Reverse Engineering on the Mainframe: Lessons Learned from "In Vivo" Research

Despite growth in the popularity of desktop systems, Web applications, and mobile computing, mainframe systems remain the dominant force in large-scale enterprise computing. Although they're sometimes referred to as "the dinosaurs of computing," even mainframe systems must adapt to changing circumstances to survive. Although reverse-engineering and reengineering techniques can help identify and achieve these adaptations, current techniques are mainly geared mainly toward more modern environments, languages, and platforms. It remains to be seen whether successful techniques can be easily transferred to a mainframe context. This article reports on the application of two proven reverse-engineering techniques (software visualization and feature location) in the context of mainframe systems. The authors conclude that these techniques remain viable but become very labor intensive when implemented on a per-project basis.