During the lifespan of modernization projects, the legacy application continues receiving new features, fixes and improvements. There are modifications to the codebase that have to be integrated in the modernization process. This integration is commonly called “Code Refresh”.
Code changes have impacts on the ongoing modernization (test cases, test coverage, decomposition, etc.) that need to be tracked and identified in order to guarantee the functional equivalence of the modernized application and the legacy application running in the production environment.
AWS Blu Insights integrates a service called Versions Manager which allows users to automatically compare 2 codebase projects (reference and refreshed) and identify: added files, deleted files and modified files. It is now getting an additional module called Impacts! This new module lets you see at a glance all workpackages, test scenarios, labels, statuses and team members that are impacted by the code refresh.
The Impacts module simply goes through all the artefacts (workpackages, test scenarios, statuses, labels and team members) of the reference project, and checks if they are linked to a file that is modified or deleted in the refreshed project. Each artefact category has its own tab and lists them along with the files impacting them.
For example, in the screenshot, we can see that the workpackage “Veery” has 2 impacts related to 2 files:
* CVTRA02Y.CPY has been deleted from the refreshed project.
* COACTUPC.CBL has been modified in the refreshed code. It can be viewed and compared among the two projects to see the actual differences.
In actual projects totalizing thousands of source code files and millions of lines of code, this automated impact analysis allows to inject efficiency 🙌 in the process as delivery teams can get back to customers within hours to discuss the changes and define the new project scope (e.g. to update estimates and test scenarios). In addition, Versions Manager projects are collaborative, i.e. all stakeholders can be invited to resonate on the findings avoiding emails, excel exports and files sharing.
This new version embeds also a set of small improvements and fixes (e.g. a new invitations system for the versions manager). You may check the documentation for more details.
This new feature has been designed and built with the help of the Blu Age delivery teams to stress it along actual projects. Thanks to all the stakeholders for their time and help. We have also prepared a list of improvements to come in the next versions. A true illustration of team work to meet customers expectations.
Have a great day!
The AWS Blu Insights team.