National Endowment for the Arts (NEA)

NEA Administrative Systems

Federal Systems Integration & Management Center (FEDSIM)

Wang VS COBOL to C++

History: The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) manages nearly $200 million in federal money. The NEA Grants Management System (GMS), Financial Management System (FMIS), and Automated Panel Bank System (APBS) were unique one-of-a-kind 27-year old legacy systems written in Wang VS COBOL, running on a Wang VS Operating System, and using a Wang VS DMS database. Despite their advanced age, these NEA systems were high quality systems with no commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) equivalents. Wang platform obsolescence and escalating operating costs were major drivers to modernize these NEA legacy systems. The philanthropy of the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation determined NEA's target platform with the donation of Intel computers and Windows software. Before approaching The Software Revolution, Inc. (TSRI), the NEA contracted with another company for a manual system rewrite. This manual effort lasted 2 years, cost $1.6 million and ended in total failure. The GSA - Federal Systems Integration Management Center (FEDSIM) engaged TSRI to provide automated modernization services to the NEA. TSRI provided system modernization, integration, and deployment services. The NEA provided acceptance testing, deployment testing, and overall program management. FEDSIM provided contract management services.

Challenge: The NEA's administrative system consisted of three major subsystems totaling 656,000 lines of VS Wang COBOL. These subsystems used the Indexed Sequential Access Method (ISAM) features of the VS Data Management System (DMS) and VS OS subroutines. The three NEA legacy systems included twelve hundred 3270 green screens and an annual data volume of 4.5 gigabytes. Modernization required a seamless transition into a modern platform-independent C++ system using Microsoft SQL Server. The NEA required that all system enhancements and modernizations meet Congressional reporting mandates. The new Windows NT C++ system required parallel testing with the legacy Wang system prior to deployment.

The modernization was undertaken in three phases. Phase-1 included the assessment, transformation, and implementation of the three NEA subsystems. The Wang systems began experiencing intermittent hardware failures creating urgency in the replacement schedule. The project was further complicated by the need to modify and integrate roughly 40,000 lines of COBOL in the FMIS system. A new user interface layer was created to allow platform independence and a new database architecture was created to replace that of the monolithic mainframe application. These modifications required retrofitting before parallel testing could commence. Parallel testing began when two of the three systems were declared ready. Testing went smoothly as the NEA and TSRI were able to rapidly localize and correct problems. However, midway through this testing the Wang system encountered a complete hardware failure, forcing an early switchover to the modern C++ system.

Phase-2 involved re-factoring the modern C++ system to provide enhanced performance, simplify future maintenance, and insure that the three administrative systems would work in-concert.

Phase-3 was a follow-on contract where TSRI acted as system integrator making system enhancements as requested by the NEA. These enhancements were designed to carry the system through the next decade.

Results: The three phases of the NEA modernization project were completed in less than two years. TSRI successfully met all goals and mandates, achieving full implementation of the modernized system. The NEA was very pleased with the quality and precision of the new system's performance. NEA was also grateful that TSRI's compressed project schedule prevented the legacy hardware failure from disrupting their financial operations.