WebSphere Studio Asset Analyzer

Features and benefits

WebSphere® Studio Asset Analyzer scans mainframe and distributed software assets, storing related application information in a DB2 repository that resides on the mainframe. You do not have to download your z9 and System z application inventory to a workstation, nor do you have to up-load your distributed application inventory to a mainframe. WebSphere Studio Asset Analyzer scans source where it lives, whether that is in PDS/PDSE datasets on the mainframe, directories on Windows or AIX, or one of a number of software configuration management systems (SCMs).

For distributed assets, WebSphere Studio Asset Analyzer supports scanning from IBM Rational ClearCase, CVS, and PVCS. For mainframe assets, Serena ChangeMan ZMF and SCLM are supported. Other SCMs may be supported through a user exit. A customer-supplied program calls the SCM. (Some programming is required.) Web applications can be scanned from WebSphere Application Servers running on either Windows or AIX. Along with your application source, WebSphere Studio Asset Analyzer scans mainframe CICS and IMS subsystems, the DB2® catalog, and distributed WebSphere Application Server domains.

WebSphere Studio Asset Analyzer can help to speed application changes and improve quality by automating the discovery phase of a development cycle, which can consume nearly a third of a project's total development costs. WebSphere Studio Asset Analyzer:

• Can reduce the complexity of software projects by delivering up-to-date knowledge of application components from the code itself, supplementing outdated or nonexistent developers' and analysts' documentation
• Can improve process and team efficiency by making the same application insight available to all team members
• Can shorten the learning phase for new developers
• Can help you improve project estimates and meet quality targets by reporting the complexity of your programs using common industry metrics

Enterprises may have hundreds of project teams making changes to application code and the structure of shared data at the same time. These changes occur across hundreds of thousands of programs and batch jobs and touch thousands of DB2 tables, columns, and VSAM files. To avoid system outages caused by these changes, a project team must identify:

• Affected source within its application
• Other affected project teams and existing applications

Then these modifications must be deployed into QA and production environments in a highly synchronized manner.

For the project team, it is not trivial to identify all potential impacts of a change in their own application. For example, if you need to increase the size of your part number field as a result of a recent merger or acquisition, you must try to find every place in every source code file where part number is used as well as every other named variable that is a synonym of part number. This requires a detailed impact/dependency analysis across all your programs, copybooks, map sets, and so on. This may include tens of thousands of files and millions of lines of code. Then, it is not surprising that many system outages are related to change events.

WebSphere Studio Asset Analyzer helps analysts, developers, architects, and operations teams cut through the complexity of their applications and interdependencies to work faster and with better quality. WebSphere Studio Asset Analyzer helps you:

• Understand MVS and Java Enterprise Edition (Java EE) application assets and their relationships through interactive textual and graphical reports
• Identify the artifacts that a proposed code or operational change affects, and make changes with more confidence, greater speed, and less risk
• Identify information about connectors for Web-enabled applications
• Identify business processes and flows
• Identify application dependencies at multiple levels, including:
  • Jobs and transactions
  • Files and databases
  • Programs and applications
    • Written in COBOL, PL/I, Assembler, Java EE, and various distributed text formats including HTML and XML
    • For CICS, IMS, WebSphere Application Server, WebSphere MQ,and DB2
    • On z/OS, pSeries AIX, and Microsoft Windows operating systems
  • Composite applications that span mainframe and distributed systems

WebSphere Studio Asset Analyzer can help you to find mainframe application relationships in seconds that might otherwise take much longer to find. The following are some examples:

• Listing the batch jobs that use a program
• Listing the COPY and INCLUDE files used by a program
• Listing the data elements or data sets used by a program
• Listing the DB2 columns, tables or stored procedures used by a program
• Listing the entry points with a matching name pattern
• Listing the programs that call or are called by a particular program
• Listing the run units or transactions that include a particular program
• Viewing the control flow of a program
• Viewing the high-level structure of a program
• Browsing the source code for a program
• Listing the source needed to build a run unit
• Viewing the calling hierarchy for a run unit
• Listing the CICS files or CICS groups for an online region
• Listing the CICS programs
• Listing the transactions and their flow in a CICS group
• Viewing the transaction flow for a CICS or IMS transaction
• Listing the batch jobs that use an IMS program specification control block (PSB)
• Listing the PCBs defined for a PSB
• Listing the transactions that use a PSB
• Listing the batch jobs, transactions, or programs that use a dataset
• Listing the programs that use a DB2 column, table, or stored procedure
• Listing the views that use a DB2 column or table
• Viewing a diagram of the assets that make up an application
• Viewing the transaction flow in an application

WebSphere Studio Asset Analyzer Distributed Java Enterprise Edition analysis capabilities supplement IBM Rational Application Developer and IBM Rational Software Architect. WebSphere Studio Asset Analyzer scans Java source code and bytecode -- including Java Archive (JAR), Web Archive (WAR), and Enterprise Archive (EAR) files -- and employs more than 40 Java EE and distributed scanners, and patented pattern matching technology to help you understand and manage change in your existing Java EE legacy application inventory.

WebSphere Studio Asset Analyzer can help you to find Java EE information and relationships in seconds that might otherwise take much longer to find. The following are some examples:

• Finding interrelationships among components and viewing these relationships at a detailed or aggregate level
• Analyzing a Java EE application before changing its segmentation, for example, separating some classes files into their own utility.jar file, or separating out some code into its own package
• Finding which applications (WARs or EARs) include a particular method, class, JAR, or WAR file
• Listing the most recently modified archive files
• Viewing a count breakdown of EJBs by type or in each EJB-JAR
• Finding the most complex Java bytecode classes
• Viewing the incoming and outgoing references to a Java method, class, or field
• Viewing any incoming or outgoing references to a particular WAR file or any assets in the WAR file
• Determining the primary developer of a Java EE component

NOTE: Much of this information can be determined from Java bytecode alone.

WebSphere Studio Asset Analyzer can be used to determine an entire chain of dependencies across the applications in your enterprise -- more than searching for textual strings in your source code. By understanding your applications at a semantic level, WebSphere Studio Asset Analyzer can help you to identify the impacts to a proposed change faster and with fewer errors, when, for example:

• Expanding the size of a data element field
• Changing an interface (that is, entry point parameters)
• Changing a transaction
• Changing the characteristics of a data set or data store
• Adding columns to a DB2 view or DB2 table
• Renaming a DB2 column or table
• Changing the content of a Java package
• Changing the content of a Jar file
• Deleting a Java Class or JavaServer Pages (JSP) file
• Removing methods from an Enterprise JavaBean (EJB)
• Renaming a servlet

WebSphere Studio Asset Analyzer consists of the following components:

• Source scanners running on z/OS and AIX or Windows
• Metadata repository in DB2 on z/OS
• Web applications running on z/OS, AIX, or Windows systems

WebSphere Studio Asset Analyzer open architecture offers:

• Interactive access to WebSphere Studio Asset Analyzer application insight through a Web browser
• Programmatic access through direct SQL queries, a Web service API, or a URL-based API
• The option to customize the delivery of WebSphere Studio Asset Analyzer application insight to meet the unique requirements of your organization is accomplished through the custom query facility, group bookmarks, and configuration of displayable metrics/statistics

 

 

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