ASNA Success Stories
Extending and enhancing the IBM i and Microsoft platforms since 1982
Aerospace/Defense
Region
North America and beyond
Project type
IBM i RPG migration to ASNA Visual RPG (the precursor to ASNA Encore RPG)
Lines of code migrated
1m+
Database
IBM i DB2
Products
ASNA Monarch, Visual RPG
Customer Profile
A worldwide company specializing in commerical aerospace management solutions for industries such as government/military, communications, insurance, utilities, engineering, and aviation.
Business Challenge
An RPG-based aviation management application had been in use for years. However, its green-screen user interface made a bad first impression with new users. The old app was also quite challenging to integrate with other platforms and modern application features like Web services and third-party integrations.
Options Considered
A Java-based solution and screen scrapers were both initially considered. The Java solution was rejected because the in-house programming team has years of RPG experience and the company was concerned about the time required for the team to get proficient with Java. Screen scrapers held little appeal because even if they could manage to make the application look better, they would be able to add only minimal functional enhancements.
Why ASNA?
The company felt that ASNA had the best offering for its long term business needs. The initial were competitive and an application running on .NET, migrated to ASNA Visual RPG (the precursor to ASNA Encore RPG), would be far more extensible and easier to extend and modernize. The Monarch/Visual RPG approach let the Pathix team’s RPG skills shine. There would be no need for specialized consultants and contract programmers.
Implementation
After some initial training by ASNA, the company programming team rolled up its sleeves and started the migation. In many cases, a Monarch customer has ASNA’s Services Team to help with aspects of the migation. In this case, the company had a large enough team with a broad enough set of skills to make peforming the entire migration in-house doable.
This Monarch project is a true testament to ASNA Monarch's reliability and resiliency. This migrated application has been deployed and in use in many countries since 2010.
Business Benefit
With the migrated application deployed, users are delighed with it—especially appreciating its modern, browser-based user interface. Using ASNA Monarch led to improved business agility, increased productivity, and lowered costs.