Giving Legacy Systems a Life Sentence, Not the Death Penalty

According to television psychologists, you just have to make the decision to change and then change is easy. They never had to deal with legacy IT systems. On Nov. 14, 2003, for example, the General Accounting Office released its latest report on enterprise integration at the FBI which found that it still didn't even have a workable plan for bringing together its myriad information silos.

While it is tempting to just do a rip and replace to bring outdated legacy systems up to 21 st Century technology, that isn't always necessary or desirable. A new, Web-based system is much more attractive and easy to use than an old green-screen terminal one, but in many cases these older systems do work and it just isn't worth the money to replace them. That was the situation with the State of Tennessee's Department of Corrections.

"We wanted to simplify our system and change to a Windows-type Graphical User Interface," said Robert Chick, Information Manager for the Tennessee Department of Corrections (DoC) in Nashville, Tenn.

Everybody is moving away from COBOL and green screens. But the price tag to replace the decade old, custom-built enterprise system came to $14 million dollars. By retaining the existing system and just putting in place a new front end, however, the DoC found it could get what it needed at a fifth the cost.

The DoC uses a system designed by the now-defunct accounting and consulting firm, Arthur Anderson, called TOMIS -Tennessee Offender Management Information System. It uses TOMIS to keep track of its 20,000 state inmates, 50,000 people on probation or parole and another 5,000 in county jails. In addition, it contains information on another quarter million individuals who are not currently under the DoC's purview.

About 7000 users access TOMIS as part of their job, generating about 800,000 transactions per day. Through it, users can track the location and security level of a prisoner; look up any incidents resulting in disciplinary action; track their property and visitors; view their jobs and educational activities. They can also find out how long a person has left on a sentence, the anticipated parole date, and any factors that would extend or reduce the sentence.

"TOMIS makes us better managers since it assists in the collection and analysis of data," says Chick. "It allows us to predict our needs and decide what resources we are going to commit."

At the core of the system lies an IBM DB2 database. Sitting on top of the database are around a thousand programs with over a million lines of code. Users accessed TOMIS' more than 200 tables and 450 screens though a mixture of thin clients and PCs.

"Each screen contained its own unique set of data," said Chick. "There were no calendars, no drop down menus, no tabs - just like we had 20 years ago."

Although the mainframe hosting TOMIS is managed by the state's Office of Information Service, the DoC staff can do their own system design with OIR programers updating and enhancing the code. Security is set at the screen-level. Some users have access to only 20 of the screens, while others have access to all of them.

Since the system lacked a GUI, users had to memorize the commands necessary to locate and move between the screens. Since many of the terminals didn't permit scrolling, this necessitated switching back and forth between screens to complete a task. Plainly, this is not a very efficient way of working.

"For some business functions you had to go through five different screens rather than being able to do it all from a single page," said Tom Joplin, TOMIS site coordinator at the Lois M. DeBerry Special Needs Facility in Nashville.

As it would have been cost-prohibitive to replace the entire system, the DoC requested that legacy application integration firm Jacada Ltd. (Atlanta, Ga.) provide a demonstration of an updated version to be called eTOMIS. Jacada has performed such upgrades for over 1200 commercial and public sector enterprises since 1990.

After a successful demonstration of the technology, the state contracted with the firm to perform a full upgrade. The job entailed a mix of efforts between the state and Jacada. The DoC paid Jacada about $1.2 million for its integration services and state workers put in about 6000 hours on the project, with as many as seven people working on the project at a time.

Chick laid out three main goals for the project.

To give the system a Windows look and feel, including replacing repetitive key strokes with drop down lists, combo boxes, pop-up windows, calendars, tabs, buttons, task bars and tool bars.

To reduce the number of screens a user would have to access to perform a task by compressing multiple screens into a single screen.

To redesign and rearrange the data so that it was more in line with the business functions.

From design to implementation the work on the new system took about a year and a half. The integration with the back end was done through the use of XHTML (eXtensible HTML, a version of HTML that allows users to add proprietary tags). Although the XHTML requires more server overhead than the alternative Java option would have, the department had to work with the desktop systems in and out of TDoC that could handle the thin client application.

In addition to Web-enabling the existing screens, eTOMIS expanded the range of features available to DoC personnel. The new system integrates with outside applications allowing the bundling of programs containing offender photographs and drivers license information into the system. Previously, these had to be accessed through separate applications. The department was also able to incorporate its manuals and policies. The screens contain hotlinks providing direct access to other screens the user may need. For example, if a user is looking at an offender's location and wants to also find out his security classification, he can now just click on the hot link rather than having to type in a series of commands as the older system required.

Users access these additional applications through the toolbar. They can also create their own favorites lists to quickly access the screens and choices they use most often, rather than having to go through the entire menu of options. The system also includes word wrap, spell check and other tools not available in the old character-based system.

Anticipating an October 2003 eTOMIS roll out, users access to the new system was established through the state's intranet using a Web browser. Next came the task of training the thousands of employees who had used the green-screen system for the past decade to do their jobs.

"It takes a while to roll out 480 screens to 7000 users," says Chick. "Web-savvy users are happy with the new system, but it is a problem for others who are used to punching memorized F-keys rather than clicking on buttons.

"The feedback, however, has generally been positive. Users do have questions on how to navigate through the system, but it is easier to do once they get the hang of it."

Joplin, who has used TOMIS since is came on line in 1992, says the new system is simpler and easier to use than the old one.

The consolidation of screens means that some business functions that used to require accessing five different screens can now be done on a single one.

"We used to say that TOMIS is your friend, but sometimes it was and sometimes it wasn't," says Joplin. "eTOMIS really is your friend once you learn how to use it."

Drew Robb

Drew Robb is a Los Angeles-based writer specializing in technology and engineering issues.

Copyright Publications & Communications, Inc. Feb 2004
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