The Situation
Escaping the Legacy Mainframe Trap
The Department of Defense, a key federal government entity, was operating a mission-critical COBOL application on an outdated AS400 mainframe. This legacy system presented major challenges:
High Financial Burden: The system incurred exorbitant costs due to specialized hardware and maintenance.
Security Risk: It lacked modern security protocols and was non-compliant with stringent federal security requirements.
Data Instability: The aging hardware and legacy software posed a constant, high risk to the stability and accessibility of over 15 million vital records.
The Task
Zero-Downtime, End-to-End Modernization
The objective was to lead the complex, end-to-end technical migration of this application and all associated data. The goal was not just a lift-and-shift, but a complete modernization to a secure, scalable cloud infrastructure (Azure), requiring flawless execution with zero disruption to daily government operations.
The Solution
Precision Architecture and Cloud Migration
As the Technical Lead, I architected the comprehensive migration strategy, ensuring a secure and scalable cloud implementation that met the rigorous demands of federal systems.
Target Architecture
- Designed and provisioned the scalable new system using Azure Cloud services. This included setting up the secure virtual network, database services, and application services to achieve maximum performance and meet all stringent federal security and compliance requirements.
Legacy Code Translation
- Managed the development team in translating and refactoring the mission-critical COBOL application logic into a modern, maintainable codebase. This involved analyzing hundreds of thousands of lines of code and ensuring the refactored business logic performed identically to the legacy system.
Data Integrity Pipeline
- Engineered and led the deployment of robust data transformation and cleansing pipelines. The pipeline was designed to safely extract, cleanse, and load all 15 million records from the AS400 to the new Azure Database infrastructure, guaranteeing 100% data integrity and consistency during the transfer process.
The Result
Modernized Infrastructure and Stability
The project was executed flawlessly, delivering immediate, quantifiable benefits to the federal client:
- < 24 Months: Full migration completed under the target timeline.
- 100% Uptime: Migration executed with zero loss of service or data integrity issues.
- Next-Gen Scalability: Delivered massive capacity for growth and significant long-term cost reduction by eliminating mainframe dependency.
Testimonial
"Mödred led the migration of a 15 million record COBOL application off an AS400 mainframe and into Azure Cloud in under twenty-four months. A transformation that combined precision, scalability, and innovation. Mödred's ability to balance forward-thinking technical strategy with flawless execution made him an invaluable asset to our projects and our clients."