CASE STUDY
Persistent de-risks modernization of newly acquired legacy application for a U.S. Financial Services Firm
Client is a leading U.S. provider of recordkeeping, third-party administration, and government savings services. They offer retirement, education, and disability savings plans through partnerships with financial institutions, banks, advisors and state governments.
CAST Imaging enabled the architects to grasp the technical flow of the application and save 40% of the efforts in understanding and documenting the application.
CAST Imaging was a HUGE help during our reverse engineering and capturing requirements. It speeds up understanding of application, thus, reducing cost, reduces risks of missing dependencies and increases confidence of our team.
Manish Sharma
Engineering Partner, Insurance BU,
Persistent Systems
40%
faster
on understanding and documenting client’s application
Challenge
The client recently acquired a leading retirement services provider to expand the services and expertise offered to its clients and advisor partners. This acquisition necessitated the successful unification of the two companies and the integration of the acquired IT application.
This business-critical application is characterized by a monolithic architecture, consisting of a few hundred thousand lines of code written in legacy Visual Basic with SQL Server for the database.
Recognizing the complexity, importance, and urgency of this transformation, the client enlisted the expertise of Persistent Systems, a leading global product engineering firm, to develop a comprehensive and detailed multi-year roadmap for modernization.
Solution
Persistent proposed a 24-week engagement to thoroughly understand and document the application end-toend, focusing on its technical components and overall functionality. This initial phase involves a deep dive into the existing codebase, architecture, and system dependencies to create a comprehensive technical blueprint. Following this, the firm will proceed with application stabilization and modernization, transitioning to ReactJS and a micro front-end architecture.
Key to this process is leveraging CAST Imaging for reverse-engineering the application, automatically revealing its complex interdependencies. Additionally, a customized CAST “community extension” tailored to the unique patterns of the core application was utilized, ensuring a smooth and efficient modernization process.
Results
A critical step in this unification and transformation program was revealing and comprehensively understanding the application.
The program began with a six-month roadmap that initiated its first iteration. During this phase, CAST Imaging was central, enabling the architects to grasp the technical flow of the application and save 40% of the efforts in understanding and documenting the application. This, combined with the functional flow, was crucial for creating an effective modernization roadmap.
This in-depth understanding of the application increased the client's confidence, leading to the broader adoption of CAST Imaging for their extensive modernization journey, thereby affirming the value of the engagement and setting the stage for long-term success.
