In the short period that I have been working with the Idea Legacy team, I have increased my exposure to process and technology ten fold. Idea immediately increased my exposure to the latest documentation and technical competencies utilized for client migrations. I was able to make an immediate impact with my clients and have already seen multiple projects develop from my client relationships. 
-Charlotte Hollingsworth,
Business Analyst, Idea Integration
With the demand placed upon CIOs today, time is an extremely valuable commodity. Having a business partner like Idea Integration allows CIOs to harness the knowledge and skills of talented resources and quickly create effective solutions and strategies. Idea’s approach was both refreshing and highly effective.
-N. Ortez Gude,
CIO, The Haskell Company
Home > Legacy Systems Solutions
Idea Legacy provides a solution offering based upon 20 years of experience, high quality products and services, and certified technicians. Our assessment, optimization, and management of legacy systems solutions engage new IT technologies while still preserving existing enterprise IT assets. We work with our clients to enhance their IT portfolio in relation to their current legacy systems, as well as reduce maintenance costs and increase efficiency and effectiveness.
Our legacy systems solutions provide fact-based data reports across multiple levels including: IT effectiveness, efficiency change, and alignment of IT and business strategies. This process utilizes various tools such as XIDE, XGEN.net, OpenMCS, ClientView Builder, Interactive COBOL Debugger, Micro Focus Net Express, and Micro Focus Revolve. Idea Legacy also has expertise in Micro Focus Application Portfolio Management (APM) having experts trained and certified in Italy.
In moving away from Unisys mainframes, organizations have cited the following concerns:
Idea offers proven legacy systems solutions for migrating Unisys mainframes to other mainframes and open systems. These solutions are the result of combining Unisys expertise with the experience of many migrations and a suite of automated tools. For this reason, Idea Legacy is the ideal partner for the modernization and migration of Unisys mainframes.
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Unisys Migration Case Study
Migrations from Unisys to IBM mainframes include a unique set of requirements. For example, IBM mainframes impose a four-character limit on trancodes not present in Unisys mainframes. Messages that work with T27 terminals in Unisys do not work with 3270 terminals in IBM. Consequently, every migration from Unisys to IBM requires specialized knowledge and tools. Organizations that work with Idea Legacy, gain the collective resources of its IBM expertise and a suite of tools specifically designed for Unisys-to-IBM legacy systems migrations.
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to Open IBM AIX Platform Case Study Manage and Maintain
The move from Unisys mainframes to open-systems platforms requires careful planning. While the potential exists to reduce costs and build compatibility, its realization depends on a thorough analysis of the following alternatives:
The analysis should also assess the cost, risk, and impact of each alternative until it identifies the right plan of action. Equipped with the latest tools, Idea Legacy can quickly discover the value of every application to its organization. These also create comprehensive system reports that Idea Legacy can use to aid the decision process. The way forward does not require the sacrifice of profitable technology investments.
Read the ASCE Legacy Mainframe to Open Systems Migration Case Study
Unisys mainframes use proprietary forms of COBOL that require transformation to a compatible format during the migration of legacy applications to the new platform. The problem is that Unisys mainframe applications can involve millions of lines of code. To ensure a consistent transformation process, Idea Legacy developed several tools including the Rules-Based Transformation Engine and the LincXGEN filter.
For organizations that want to migrate from Unisys platforms while retaining their COBOL applications, Idea Legacy has developed a Rules-Based Transformation Engine. This tool automatically converts proprietary Unisys COBOL with its extensions to open-system equivalents and replaces the hierarchical database interface with standard embedded SQL. By coupling the transformation engine with OpenMCS, Idea Legacy can redeploy COBOL applications on a variety of UNIX and Windows hardware platforms.
The LincXGEN filter is an automated process for converting LINC12 or greater applications to XGEN. To preserve the functionality of the original system, this process combines several automated steps with a manual review of the converted code. All global logic, screen formats, edits, copy logic, and report formats are extracted from the LINC system and converted to files for the XGEN system.
XGEN is the multiplatform tool that offers Windows, UNIX, and mainframe users a powerful, open-system development environment. Idea Legacy developed XGEN with the benefit of the latest technologies and years of user experience. As a result, XGEN is a database and datacom-independent tool for the generation of COBOL for the target platform. Programmers familiar with COBOL enjoy a rapid learning curve with XGEN, because its language is based on COBOL. The language constructs are so intuitive, however, that non-XGEN programmers can read and understand XGEN specifications and programs. In addition, programmers can immediately start to write XGEN applications that can coexist with the organization’s legacy applications. This compatibility eliminates the need to rewrite entire legacy applications for the implementation of an XGEN development strategy.