Overview:

Raytheon Company is an industry leader in defense and government electronics, space, information technology, technical services, and business aviation and special mission aircraft.

Raytheon had used a custom in-house HP3000 application to manage its contracts, project cost, billing and payment activities. In 2004, Raytheon decided to eliminate its’ HP3000 computers and migrate this application to an Oracle database and web environment. Raytheon established the following criteria for this migration project:

• The new solution must be entirely web-based, with no client software.

• The data must reside entirely in an existing Oracle database hosted on Sun E10K Unix platform.

• The application must execute on Microsoft NT platform using IIS web server. Either J2EE and Java, or MacroMedia ColdFusion could be used.

• No other mainframe or web server tools or licenses could be included in the solution.

• All existing reporting, inquiry, metrics and form printing capability, including numerous PCL-based government documents, must be preserved. However, the system would be inquiry only, as SAP was being implemented concurrently and would be used to process new transactions.

• The least expensive and quickest solution would be given highest consideration.

Proposal and Investigation Phase:

This application consisted of 300+ source files in COBOL, SPL, REX and QUIZ,

4 IMAGE databases, 100+ flat and KSAM files referenced in the QSCHEMA, 100+JCLs, and 200+ reports, many to print PCL-based government documents.

The customer wanted a “completely re-engineered” solution in the sense that the application would be entirely in native SQL and browser-based when completed. Based on the project size and complexity, we believed that other vendors would quote multiple man-year proposals. However, we knew Raytheon did not want to invest in a project of that size.

We devised a strategy to fit within Raytheon’s budget and expectations and opted for an “intelligent re-engineering” approach to the migration. Instead of translating function-by-function and screen-by-screen, we inventoried all the HP3000 functionality, and developed a less redundant system.

Our approach had the following key elements:

1) Eliminating batch reports and JCL files

In looking at the reports and JCL, we ascertained that almost all of the JCL simply executed various report programs. Most of these programs, in turn, went after a handful of the same datasets.

We replaced all the JCL and reports with a few flexible online reporting screens, each of which allowed for multiple selection criteria, and sorting and summing by any field. These screens allowed for saving to Excel, satisfying the hard copy requirement.

By using cursor-less SQL, the screens all executed many times faster than on the HP3000 - quickly enough to be run on-line.

2) Database Re-Design

Migrating the data from Image and Powerhouse to SQL was easily accomplished by Comp Three’s TurbolImage Port to SQL (TIPS) product. This tool allows for easy modifications to the database structure, as the data is being extracted and migrated. Using this tool, we made key database structural changes, which sped up the queries, eliminating the need for much of the business logic. This re-design allowed for easier coding of the new system.

3) Form Printing

We used Adobe Acrobat Reader to eliminate PCL report programs. All PCL reports were replaced with browser invocations of dynamic Acrobat forms, saving time and allowing forms to be viewed as well as printed.

Summary:

This project was fully implemented in 3 months, on time and within budget.

The HP3000 was replaced with a new system whose users find it to be friendlier, more functional, much faster, and actually fun to use. The new system is 100% browser-based, uses native SQL and is poised to take advantage of evolving industry technologies like SOA, web services, browser graphics and cheap front-end tools. TIPS was critical in helping us facilitate a smooth and efficient migration.

User Feedback:

“The screens and downloads are terrific. We appreciate this project and achieving success ahead of schedule!”

Carol Asper
Manager, SAS Accounts Receivable
Raytheon


“The new web system is incredible, awesome, fabulous, wonderful, amazing, etc., etc., etc.”

Sherry Hix
Reconciliations
Finance Shared Services
Raytheon