Enterprise Field Change Manager

DB-Shuttle® identifies all fields and every line of code affected by any change and then makes the required changes. Redefining fields in legacy databases is now possible with the Enterprise Field Change Manager.

Often, an organization’s requirement for software change comes quickly, is essential for the organization’s business success, and impacts numerous applications and databases simultaneously. Today’s IT departments must be dynamic and flexible to meet rapidly changing standards, immediate needs for expanded field sizes and ever-changing business requirements.

Automation Lets You Stay Ahead of the Change

DB-Shuttle’s automated Enterprise Change technology reaches across the millions of lines of code that comprise your applications, both online and batch. It locates all field elements and group levels that might ever hold the data contained in an expanding field or column, regardless of each field name, data type or current length.

Massive application change projects are required to:

• Expand primary key fields such as claim, policy or account numbers
• Expand secondary or index fields such as zip codes, last names or street names
• Expand critical data elements such as address, age or amount fields
• Change data formats (numeric to alpha) of fields or database columns

The following phases are involved in a mainframe database field change:

Change Specification

The initial phase includes the definition of the fields selected for change and of the scope of the change.

• Begin with a list of the prime database columns or file fields that will change
• Specify the new data types and lengths for each
• Define boundaries for how far the change should apply within your enterprise applications

Impact Analysis

The Analyzer performs automated impact analysis to identify all references to the prime fields within the source code and to identify all related fields in all programs across the IT environment.

• Provides consolidated analysis of all of your applications with all affected lines of code
• Identifies the specific Business Rules that are affected by the proposed changes
• Allows the definition of boundaries to limit the scope of the change
• Allows additional tracking of “statements of interest” using your custom list of verbs
• Allows generic fields to be ignored during the analysis
• Provides a workbench for other custom changes that may be required

Conversion

During this phase, modifications are applied to the prime fields and to all related program variables regardless of the variable naming conventions and the use of these fields in the business logic.

• Generates Change Rule reports for your application and business teams to review, refine or veto
• Applies those rules to your source code with a single click
• Provides the unload/reload syntax for changing the relational database data itself
• Changes all related field definitions according to the application flow, not field names
• Modifies MOVE, IF and PERFORM statements to accommodate data type changes
• Allows your team to move quickly from Spec to Testing