Use Case:
How Discoverer can find Dead & Zombie code

The Problem

Overgrown legacy systems that are hard to optimize for the fear of disturbing the crucial operations.

Legacy systems, as they are built over time, generally consist of a core system with many home ground modules. Gradually, the environment grows and without optimization but with an addition of shadow IT, it results in a tangle of code spaghetti that is hard to make sense of. Yet without knowing which systems or programs are still in use or connected to the rest, it is impossible to decide what to get rid of, what to optimize and what to keep.

In the meantime, the ever-growing system is becoming more complicated and costly to upkeep.

The Challenge

How to achieve following steps with your business running smoothly as usual, without
any disturbances?

1. Discover obsolete parts of code
2. Remove code you do not use and need
3. Optimize what is being used inefficiently
4. Challenge your service supplier and re-negotiate support costs

The Solution

Discoverer is a tool specifically designed to untangle the code spaghetti. You just load
in the respective data, process it and see all existing real or embedded relations.

Discoverer enables visibility through the following functionalities.

• RESOURCES – objects, entities, databases, files
• TECHNOLOGIES – schedulers, programs, jobs,
• STATISTICS – graphs, code lines, dashboards
• DEPENDENCIES – relations, statistics, dependencies,
  analytical capabilities, dead code analytics
• USAGE – MSU, database, file, FTP, mainframe screens,
  file access, FTP access, web page access,
• DEAD AND ZOMBIE CODE ANALYTICS
• EXPORTER – Archi, CSV, XML, XLS
• EXTERNAL TOOLS – access to an internal graph
  database, full-text search capabilities, BI/reporting

Discoverer offers options for optimization and suggests dead and zombie code removals.

Plus, there is an option to combine it with the integrated testing module. In that case, you will also be able to test how the system works after the suggested changes are made. This simulation gives you an opportunity to make sure there are no unpleasant surprises once you actually make these changes live.

The resulting charts combine data from multiple applications and data sources to display year-over-year changes and comparisons – a view that before Discoverer’s arrival did not exist across multiple platforms or toolsets as a standalone screen.

Once one or more projects or programs are optimized, the same algorithm enables an X Language application that does not require any changes to the underlying environment. Therefore the risk of overlooking mandatory dependencies is minimized. And so is the time needed for change impact analysis.

The Result