A contractor supporting a critical mainframe modernization project for a state government agency, faced a significant challenge. Tasked with migrating a legacy COBOL system, the contractor’s initial pilot migration attempt using AWS Blu Age could not fully meet customer requirements. The tool could only output Java and not meet the new requirement for Python or C#. Furthermore, the migration lacked traceability, making it impossible to validate. This contractor engaged Karsun Solutions, which leveraged its AI-powered ReDuX modernization platform. Using Agentic AI capabilities powered by Amazon Bedrock, ReDuX automatically analyzed the legacy system and generated the required C# programs, Summer Batch Core workflows, and MS SQL Server tables, delivering the 100% traceability needed to successfully complete the pilot.

About the Customer

The customer was one of three vendors awarded a contract for a cloud services project for a state government agency. This project’s goal is to modernize a core business system by converting legacy mainframe code to Python or C# while moving to a cloud-based platform.

Customer Challenge

A state government agency initiated a high-priority project to convert its legacy system to a modern, cloud-based platform. The state’s primary goals were to enhance security, improve flexibility, ensure data redundancy, and lower long-term maintenance costs.

The project was structured in two phases: a competitive part one pilot awarded to three bidders, followed by a part two award for the full system conversion given to a single winner from the pilot. The customer team was tasked with migrating a subsystem for the pilot, as it was the least entangled with other subsystems.

The customer’s initial modernization attempt hit two critical roadblocks. First, the agency’s requirements evolved. After initially preferring Java, the state later specified a preference for Python or C#. This immediately put the team’s approach in jeopardy, as AWS Blu Age can only create code in Java. Second, they were unable to show file-level COBOL program traceability to modern programs. This made validation and future maintenance impossible in the mind of the customer. Failure to solve these challenges would result in a failed pilot and disqualification from the lucrative part two of the contract.

The Partner Solution

The pilot contract was explicitly for cloud services. The state agency sought the enhanced security, flexibility, and redundancy that a cloud-native solution provides. The successful solution embraced this by using a suite of AWS-native services. Additionally, Karsun used its AI-powered modernization platform, ReDuX, to solve complex traceability problems in legacy systems and could output modern C# code, directly meeting the new requirements.

The ReDuX platform rapidly analyzed the system and generated a fully modernized, traceable equivalent.

Agentic Analysis: First, Karsun used its ReDuX Blueprint tool. This tool, which is powered by Amazon Bedrock, applied GenAI models to analyze the system, including COBOL programs, JCL, and DB2 database tables. This process created a comprehensive and fully documented map of the legacy system’s architecture and business logic.
Automated Transformation: With this detailed blueprint, Karsun’s ReDuX Code Companion used agents to automatically transform the legacy application. The modernized solution consisted of:
- Agentic Analysis: First, Karsun used its ReDuX Blueprint tool. This tool, which is powered by Amazon Bedrock, applied GenAI models to analyze the system, including all COBOL programs, JCL, and DB2 database tables. This process created a comprehensive and fully documented map of the legacy system’s architecture and business logic.
- Automated Transformation: With this detailed blueprint, ReDuX Code Companion used agents to automatically transform the legacy application. The new, modernized solution consisted of:
  - Modern C# Application: C# programs were generated for every COBOL program. Verifiable, one-to-one mapping solved the traceability problem. This new application is hosted on .NET Core containers over the AWS EKS service or on EC2 instances.
  - Cloud-Native Batch Processing: Summer Batch Core workflows were generated for every JCL, converting all mainframe batch processes into cloud-native, serverless workflows.
  - File Storage: Application files are now stored in AWS S3.
  - Angular Front-End: A new user interface in Angular precisely mimicks the flow of the original mainframe green screens, such as the menu and work order creation screens.
  - MS SQL Server Tables: Every legacy DB2 database table was migrated to a new table in MS SQL Server.

Results and Benefits

Karsun’s AI-powered ReDuX platform successfully delivered a modernized pilot application that met all of the state’s requirements, rectifying the failures of the initial attempt. The primary benefit was the achievement of 100% traceability for the entire application stack.

