The Software Revolution - TSRI
The Software Revolution (TSRI): Automated Modernization of Software Systems

IT advances have been serving as the foundation underlying the evolution of modern defense strategies and operations. Though a significant portion of DoD is making use of the latest technologies, federal, commercial, and military sectors continue to depend on outdated technology in a diverse array of legacy systems—an impediment to defense organizations’ ability to adapt to new mission requirements. The Software Revolution, Inc. (TSRI), a provider of automated legacy software system modernization services, handles a broad array of legacy languages and modern target architectures. “Our solutions are highly flexible and adaptable with an iterative perfect model-based and rule-driven automated conversion process. It enables cost-efficient conversion of the systems with ultra-fine precision and accuracy and schedule compared to conventional manual approaches” says Philip Newcomb, CEO and Founder, TSRI.

Newcomb’s expertise in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and career-long focus on applying formal methods to software reverse-engineering, reengineering and software testing and translation led to the inception of TSRI. “There is a vast diversity of legacy languages and a constantly evolving definition of what it means to be ‘modernized’. We are continuously refining the rules in our AI-based code conversion technology,” claims Newcomb.

TSRI’s capability is derived from the advanced AI-based, software re-engineering toolset, JANUS Studio®. “This solution supports modernization of defense sector legacy languages like ADA, CMS, Jovial, FORTRAN, COBOL and BASIC, and MUMPS. It is used for automated assessment, transformation, and refactoring for multi-million line legacy applications that populate the defense landscape,” explains Newcomb. Any code transformation that can be done manually can be replicated with JANUS Studio®. At the core of JANUS Studio® is a highly potent conversion engine which enables translation of the textual representation of code into an in-memory ASTs (Abstract Syntax Tree) structures. ASTs facilitate rigorous analysis, pattern analysis, and code conversion by means of AST manipulation. Once this is done, the transformation can be propagated throughout the system uniformly, error free, and with improved maintainability.

In addition, a key feature of JANUS Studio® is the provision of automatically generated high fidelity documentation of the existing system and the converted systems—Application and Transformation Blueprint®. “This web-based documentation makes side-by-side comparison of the code and design of the legacy “As-Is” and modernized “To-Be” system visually accessible for inspection, analysis and training purposes,” emphasizes Newcomb.

Being application-independent, TSRI has served Navy, Air force, Army, and virtually all the major defense integrators, including BAE Systems, Boeing, CACI, Lockheed Martin, Leidos, HP, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics, and Unisys. For instance, TSRI was behind modernizing the European Air Traffic Control System—now known as TopSky. The system is now installed in hundreds of air traffic control systems around the world as the primary flight operation software for many airports. “Furthermore, our automated modernization has provided the Veterans Administration and Military Health System with an automated option for refurbishing their electronic healthcare record management systems for transition to the cloud as a single unified cloud-based software as a service deployment option,” says Newcomb.

Our solutions are highly flexible and adaptable with an iterative perfect model-based and rule-driven automated conversion process

TSRI is planning to focus on applying their technology to modernize legacy open source software. “We will soon release the Unified Integrated Electronic Healthcare (UiEHR™) as an open architecture project, to compete as an open source alternative with major proprietary EHR systems” says Newcomb. Also, in a few years, JANUS Studio® will be bundled with model-based software engineering tools to support the overall software lifecycle.