ITOC: Ingres ABF to Oracle CASE

Most contemporary fourth-generation languages (4GL) are tightly coupled with the database, and other subsystems, that are provided by the database system vendor. As a result, organisations that wish to change database vendors are typically forced to rewrite their applications using the new vendor's 4GL. the anticipated cost of this redevelopment can deter an organisation from changing vendors, hence denying it the benefits that would otherwise result, e.g., the exploitation of more sophisticated database technology.

Reverse engineering tools can recover the design of a 4GL-based information system application. Subsequently, a CASE tool can be employed to forward engineer an application in the target environment. The result would be a reduction in the rewriting effort as well as the large initial cost of migrating the organisations's applications, which could make the shift economically feasible. Another benefit that organisations enjoy is the opportunity that arises prior to forward engineering to reengineer business processes implemented by the system using the functionality provided by a contemporary CASE product.

The tool that resulted from this project recovered fundamental design information from an Ingres 4GL-based information system application. The design information was placed into an Oracle CASE product Designer 2000.

Applications and further work

The ITOC tool prototype has now been employed in a public sector reengineering project.

[News: 13 Oct 98] ITOC is being further commercialised by Reasoning Systems, Inc., CA. as their T4 Transformation Service

The ITOC tool has also been the focus of continued research and development efforts both by UQ, e.g., as part of a PhD undertaken by Mr Wieming Lim

For more information, contact Dr John Harrison at the Centre for Software Maintenance.

Architecture

An overview of the architecture of the tools appears in the diagram below: