reengineering projects is often faced with unanticipated problems which pose risks within the reengineering process.

Successful Implementation of reengineering effort requires an understanding of the current and desired system state and available reengineering technology by identifying and controlling risk from system, managerial, and technical domain of legacy application.

System domain denotes a structural unit that is responsible for maintaining a system that provides products and services to its customers. In this context, the System is responsible for planning and structuring the system Infrastructure efforts, organizing the stakeholder’s tasks and ensures that the products and services fulfill the organization’s goals and objectives.

Managerial domain covers managerial issues related to system evolution process .Impact of market factors and effect of competitive products, on quality [5] & cost of target system are measured within the context of managerial domain. Domain identifies and measure organizational economic value to support system evolution activities.

Technical domain has a significant impact on software functionality and software quality. Technical domain helps in analyzing and testing the legacy system to better understand the function’s capabilities and quality features and assess the impact of the proposed changes.

Present work describes the initial establishment of a managerial domain risk framework MngRisk to identify and measure risk components of managerial domain in accordance with requirements of target system. MngRisk framework identifies and analyze risks arise from business and economic point of view. Proposed managerial domain risk framework MngRisk is intended to help identify and measuring effect of managerial domain risk triggered by actual measurements in reengineering process of software system. The MngRisk framework is applied to an in-use legacy system to identify and categories risk components of managerial domain and to measure cumulative effect of different risk components. Finally, this paper contributes to analyze the cause-effect relationship between the reengineering process and existing state of legacy system in accordance with target system requirements.

II. RELATED WORKS In recent years, considerable attention has been devoted

to the phenomenon of software reengineering [6] [7]. In the past years, research work in the area of reengineering focuses on the development of different reengineering frameworks, but very few research works identify risk factors in reengineering process of software systems. Reengineering

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risk and their influence on software quality causes reengineering efforts to fail. For the development of successful reengineering effort reengineering risks need to be managed.

Peter H. Feiler in [8] discusses a plan, for reengineering to improve the cost-effective evolution of large software-intensive systems .The focus of this paper is on technical aspects of reengineering. However, economic, management, and quality aspects of a system play an important role in the successful implementation of reengineering efforts.

Harry M. Sneed in [9] summarizes the results of 13 reengineering projects conducted during the past 10 years. Analyses show that software reengineering projects have a significantly lower risk factor than software development projects – 25 % as opposed to 57 %. This difference can be calculated in terms of project completion rates and cost overruns. However selection of reengineering effort also required considering other factors like performance improvement, resource utilization, quality goals, user satisfaction etc.

Eric K. Clemons Michael C. Row Matt E. Thatcher in [10] suggests that two principal reasons for failure of reengineering efforts are functionality risk and political risk, respectively. Though there is other serious risk such that technical risk, process risk, development environment risk, architecture risk, and risk related to stakeholders are also causes the reengineering efforts to fail.

Software reengineering disasters indicate that their problems would have been avoided or strongly reduced if there had been an explicit early concern with identifying and resolving their high-risk elements. Proposed MngRisk framework analyzes various risk components of managerial domain and expresses cumulative effect of risk due to various risk components. The managerial domain risk framework MngRisk is intended to help identify and measuring effect of managerial domain risk triggered by actual measurements in reengineering process of software system.

III. MNGRISK FRAMEWORK (MANAGERIAL DOMAIN RISK FRAMEWORK)

Managerial domain covers issues related to development process for system evolution .Impact of market factors and effect of competitive products on quality and cost of target system are measured within the context of managerial domain. Domain identifies and measure organizational economic value to support system evolution activities. The element of the managerial domain consists of Business perspective model and economic perspective model.

A simplified conceptual view of the elements in managerial domain risk framework MngRisk is presented in Fig. -1, framework comprises with Perspective, risk cluster and risk factors.

Perspective is a viewpoint according to which different risk clusters are identified and measured using different risk measurement model.

Risk cluster covers risk component and the risk measurement model, which is used to measure the effect of particular risk component on system evolution decision.

Risk component contain different types of negative outcomes from system domain of legacy application.

Risk measurement model measures different types of risk components from system, managerial and technical domain of legacy system in accordance with desired state of target system and reengineering strategy.

Risk factor encompasses sources of risk components from system domain of legacy application.

Managerial domain is characterized in terms of a fundamental set of risk component and factors that are indicative of the present state of legacy and desired state of Target System. In MngRisk framework two types of perspective model i.e. Business perspective model and economic perspective model is developed by analyzing states of legacy and Target system.

