PKS - CSP/VAGen migration - secure migration to RBD/EGL

Are you after more than just technical VAGen migration?

CSP or its successor VAGen is a generator language from the 1980s which many mainframe customers used to very productively and efficiently create business-critical applications.
IBM has discontinued both products since then.
Thanks to a fully developed migration procedure though, customers have a secure way to migrate to the successor product, RBD. As the world’s only on-top supplier, PKS offers the automated implementation of your 3270 screen to Web 2.0 or RIA.

Some background information

CSP (Cross System Product) is a mainframe product which allows programs to be developed under ISPF with a COBOL-like syntax.
VAGen (Visual Age for Generator) is used for decentralized application development under Visual Age. The VAGen syntax is identical to that of CSP, although sources are administered in a special repository.

Rational Business Developer: successor for all CSP/VAGen customers

The RDB (Rational Business Developer) is an Eclipse-based environment for development in the open source language EGL (Enterprise Generation Language). EGL offers a choice of classic Cobol and Java for the runtime environment. For Java-based generation, the generated modules on the mainframe are usually relocated to special Java engines (zIIP or zAAP), with the same performance as in Cobol, but at reduced operating costs.

For migrating CSP or VAGen to EGL, IBM provides customers with a free, highly automated converter. With a moderate level of effort, this can be used for migration. Customers receive their accustomed application as the final product.
Developers need to take note of the migration of the discontinued VAGen IDE to RBD, yet this switch just might come very easily to young employees because they will have an easier time with program maintenance in the usual eclipse environment than in the outdated VAGen interface. RBD also offers seamless integration in RDz (Rational Developer for z), which many mainframe customers are already using as their ISPF successor. Thanks to this integration, the developer's workspace features a unification of the classic 3GL language Cobol with the 4GL language EGL.

Now for the highlight: WebAPI for VAGen

For end users, nothing changes at first after migration – you can still work with the usual 3270 screen. In order to offer real added value within the scope of the technical migration though, PKS provides a special add-on converter for the 3270 interface. Screens can be transferred to real HTML/XML and JavaScript with this converter. So users ultimately get a Web 2.0 or RIA frontend. The added value of real legacy modernization is therefore harnessed, and the future of the existing system can be safeguarded. The technology deployed here is used by hundreds of customers around the world and has been tried and tested for over ten years. It is available as part of the licensed RBD WebAPI for VAGen product. Initial migration efforts only take a few days. Further development of the frontend is, of course, also done via RBD and creates absolutely no additional work for developers thanks to the seamless integration. In addition, the interface can be run on zIIP/zAAP engines after migration, resulting in additional operational advantages.

Our migration procedure:

CSP/VAGen migration incl. the WebAPI is marked by a high degree of automation (>98%) and therefore harbors a rather low technical risk.
Based on a number of successfully completed past projects, we work with our customers according to the following migration procedure:

1. 2–3 day workshop on status quo/inventory, target definition, roadmap/milestones, timeframe
2. Optional: pilot project
3. Joint project with the following central components: