The NSC Group: Quality Software Solutions Since 1970

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DataNovata can provide access to data from applications that are to be decommissioned because they are superfluous to requirements, no longer supported, expensive to run or reside on an obsolete platform.

DataNovata is therefore the answer to Application Decommissioning, Application Retirement or Application Sunsetting, as well as providing an ideal solution to the application redundancy problems often created by Mergers and Acquisitions and highlighted by Applications Portfolio Management.

Where data must be retained and accessible, but where migration to a new application is costly or undesirable, DataNovata provides a cost-effective solution.

With DataNovata an organisation can free itself from the licensing, maintenance and hardware costs of the original application whilst making it easy to provide secure access to anyone, anywhere.

With the cost savings DataNovata can have a fantastic return on investment!

Some of the possible scenarios are highlighted below.

Application Sunsetting, Decommissioning & Retirement

Many organisations are undertaking major upgrades of their computer systems, phasing out older systems and replacing them with modern software.

The problem of what to do with the legacy data is an inevitable consequence of such an initiative. When applications are decommissioned, there is often a statutory obligation to retain historial data or other reasons for maintaining easy access to it.

Continuing to pay software licence fees to run the application just to view this archive data is obviously undesirable. If the entire platform is being replaced, then that option may not even be available.

The alternative of converting all the old data into the format required by the replacement application is sometimes impossible and often a very expensive exercise.

DataNovata is the ideal tool for creating a robust web-enabled data retrieval application and is the cost-effective answer to Application Sunsetting, Application Decommissioning and Application Retirement.

Analytical Databases

DataNovata provides the perfect user interface for analytical databases.

Analytical databases can have teraybytes or petabytes of data, usually without any relationships defined in the schema. Whilst this improves the speed of access, subequently sifting through this data and finding the information you need can be time consuming.

However, with DataNovata you can use the built-in Data Structure Tool to define the relationships without ever touching the original database (this relationship information is held within DataNovata). You can then automatically generate an application to access the information, using that application to drill down and traverse the relationships, all within an intuitive user interface that requires no expert knowledge.

Now the answers to your questions are at your fingertips; and if the database changes, just regenerate your application!

Mergers & Acquisitions

DataNovata can play a valuable role in the case of mergers and acquisitions. The companies involved will have different computer systems in place, and the acquiring company will usually seek to consolidate these onto one system as part of the rationalisation process.

Most of the data held by the acquired company will be of a historical nature, and while it may be very expensive to transfer it all to one system it will need to be retained for enquiry purposes. DataNovata presents a very cost-effective alternative to the retention of the acquired company’s computer platform.

Applications Portfolio Management may have a valuable role to play in highlighting the accumulation of duplicate or redundant applications in organisations which have been subject to a number of mergers and acquisitions.

AS400, IDMS and Conventional File Databases

If a legacy system to be decommissioned has an AS400, IDMS or Conventional File database, NSC can migrate the legacy data to a relational database before using DataNovata to generate the application.

Unstructured data can easily be structured using the Data Structure Tool that is part of DataNovata.

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Application Renovation

With an ageing application where there is a wish to renovate the user interface, DataNovata is the perfect solution. It enables the rapid generation of a complete enquiry system with a modern, intuitive and feature-rich front-end.

Because DataNovata builds the application from the existing database, any off-line processing is unaffected.

Renovation of Legacy Systems

If an ageing application resides on VME, NSC can migrate the database and the off-line processing and generate the new user interface using DataNovata.

Application Testing

For applications in development or maintenance an independent but structured view of the database is often useful for verifying database operations. A DataNovata generated enquiry system forms an invaluable testing tool.