The key success metric was the one-to-one mapping of legacy assets to modern, cloud-native code, all made possible by the GenAI analysis from AWS Bedrock:

Every COBOL program was converted to a corresponding C# program, now running in .NET Core containers on AWS EKS or EC2.
Every JCL was converted to a Summer Batch Core workflow.
Every DB2 table was migrated to an MS SQL Server table.

This provided the customer with a complete, verifiable, and maintainable modern application, allowing them to successfully complete the pilot.

About Karsun Solutions

Karsun Solutions modernizes enterprise systems enabling agencies to make the next technological advancement their next opportunity to elevate mission capability. Solutions are tailored to meet agencies’ unique needs and optimize operations. These solutions adapt and stay relevant to current trends while using secure, digital architecture built to last. It is a proven modernization partner whose expertise elevates agency capabilities and ensures every next opportunity is within reach.

Learn more about Karsun’s Cloud Solutions.

One of Karsun Solutions’ government agency customers manages critical certification systems processing millions of applications globally. This agency partnered with Karsun to modernize its legacy Software AG Natural and ADABAS mainframe system used for its certification workflows. It had demonstrated expertise in mainframe modernization and clear competency in these environments. It had also previously delivered secure, compliant cloud solutions meeting federal requirements for this customer.

It migrated the system to Amazon Web Services (AWS) using modern code deployed on Karsun’s container platform. The modernized system eliminated mainframe dependencies, reduced operational costs, enabled modern integrations, and positioned the agency for continuous innovation while maintaining seamless processing for millions of certifications.

About the Customer

The customer’s regulatory portfolio consisted of approximately 10 interconnected systems handling certifications covering both professional certifications as well as equipment registrations. While serving millions of people globally, the internal processing systems are utilized by fewer than 100 examiners, indexers, and supervisors who review and approve certification applications.

Customer Challenge

The certification system operated on legacy mainframe technology using the Software AG Natural programming language and ADABAS databases. It integrated with multiple systems including an external application submission portal, document management relying on screen scraping, and a portal where individuals manage their certifications.

Moreover, documentation of business rules was limited, making maintenance and enhancement difficult. Integration required manually keyed information from digitized documents. Additionally, recruiting developers with mainframe skills was increasingly difficult, threatening long-term system sustainability.

Partner Solution

The solution architecture utilizes Java for backend services and Angular with Angular Material for the frontend. The customer selected AWS for its proven reliability with mission-critical government systems and compliance with federal security standards.

Tyrion Container Platform

The new system is hosted on Tyrion, Karsun’s Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) High-rated AWS GovCloud container platform based on Amazon EKS. The AWS GovCloud’s isolated region is specifically designed for U.S. government workloads providing the security and compliance framework necessary to meet regulatory requirements.

Karsun previously delivered Tyrion as part of a broader transformation initiative for this customer. It provides agency application owners a platform to build, test, deploy, host, and scale container-based software solutions.

The platform leverages multiple AWS services including Amazon EKS for Kubernetes orchestration, Amazon EC2 for compute resources, Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS) for persistent storage, and Amazon RDS for managed database services. Tyrion’s DevOps ecosystem includes Tekton for build pipelines, ArgoCD implementing GitOps for continuous deployment, Karpenter for intelligent node scaling, Datadog for comprehensive monitoring, Kubecost for consumption apportionment across teams, and Backstage as a developer portal providing self-service capabilities.

System Consolidation and Modernization

Karsun consolidated two mainframe subsystems eliminating complex inter-system communication mechanisms. The team replaced legacy screen-scraping interfaces with RESTful APIs. This enabled real-time data exchange and eliminated brittle integration points.

Document Workflow Reimagined

Rather than simply replicating mainframe processes, Karsun reimagined workflows for the cloud environment. The new system retrieves only essential metadata from the document management system while maintaining secure access to document images. Karsun implemented automated processing for routine certification types eliminating unnecessary manual review and streamlining operations.

