Unify Selects ATERAS and Alchemy Solutions for Migration of State Agency's Mainframe Systems to .NET Framework

WASHINGTON, July 12 /PRNewswire/ -- ATERAS and Alchemy Solutions today announced that the companies' legacy migration and modernization technologies have been selected by Unify for an important migration project (20+ business critical applications) with a large State agency.  Under terms of a contract announced at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference in Washington, D.C., Unify will use technology from ATERAS and Alchemy Solutions to migrate the agency's COBOL and Natural/ADABAS applications to Microsoft's C# and the SQL Server platform.

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The conversion is part of the state agency's overall effort to reduce license fees, control mainframe costs and improve productivity, and will be accomplished in part by reducing mainframe MIPS and re-hosting some applications under the Microsoft .NET framework.

Unify is a global provider of application development, data management and migration solutions. ATERAS offers state-of-the art services to clients by modernizing and migrating legacy systems to the most current IT environments. Alchemy Solutions provides technology that helps organizations integrate legacy applications with the latest Microsoft Windows technologies.

Natural/ADABAS, the flagship products of Software AG, was one of the earliest commercially available database products. Initially released for IBM mainframe systems in 1970, ADABAS is now available on a range of other systems including OpenVMS, UNIX, Linux and Windows.  Many organizations are now looking to modernize their applications based on ADABAS to contemporary platforms.

ATERAS and Alchemy Solution's modernization offering for COBOL and Natural/ADABAS uniquely combines automated database migration with automated application language conversion, in addition to mainframe job control language (JCL) support, on the Microsoft Application Platform.

"Organizations with mainframe servers are migrating to the Windows Application Platform to more completely address their business requirements and significantly reduce their costs," said Bob Ellsworth, Director of Enterprise Platform Modernization at Microsoft. "The ability to convert Natural applications to C# and migrate data from ADABAS to Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 provides a dynamic, cost-effective alternative."

Unify helps organizations modernize and maximize investments in their existing applications by leveraging its own application migration expertise with technology partnerships with best of breed companies. "We selected ATERAS and Alchemy for their ability to modernize complex mainframe systems to a .NET solution," said Steve Soren, Vice President of Business Development at Unify. "Together our companies offer a unique solution for modernizing COBOL and Natural/ADABAS to the .NET Framework."

ATERAS uses DB-Shuttle™ automation technology for the assessment and conversion of the databases, data and applications to the .NET Framework. The ADABAS database is converted to SQL Server, and the COBOL and Natural applications can be converted to NetCOBOL for .NET or C#. The ATERAS automated solution optimizes the value of business critical applications while lowering the risk of a mainframe migration in a timely and cost effective manner. The conversion results in a functionally equivalent system without the perpetuation of Software AG license fees.

NeoBatch® from Alchemy Solutions provides an environment for managing and executing JCL under the Windows .NET environment. NeoBatch makes it possible to migrate mainframe COBOL and Natural batch jobs to run in NetCOBOL for .NET or C#. The result is a more economic yet higher performing platform. This move can bring significant savings to IT budgets, free up mainframe MIPS for other applications, or be part of a complete migration off the mainframe.

Further information can be obtained at Alchemy Solutions' booth #745 at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference in Washington, D.C., July 12-15, or at any of the companies' websites.

About ATERAS

ATERAS has supported global enterprises for 27 years, offering state-of-the art services to our clients by modernizing and migrating legacy systems to the most current IT environments. The company's patent-pending automated technologies include DB-Shuttle™ for conversion and eavRPM™ for rapid program modernization. Application Portfolio Management (APM) solutions range from comprehensive assessments of existing IT environments, enterprise field expansion, COBOL and Natural workbenches to automated documentation tools. Information at www.ateras.com

ATERAS, DB-Shuttle, eavRPM are registered trademarks of ATERAS www.ateras.com

About Alchemy Solutions

Alchemy Solutions is a leading provider of technology solutions that help organizations integrate legacy applications with the latest Microsoft Windows technologies, including Visual Studio and the .NET Framework. The company's technology enables significant cost savings by moving applications and data from expensive mainframe platforms to cost-effective Windows environments. The Alchemy Solutions suite enables the modernization of mission critical CICS and batch applications within the Microsoft .NET environment. Alchemy Solutions, Inc. is a privately held corporation with headquarters in Bend, Oregon.

NetCOBOL is a registered trademark of Fujitsu Ltd. in the United States and other countries. Alchemy Solutions, NeoKicks, NeoBatch, NeoSort and NeoData are trademarks or registered trademarks of Alchemy Solutions, Inc. in the United States and other countries.

SOURCE ATERAS