Modernizing large enterprise applications

The IBM Power i – previously known as AS/400 – integrated platform is still regarded as one of the most dependable in the business IT segment. Applications written using the Power i’s unique RPG programming language are still part of “mission-critical” business application systems nowadays, for example in banking, insurance and public utility environments.

Due to the nature of their use, applications written using the RPG language usually look back at several decades of continous operation. Upgrades and extensions introduced during these years make maintenance an ever growing challenge: seeing a 10-20 person support group is not a rare – and definietly not a cheap – occurance.

R&R Software and the University of Szeged started a joint research to increase the competetiveness and quality of RPG-based business applications, and lower their overall maintenance costs with the following methods:

– Development of an automated source code quality monitoring and auditing tool for applications written using RPG language, based on similar experience with Java and C# applications.

– Development of a “modernizing” tool to help seperate business logics and the user interface

– Development of a framework and toolset to develop graphical user interfaces.

– Cloud based application methodology.

The University of Szeged was chosen because of their experience with source code quality measurement and analization for C/C++/C#/Java/SQL languages. This expertise will help in creating methodologies and prototypes for the RPG language.

R&R Software validates the results with its industry standard RPG business application, the VERK/400 integrated ERP.

R&R Software continously aims for increasing software quality and customer satisfaction.