Planner Overview, Capabilities, and Workflow
The Modernization Planner provides the strategic foundation for enterprises undertaking legacy modernization. It converts deep legacy system insights into actionable, phased roadmaps, enabling organizations to move confidently toward their future IT landscape.
Overview and Purpose
The primary purpose of the Modernization Planner is to offer a structured, integrated environment for defining, organizing, and managing complex legacy modernization initiatives.
Core Problem Solved Modernization efforts often fail due to three critical issues:
- Lack of Clarity: No complete view of the legacy system's complexities and dependencies.
- Fragmented Tooling: Disjointed tools that break the flow from analysis to execution.
- Misalignment: Failure to bridge technical complexity with overarching business priorities.
The Planner solves this by providing end-to-end visibility and alignment, leveraging deep legacy insights to generate prioritized, phased plans that focus on high-impact initiatives.
The Modernization Ecosystem
The Modernization Planner is the central component that connects analysis to execution, working seamlessly with two key subcomponents:
- Legacy Analyzer Role: Discovery & Understanding (First Step).
Function: Extracts, parses, and analyzes metadata from legacy sources (COBOL, RPG, JCL, DB2) to uncover structural and logical dependencies.
Output: Creates an accurate inventory and dependency map (the baseline).
- Modernization Planner Role: Strategy & Planning (Second Step).
Function: Consumes the dependency map to allow users to scope, prioritize, structure, and track modernization efforts into agile, actionable plans.
- Modernization Executor Role: Transformation & Delivery (Final Step).
Function: Orchestrates and automates the technical modernization actions (rehosting, refactoring, wrapping) based on the plan, bridging the gap between high-level strategy and repeatable execution.
Key Capabilities and Technical Features
The Planner is built to manage the complexity of enterprise-scale transformation with specialized tools and features.
Key Planning Capabilities
- Comprehensive Visualization: Offers visual exploration of legacy IT landscapes, including complex dependencies.
- Data-Driven Roadmaps: Automated generation of prioritized, phased modernization task lists.
- Impact Analysis: Supports scenario modeling and impact analysis for different modernization strategies (e.g., refactor vs. rehost).
- Agile Planning: Support for incremental and agile modernization journeys (micro-decoupling).
- Real-time Tracking: Monitors modernization progress, milestones, and audit logs.
- Collaboration: Provides a shared, role-aware workspace for architects, developers, and business stakeholders.
Unique Technical Features
- Automated Dependency Mapping: Extracts metadata from COBOL, RPG, JCL, and other sources to automatically build complex dependency graphs.
- Graph-Powered Exploration: Interactive, zoomable, and filterable graphs allow deep navigation through system relationships.
- Action-Based Task Generation: Automatically structures executable task lists based on the user-defined modernization strategy (intent).
- API-First Design (MCPs): Exposes core planning capabilities via RESTful APIs and Model Context Protocols (MCPs), enabling advanced scripting and seamless integration with external DevOps tools.
- Legacy System Connectivity: Modular ingestion framework supports fetching/uploading data from mainframe, IBM i, and source repositories.
Workflow: From Analysis to Execution
The Modernization Planner guides users through a structured, visual process that aligns technical insights with execution.
Step | Description |
|---|---|
| Upload legacy metadata (programs, files, schemas). The Legacy Analyzer processes this to establish a visual baseline of the current landscape. |
| Map relationships between all components. Users navigate interactive visualizations to uncover hidden coupling and complexity. |
| Select a scope (applications or domains) and declare the modernization strategy (e.g., refactor logic, rehost platform). |
| Generate and refine a prioritized task list based on the scope and intent. Tasks are organized into phases, preparing them for execution. |
| Iterate with the team, adjust priorities, and track progress within the shared workspace, maintaining alignment. |
| Trigger modernization actions (code transformation, deployment, testing) directly from the plan via the Modernization Executor. Every step is traceable. |
Component Outputs
The Planner produces actionable outputs that serve as both a technical and strategic foundation:
- Visual Baseline Diagram
- Scoped Modernization Plans
- Prioritized Task List
- Execution-Ready Context for the Modernization Executor
- Audit Trail & Plan History
Updated 18 days ago