At COMMON yesterday, <a href="http://www.databorough.com/">Databorough</a> announced the release of X-2E, a tool for the graphical analysis, documentation, design recovery, and migration to Java, EGL or C# for CA 2E (SYNON) applications.

“By listening to our CA 2E SYNON customers we realized that there was an increasing appetite for an alternative development ecosystem,” said Stuart Milligan VP business development for Databorough. “After having extracted the data model from CA 2E for many years, it was a natural extension for us to extract the complete CA 2E model directly. Not everybody wanted to migrate off the platform in the first instance, so we created two versions; one for analysis and documentation of the model, and the other for complete rebuilds in modern technologies and languages. What’s unique about our approach is that we use the model itself and not the generated code at all. This reduces the resulting code base by at least 100 to 1, and it provides CA 2E developers insight into architecture they understand.”

X-2E Professional automatically extracts a complete CA 2E model definition, to extend Databorough’s analysis and documentation tool X-Analysis. Users can visualize, analyze and document the CA 2E data model, action diagrams and functions in an interactive and graphical manner.

X-2E Enterprise bypasses the generated RPG/COBOL code and uses the CA 2E model as a specification to automatically refactor and generate an MVC web application using OO methods in Java, C#.Net or EGL. Silverlight UI options are being introduced 3rd quarter 2010. The tools can be used against an entire system, user defined application areas, or individual functions as part of an ongoing modernization/migration effort. This provides more flexibility and control to the user, and helps reduce risk and overall cost, while maximizing productivity with user-driven automation. <b>-- Joel Klebanoff</b>