A few years ago, VA DMV was using an inverted list database to centralize data from applications of which 80% were written in Natural. Struggling to support this 40-year-old language with the next generation of programmer, the agency’s modern customer experience strategy meant change was inevitable: “We wanted to do mobile development, offer customers new API-driven services, and get all our data into the cloud for better responsiveness. Agile gives us a much, much clearer view of what products we want to build,” Elkins explains. “But we didn’t want this to mean the death of our secure and reliable enterprise mainframe application and database.” Just as well—that as part of Software AG’s continued innovation and support of Adabas & Natural to 2050 and beyond—the ability to use DevOps tools with the NaturalONE development environment meant that new developers could easily develop and maintain the existing mainframe applications.
VA DMV’s experience challenges commonly held beliefs that legacy applications can’t evolve with the times: Adabas and Natural can operate on Linux for both on-premises and cloud deployment; run inside software containers; connect to NoSQL and data lake storage and handle streaming data. “This has enabled us to accelerate our modernization journey with platform agnostic applications,” Elkins says. “While providing a streamlined experience for our customers through a reliable mainframe on the back end. It’s not often we have to tell customers we can’t help them.”
Of course, what really matters are the outcomes:
The NaturalONE IDE, now part of the Natural product, integrates with the popular Eclipse development environment and can expose and use applications via application programming interfaces. This has enabled VA DMV to tie into numerous back-end services such as verifying passports, capturing images of driver’s licenses, sharing data with the National Criminal Information Center, and accessing transport accounts. Customers can now use self-service website features like completing verifications, customizing alerts, and managing their EZPass (toll) accounts independently.
Now, with automated testing and a mobile-first, responsive development approach, the payoff is also a far faster and more nimble delivery schedule. This can be evidenced by a significant cut on wait times in DMV offices as well as boosted scores on both customer and employee satisfaction surveys.
Compliance has also received a huge efficiency boost: “We now offer more than 50 service transactions on our website,” Elkins explains. “Yes—this gives our customers renewed autonomy but naturally it comes with heaps of fresh regulations that have to be complied with our end.” Take the agency’s compliance obligations relating to court orders, insurance monitoring and driver safety. “When everything was on the mainframe it was highly secure,” Pam Schwartz, Database Administrator explains. “Now we are sharing data with third parties, empowering customers to serve themselves through a variety of outlets—you’d think this would make us more vulnerable. But, in fact, we’re able to harness 75 applications from across the state and federal government through .net interfaces to comply with regulations and mitigate that risk."
Delighted with how it’s all coming together for the end customer, employees are also happier. “Many people are on the path to becoming full-stack developers, whereas before, they would have been app developers alone,” Elkins says.
The initiative has even helped attract recent University of Virginia graduates who might never consider working in a mainframe shop. “Agile has been fantastic because it’s an opportunity for the real experts to sit with those new people,” Elkins explains. “It’s collaborative and continuous."
Pam Schwartz, Database Administrator, summarizes the story well: “For 25 years, VA DMV has easily updated the same database and application system to meet changing regulations. Today, the system is modern and integrated with a multitude of systems and external users. Through it all, Adabas & Natural and the IBM Z are always reliable, fast and secure.”
