FitzSoft Consulting Services Mainframe Tools

Like most contract programmers and business analysts who have worked for a variety of clients through out their careers, we have utilized and adapted the tools used in the software development lifecycle that were provided by our clients. Like many, we have developed tools of our own that have assisted us in completing our assignments in a timely manner.

Some of the tools we have developed at various client sites over the years are presented here. They clearly illustrate the improvements that FitzSoft Consulting can bring to your software development processes.

Further details on these utilities can be found on the pages accessed by clicking on the Example image of an Arrow used to navigate to the page for the selected mainframe tool adjacent to each tool described.

Legacy Integration Utilities

Your data and core business functionality reside in a mainframe legacy database but you want to give your applications the look and feel of the web.

XMLGEN: What if you could embed your data in XML written directly from your legacy applications. XMLGEN can assist your developers in producing consistently well-formed and valid XML to be used in formatting your application web pages.

Release Management Utilities

In a dynamic software development environment, where concurrent changes to software modules are the norm, the need for an easy and reliable method of monitoring and resolving module contention issues is self evident. Similarly, with the movement of development efforts back and forth thru the lifecycle, keeping up with what releases are available for each level of testing, which releases have been brought down for further change, or which ones have contention issues with other releases can become overwhelming. The following utilities make these, and other tasks, easier for clients using N2O™ from Treehouse Software Inc. by interrogating the raw migration data maintained by N2O™ and reporting on the modules and releases as they relate to each other.

N2R-MM: As a configuration management tool, N2O™ does a good job of ensuring the integrity of your software migration process. What it does not do well, often because of how it is implemented rather than any shortcomings of the tool itself, is monitor and manage module contention in a dynamic development environment. In a highly integrated and object oriented system it is very possible that a number of overlapping changes are being developed or tested simultaneously. In this scenario a tool such as N2R-MM can assist developers, project leads, and managers in keeping a close eye on contention issues without the need to rely exclusinvely on timely and accurate communication between and within development teams. Each person can keep tabs on the modules or releases that they are interested in and be immediately aware of what other teams are involved in efforts that overlap with theirs. Release constraints can be alleviated or release efforts married to gain cost savings in development or testing efforts.
N2R-RM: N2O™ assumes a certain degree of compactness in change control releases, with related modules migrating step by step thru the development, testing, and production environments as a cohesive unit. However, as many in the software development industry will attest, there are reasons why we have test environments and problems do arise that necessitate further changes to some of the modules already under development or the addition of further modules to the release. N2R-RM is a utility that can identify the environment(s) from in your lifecycle in which a given release is located; which releases have elements under test that may be waiting on further development work; and which releases have contention issues that may need closer monitoring.

Module Cross Reference Utilities

When making modifications to Natural modules, it is often important to know what processes are affected by the changes you are making. The following utilities were adapted from Software AG's Predict cross reference data with this fact in mind.

N2P: Changes to a Natural subprogram can potentially affect many different processes. This utility will help identify those processes and additionally aid in eliminating duplicated testing efforts by highlighting areas of overlap between the call paths to changed modules. It is also a generally held belief in the development community that online processes are easier to test than batch ones. N2P can assist by showing you which online transactions are affected by your changes. Further analysis thru the scan, path, or source listing options can help narrow your focus further.
P2N: Changes to a Natural module can have ripple effects thru other modules that are associated with it. Most often these effects manifest themselves in modules that are directly linked to the changed module thru its call path. P2N identifies the call path from a given starting point, determines where in the call path a certain module can be found, or isolates where two call paths intersect. Further analysis thru the scan, exclude, or source listing options can help narrow the focus of your investigations further.