In many ways, programming is as much an art as it is a science. Every programmer has his or her own particular style. Over the years, as your company has developed and changed, so has your programming staff. As the new millennium approaches, thousands of programs may need to become "century compliant." RICOMM'S Beyond 2000™ Services
High-tech solutions for a creative challenge.
With all the variety in programming styles, how does one perform such a monumental conversion both accurately and thoroughly? At RICOMM, a decade-old award-winning pioneer in the field of automated systems management, we offer the industry's first compliance services using Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques. These highly precise remediation tools were developed with the objective of becoming as close to a "silver bullet" solution as possible.
The Solution
Many vendors supply mainframe tools which may overburden your tight CPU resources. Most scanning tools do not perform conversion, but highlight date fields only. With our proprietary AI-based services, we are able to perform both assessment and remediation automatically - on or off-site. Since they run on our own processors, Beyond 2000 services do not increase your CPU usage, further reducing your overall cost. Our reiterative method combines AI automation with input from your own staff to ensure accurate results. The proprietary tools we use can address any operating system platform or computer language that is unique to each of your applications.We can reduce your conversion time and cost by up to 70%, while providing one of the most accurate and least costly solutions available. The remediation process is augmented with extensive auditing, testing and change simulation procedures. In addition, strategic information is produced about your valuable computer programs, files and data to facilitate data warehousing planning, systems maintenance and documentation.
A very large investment banking institution recently requested one of the largest computer companies to do a pilot remediation involving 800,000 lines of code. It took the company 3 months to complete the project. We were asked to do the same job toward the end of the pilot. Using our high-precision AI techniques, we completed the pilot in less than 8 days. According to the client, our conversion results matched their controlled sample in accuracy. As a direct result, we are being selected to perform independent validation and verification of the remediation work. The client touted our services to be "as close to a 'silver bullet' solution as it could get."
Inventory
Our inventory system is designed to automate the tasks of identifying, collecting, and analyzing the usage relationships of programs and files. This eliminates infrequently used programs from unnecessary conversion effort and allows selection of critical systems for conversion planning and assessment.
Assessment
During the assessment phase, our system determines if all components, such as copybooks and subroutines, have been included. All data elements that need century date changes are carefully pinpointed. A database is generated to provide information regarding date element and file information. If required, this database can also be configured to provide information on all elements in your programs - perfect for data warehousing projects!
In performing a recent assessment pilot project for a Fortune 100 food service company, we completed the project ahead of all major participants, and were the only service able to identify critical systems components that had been missing from the project package.
Conversion
The information gathered during the assessment phase is directly fed into our AI conversion system to automatically generate century compliant code. This automation reduces code remediation effort significantly, while affording the greatest degree of accuracy.
Unlike our competition, our COBOL pilot projects include not only an assessment and reports, but also converted code, copybooks, and JCL. Our converted code clearly demonstrates the abilities of our system, providing you with the information to make a well-informed decision. This added benefit illustrates our commitment to provide the finest compliance services in the industry.
Testing
In order to assist with testing, automated bridging processes convert files and databases from the original size to a newly expanded version and vice versa. This file bridging capability can be applied to both on-line and batch.Ensuring systems operate correctly when approaching the year 2000 requires a means of subjecting the converted code to rigorous testing, time-shifting files to 1999/2000, and validating test results. Our Date Change Simulator provides the time-shifting ability for conversion files and system dates, reducing time required for testing by 30%.
After seeing the accuracy and thoroughness of our BEYOND 2000 conversion results, a Big-Six accounting firm has placed us on their Preferred List of Year 2000 Service Providers.
Independent Validation and Verification
This is the only post-conversion service available, designed to validate and verify whether all identified century date changes have been made correctly, regardless of which vendor performed the conversion. This "low cost insurance policy" will insure that your company has realistically confronted and overcome the Year 2000 challenge.
As companies complete their Year 2000 remediation, they require ways to independently verify the completeness of their remediation effort. Our AI based techniques lend themselves to uncovering gaps and missed field conversions. We are working with several financial services firms in this endeavor.
Our No-Risk Offer
We are so confident that we have the right approach for addressing your compliance needs, we are willing to provide a free conversion, up to 100,000 lines of your code. We will demonstrate our ability to achieve 100% accuracy with your conversion, performed in the least amount of time, at the lowest price on the market today.
Technical DETAILS
System Platforms
- Beyond 2000 supports Year 2000 remediation for all platforms, namely MVS, AS/400, VM, VSE, DOS 6.2, Windows 95, UNIX, DEC, VMS, HP, UNIX etc.
Language Versions/Releases
- All versions of COBOL, JCL, SQL, DB2, IMS, IDMS, DL/1, CICS, DATACOM, Microfocus COBOL.
- All versions of RPG (RPG II, RPG III and RPG/400).
- For clients with applications written in languages other than COBOL and RPG, such as C, PL/1, FORTRAN, etc. Beyond 2000's universal date-field scanning capabilities identify date and date-like variable names for all computer languages. Field names are identified by granular search criteria such as pattern-matching, includes and excludes. The capabilities can reduce the effort for manual conversion of non-COBOL code by 25-30%.
Operating Environment
Please call us toll free at 1-888-983-1818 for more information about our services and free conversion offer. You can also visit us a our website www.ricommsystems.com or email us at [email protected].
- Beyond 2000's IntelliWare tools execute assessment, conversion, audit, bridge program generation and change simulator creation under UNIX. Its resulting programming outputs are seamlessly ported to client-specific operating environments.
To the Year 2000 Information Center™