Abstract
The following paper reviews the possibilities of encapsulating existing legacy software for reuse in new distributed architectures. It suggests wrapping as an alternative strategy to reengineering and redevelopment. It then defines the levels of granularity at which software can be encapsulated before going on to describe how to construct a wrapper and how to adapt host programs for wrapping. Some wrapping products are discussed and the state of the art summarized. The advantage of wrapping over conventional reengineering is the low cost and even lower risks involved. This is the driving force in the search for improved wrapping technology.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Aberdeen Group (1995), "Hewlett-Packard's C++ SoftBench 5.0," Aberdeen Group Report, Boston, MA.
Antares Inc. (1996), "ObjectStar-A Product for Wrapping Legacy Databases," Antares Alliance Group, Dallas.
Brodie, M. and M. Stonebraker (1995), Migrating Legacy Systems, Morgan Kaufman, San Francisco, CA.
DeLucia, A., G.A. DiLucca, and A.R. Fasolini (1997), "Migrating Legacy Systems Towards Object-Oriented Platforms," In Proceedings of IEEE-ICSM-97, Bari, Italy, October, p. 122.
Dietrich, W.C. (1989), "Saving a Legacy with Objects," In Proceedings of OOPSLA-90, Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA.
Gamma, E. et al. (1995), Design Patterns, Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA.
Gossain, S. (1997), "Accessing Legacy Systems," In Object Expert, London, March.
Graham, I. (1995), Migrating to Object Technology, Addison-Wesley, Workingham, GB.
IBM (1997), "A Survey of Object-Oriented Technology on MVS/ESA," IBM International Technical Support Center Report GG24-2505-00, Poughkeepsie Center, New York.
Jacobson, I. and F. Lindstrom (1991), "Reengineering of Old Systems to an Object-oriented Architecture," In Proceedings of OOPSLA-91, ACM Press, New York.
Jacobson, I. (1992), Object-Oriented Software Engineering, Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA.
Leeb, G. and S. Molterer (1999), "Developing Reengineering and Reusing Enterprise Software Using a Business Object Approach," to be presented at TOOLS-99, CBESD Transition Workshop, Santa Clara, July.
Mattison, R. (1994), The Object-Oriented Enterprise, McGraw-Hill, New York.
Molterer, K. (1999), "Erfahrung mit der Reengineering bestehender Systeme in BMW," In Proceedings of GI-Workshop on Software Wartung & Reengineering, F. Lehnert and F. Ebert, Eds., GI Arbeitskreis 5, Bad Honnef.
Mowbray, T. and R. Zahavi (1994), The Essential CORBA, Wiley, New York.
OMG (1998), "Business Object Component Architecture (BOCA)," Proposal-Revision 1.1, OMG Document bom/98-01-07, London.
Orfali, R., D. Harkey, and J. Edwards (1996), The Essential Distributed Objects Survival Guide, Wiley, New York.
Parodi, J. (1996), "Building Wrappers for Legacy Software Applications," Digital Equipment Corp., Boston.
Rugaber, S. and J. White (1998), "Restoring a Legacy-Lessons Learned," IEEE Software 15, 4, 28.
Sneed, H. (1996), "Encapsulating Legacy Software for Reuse in Client/Server Systems," In Proceedings of WCRE-96, IEEE Press, Monterey, November.
Sneed, H. (1997a), "Software Interface Reengineering," In Proceedings of WCRE-97, IEEE Press, Amsterdam, October.
Sneed, H. (1997b), "SoftWrap-ein Tool f¨ur die Kapselung vorhandener Assembler, PLI und COBOL Programme," HMD Heft Nr. 194, Stuttgart, Germany.
Sneed, H. (1998), Objektorientierte Softwaremigration, Addison-Wesley, Bonn.
Souder, T. and S. Mancordis (1999), "Legacy-A Tool for Securely Integrating Legacy Systems into a Distributed Environment," In Proceedings of IEEE-WCRE-99, Atlanta, October, to appear.
Taylor, D. (1995), Business Engineering with Object Technology, Wiley, New York.
Verhoef, C., A. Sellink, and H. Sneed (1999), "Restructuring of COBOL/CICS Legacy Systems," In Proceedings of 3rd European Conference on Software Maintenance and Reengineering, Amsterdam, March, p. 72.
Wallner, K. and E. Wallace (1996), "Simulated Evaluation of the Object Management Group's (OMG) Object Management Architecture (OMA)," ACM SIGPLAN Notices 31, 10, 168.
Winsberg, P. (1995), "Legacy Code-Don't Bag it, Wrap it" Datamation, May.
Yourdon, E. (1997), "Distributed Computing," American Programmer 10, 12.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Sneed, H.M. Encapsulation of legacy software: A technique for reusing legacy software components. Annals of Software Engineering 9, 293–313 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1018989111417
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1018989111417