INTO 2000™

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Thank you for requesting information on INTO 2000. There is a lot of information on this page, so you may want to download it now. The contents are as follows:

  1. Overview of INTO 2000 functionality
  2. Frequently-asked questions about INTO 2000
  3. Case Study - Bell South Cellular (saving time & cost on major application)
  4. Sample list of users
  5. Fact Sheet: About INTO 2000, Inc.

Overview of INTO 2000 functionality:

INTO 2000 is the only complete software solution to the Year-2000 problem for the AS/400 RPG environment worldwide. The product was built specifically to tackle the Year-2000 challenge. It is fully operational and installed today worldwide. As a complete solution, the tool set offers:

INTO 2000 Is:

Fast

Smart

Efficient

Cost-effective

Complete

Frequently Asked Questions about INTO 2000:

  1. File Support

    Will INTO 2000 identify date fields in files that are program described as opposed to externally described?

    Yes. INTO 2000 finds date fields in both program described and externally described files.

  2. Data Structures

    Will INTO 2000 identify date fields that are described in data structures using I Specifications?

    Yes. Dates in Data Structures are supported for both analysis and re-build.

  3. Data Areas

    Will INTO 2000 identify date fields that are described in data areas using I Specifications?

    Yes. Dates in Data Areas are supported for both analysis and re-build.

  4. /COPY

    Will INTO 2000 identify date fields in RPG segments which are not programs but are actually sections of code which are brought into programs with the /COPY statement?

    Yes. INTO 2000 fully supports /COPY statements. During the analysis the /COPY is identified, added to the program and then analyzed.

  5. Re-build

    Does INTO 2000 re-build the RPG code as well as analyzing?

    Yes. INTO 2000 does both analysis and re-build of RPG code. Additionally, INTO 2000 will also reformat the screens and reports within the application to take into account the expanded date fields.

  6. Date Windowing

    Does INTO 2000 support Date Windowing in addition to field expansion?

    Yes. INTO 2000 provides Date Windowing support for screens and reports from Version 5.0. This facility allows the database date fields to be expanded for full century support, but converts the dates that appear on screens & reports back to the original format and therefore avoids changes to the output layout.

  7. Code Documentation

    Does INTO 2000 identify the changed lines of code?

    Yes. INTO 2000 allows you to identify up to 4 characters as a modification marker which is placed against each line of code changed. INTO 2000 will always mark the old line as deleted with the identifier and a series of *, and then add a new line of code representing the change with the associated 4 character identifier. There is an option to simply mark each date field in the program, without actually changing any code.

  8. Automatic Program Compilation

    Does INTO 2000 automatically compile the converted code?

    No. INTO 2000 does not automatically submit the CRTRPGPGM command. We are currently trying to wrap this feature into a project to interface with popular change management tools, but this is still under discussion.

  9. Data Migration

    Does INTO 2000 convert the existing database?

    Yes. Data migration programs are created for each file where a field is expanded. The century is dropped into the correct positions in the new field.

  10. Hidden Fields

    Does INTO 2000 find hidden dates?

    Yes. All date fields are found through association. If a field is not defined *LIKE a known date field, then each line of program code is scanned for each known date field and any field that is 'touched' by the date field (i.e. has information moved into or out of it, is compared to it, or defined from it) is found and it's use and definition is in turn analyzed.

INTO 2000 Case Study:

Bell South Cellular Uses INTO 2000 to Save
Billing Systems From Year-2000 Failure

When it comes to mission-critical systems, nothing fits that description more than the billing application for a major cellular services provider with millions of customers making tens of millions of phone calls every month. Upon hearing about potential problems with systems not adjusted to work beyond the year 2000, the management of Bell South Cellular (BSCC) in Atlanta looked at its mission-critical systems and vowed to make them century-date compliant by attacking the problem early and tenaciously.

It is still 1996 and BSCC has already averted disaster in at least one AS/400 RPG application by following a deceptively simple process:

  1. Isolate the business-critical applications
  2. Build a worst-case scenario for what it will cost to do the conversion
  3. Find tools which will help cut any time and resources from that model
  4. Get to work.
  5. Plan to be finished by the end of 1997.

John Sapp, Year-2000 Project Manager at BSCC, faced the daunting task of converting the company's billing system. He estimated the scope of the project as "huge and growing every day. We initially found over 1200 physical files containing more than 6,000 RPG programs and many millions of lines of code.," he said. "The longer we look, the more we find." Working with management, he established a budget based on the phases of the project and not on cost per line of code. The estimated, approved cost to convert this one application is as follows:

Most of the expense was to buy programmer time... person-hours of labor digging through code, manually repairing date fields and testing by trial-and-error. Sapp had the feeling there simply wouldn't be enough time to do the job manually, so he began to search for tools which could be used to speed the process. "I spent a week looking for whatever I could find on the internet and came up with two production-ready tools that could handle the AS/400 RPG environment," Sapp said. "Only one of them allowed me to do an evaluation with my own programs and data, and that was INTO 2000(, a client-server product released in 1996 out of Jasper, GA "INTO 2000 is a complete tool set running on PC's hooked to our AS/400," he explained. "This was a big advantage for us because we can do all of our analysis and remediation on the PC without disturbing production work on the AS/400. We hadn't counted on the speed of the PC as a benefit, but INTO 2000 is very fast. In five days, we were able to analyze and rebuild over 500 physical files, including the access of programs from the AS/400, full analysis, confirmation, rebuilding the files, sending them back to the AS/400 and recompiling the files. That included all the migration programs as well... over 100 files per day.

"By working on the PC, we are able to break a job into several project groups, each performed by a different person on a separate machine. We can pull it all together for recompile at the click of a mouse. "INTO 2000 basically does 90% of the analysis, confirming which fields are date fields. Knowing where we don't need to look saves vast amounts of time. And then, based on the results of the analysis, knowing exactly where we need to focus our professional attention makes best use of our intellectual resources. "It helps that the product comes with a project plan, or methodology built in. Because it was graphical, we were able to follow it on a daily basis. We are confident that by following the plan we will not miss any steps."

And what is the result of putting INTO 2000 to work? "It's clear we will be able to convert this critical Bell South application and many others... and be done well before 2000," Sapp said. "The billing application will be done in early summer '97. Management here has such confidence in our progress they've basically said, 'call us when it's done.' " As for meeting that budget... "We believed we could cut the time requirement and the cost by using INTO 2000. We had no idea how much. In the end, we will save over 80 percent on the billing application, including the purchase price of the software tool set. We're doing the job very well in months instead of years.

"INTO 2000 has simply made Year-2000 compliance possible."

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For more information, contact:

Sample List of Users:

Fact Sheet on INTO 2000, Inc.

INTO 2000, Inc. is the Western Hemisphere distribution and support organization for INTO 2000 (International) Limited based in Chertsey, Surrey, U.K. The Company was formed in 1996 to provide solutions for the special Year-2000 needs of the AS/400 computing environment.

INTO 2000 distributes its product through Authorized Resellers, Service Providers and via its own Major Accounts Sales Team.

Worldwide system support is provided by INTO 2000 personnel and resellers in the U.K. and the North America.

Management: John S. McCracken, CBE
Chairman & CEO, INTO 2000, Inc.

Andy Dukes
Managing Director, INTO 2000 (International) Limited.

Moira A. McCracken
Vice President, INTO 2000, Inc.

INTO 2000 (International) Limited and INTO 2000, Inc. are privately held companies.

INTO 2000 is a registered trademark of INTO 2000, Inc.

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