Figure1. Managerial Domain Framework (MngRisk)

A. Business Perspective Model:- Business value perspective model highlights the

component of development process by considering reengineering objectives. Model cover issues like marketing strategy for system evolution as well as relative study of

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competitive products .Risk clusters for business perspective model are :-

• Development process risk Cluster Development process Risk Component:-Development process risk component is the risk of loss associated with undefined objectives of development process and inadequate management of development process components which includes human, physical and financial components. Development Process Risk Measurement Model:-Development process is the organizational process that includes strategic planning, setting up objectives, managing resources, deploying the human, physical and financial assets needed to achieve system evolution objectives and measuring result. Development process involves the process of planning, leading, organizing and controlling human, physical and financial resources with in an organization to achieve system evolution objectives. Development process risk measurement model measure different components of development process in order to achieve acceptable decision towards reengineering option. Identification of development process risk requires the objectives of organization by bringing together human, physical and financial resources in an optimum combination and making the best decision for the organization while considering reengineering option for the evaluation of legacy system. • Marketing Strategy Risk Cluster Marketing Strategy Risk Component:-Marketing strategy risk component is the risk associated with changes in marketing factors due to change in marketing strategy. Marketing strategy risk is the probability that the target system will vary in price as compared to available competitive system in market. Marketing Strategy Risk Measurement Model: - Marketing strategy risk measurement model identifies and measure factors that affect financial value and quality of target system due to change in market factors. • Product Competition Risk Cluster Product Competition Risk Component:-Product competition risk is the risk of loss associated with product competition in dynamic product markets from quality and economic perspectives. Product competition Risk Measurement Model: - Product competition risk measurement model perform comparative analysis of target system with competitive products available in market from quality and economic perspectives.

B. Economic Perspective Model: - Economic value perspective model emphasize on

organizational financial strategy to support system evolution activity by considering market factors that will affect economic value and quality of target system. Risk clusters for economic perspective model are:-

• Financial Risk Cluster

Financial Risk Component:-Financial risk component is the risk of loss associated with organizational economic value to support system evolution activities. Financial Risk Measurement Model: - Financial risk measurement model measures organizational economic value to manage reengineering of particular legacy system by considering state of legacy and target system in accordance with market value of desired system. Identification of financial risk require to evaluating scope and quality level of desired system. Measurement of Financial risk can be qualitative and quantitative.

IV. CONCLUSIONS Many organizations are planning to modernize their

legacy application through reengineering .However many of these efforts are often less than successful because they concentrate on a narrow set of risk issues without fully considering a broader set of enterprise wise system, managerial and technical risk issues. Overall success of reengineering effort requires a decision driven risk assessment framework that examines system, managerial and technical domain of legacy application. Proposed framework MngRisk analyzes various risk components of managerial domain and expresses cumulative effect of risk due to various risk components. In this paper, we first categorize major perspective models and risk clusters of managerial domain for legacy application to identify and analyze various risk components .We then construct a managerial domain risk framework MngRisk to establish correlation between various perspective models and risk clusters. This work contributes for a goal driven risk engineering framework to identify and assess risk within the managerial domain of legacy system. The paper proposes a managerial domain risk framework MngRisk which is applied to an in-use legacy system to identify and categories risk components of managerial domain and to measure cumulative effect of different risk components. The MngRisk framework guides users through assessment of managerial domain by selecting assessment measures and assigning values to them. The result of MngRisk framework is a level of understanding to take decision about when evolution of a legacy system through reengineering is likely to succeed and when they are likely to fail.

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[3] “Perspectives on Legacy System Reengineering”, Reengineering Center, Software Engineering Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA 15213-3890.

[4] Ransom J., Somerville I., Warren I. ,” A Method for Assessing legacy systems for evolution,” in Proceedings of the Second Euromicro Conference on Software Maintenance and Reengineering,

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[5] Boehm, Barry , Chulani, Sunita , Verner, June , Wong, Bernard,” Fifth Workshop on Software Quality”, in 29th International Conference ICSE 2007 Companion on Software Engineering - Companion, 2007, ISBN: 0-7695-2892-9 , Digital Object Identifier : 10.1109/ICSECOMPANION.2007.38 , PP. 131 – 132.

[6] Paul Briden, “Software Re-engineering process,” Tessella Support Services PLC Technical report, Issue V2.R1.M1, 2000.

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[8] Peter H. Feiler, “Reengineering: An Engineering Problem,” Technical Report Software Engineering Institute Carnegie Mellon university Pittsburgh Pennsylvania 15213, CMU/SEI-93-SR-5, 1993.

[9] Harry M. Sneed, “Risks Involved in Reengineering Projects,” in WCRE: Proceedings of the Sixth Working Conference on Reverse Engineering-1999, IEEE Computer Society pp.204.

[10] Eric K. Clemons Michael C. Row Matt E. Thatcher, “An Integrative Framework for Identifying and Managing Risks Associated With Large Scale Reengineering Efforts”, in 1995, Proceedings of the 28th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences - 1995 pp. 960-969.

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