Requirements Validation Approach

Given the minimal documentation, Karsun established a rigorous requirements validation process. It worked closely with the mainframe sustainment team to analyze mainframe code and database schemas. Working with the customer, the team documented findings and confirmed functionalities. Requirements were captured as user stories with acceptance criteria following agile best practices, ensuring business approval at each increment.

Karsun introduced its ReDuX platform. This AI-powered platform for legacy code analysis accelerates discovery and delivery of complex modernization initiatives. Its parser ingests Natural mainframe code and creates comprehensive system blueprints. Using ReDuX the team validated business rules and identified edge cases often overlooked during traditional requirements gathering.

Results and Benefits

Certification processing transitioned from mainframe to AWS, delivering measurable business and technical benefits:

Operational Efficiency: Automated processing of routine certifications eliminates manual examiner workload for specific application types, allowing staff to focus on complex cases requiring judgment.
Technical Modernization: API-based integrations replaced screen scraping, improving reliability and reducing integration maintenance. The modern Java and Angular technology stack addresses talent acquisition challenges, with significantly larger developer pools.
Platform Leverage: Deploying on Tyrion provides the application with enterprise-grade container orchestration, automated scaling through Karpenter, comprehensive monitoring via Datadog, and streamlined DevOps workflows through Tekton and ArgoCD. The FISMA High-rated platform eliminates the need for separate security authorization, accelerating time to production.
Knowledge Preservation: Comprehensive documentation created during the project created a sustainable foundation for maintenance and enhancements, addressing the legacy system’s critical documentation gap.

About Karsun Solutions

Learn more about Karsun’s Cloud Solutions or Discover Modernization Accelerated with ReDuX.

In a blog published shortly after its annual re:Invent conference, Amazon Web Services (AWS) announced AWS Transform composability. This co-innovation initiative empowers AWS Partners to create specialized modernization AI agents for industry-specific mainframe workloads. As part of the initiative, AWS announced 11 initial co-innovation partners. ReDuX from Karsun Solutions is a member of this inaugural cohort.

AWS Transform composability enables AWS Partners, including Migration and Modernization Competency Partners and Independent Software Vendors (ISVs), to create differentiated transformation solutions by integrating their specialized AI agents, tools, knowledge bases, and workflows with AWS Transform. This collaboration provides customers with access to targeted, specialized solutions tailored to their unique modernization needs.

AWS Transform Composability Benefits

By integrating partner capabilities, the AWS Transform composability initiative offers significant business value by dramatically improving the speed, accuracy, and specialization of complex mainframe modernization projects.

Cost Savings from Accelerated Modernization

By leveraging specialized AI agents and automation from AWS and its partners, organizations can reduce mainframe modernization timelines from years to months. The increased precision and time savings gained from automating complex, industry-specific tasks translate directly into substantial cost reductions, with reports indicating average cost savings of 30-40% compared to traditional, manual modernization approaches.

Preservation of Critical Business Logic through Specialization

The initiative allows partners (like Karsun’s ReDuX) to build agents that recognize and handle highly technical or industry-specific patterns in legacy mainframe code. For instance, enterprise organizations working with Karsun can leverage the Government Competency Partner’s 15+ years working in highly-regulated industries. Working with specialized partners ensures greater accuracy in code transformation, preserves critical, implicit business rules that generic tools often miss, and ultimately results in a modernized cloud-native application that is both technically sound and functionally equivalent to the mission-critical legacy system.

In addition to these benefits, partner tools, such as Karsun’s ReDuX platform, bring unique insights into the modernization process. As a result, teams can proactively identify risks and eliminate technical debt early. This upfront intelligence leads to a significant reduction in rework and testing cycles, accelerating delivery and increasing confidence in the final, compliant, and scalable cloud solution.

Elevated Capabilities: Enhanced User Insights with ReDuX

One of these enhanced capabilities includes ReDuX’s unique emphasis on user behavior during legacy system analysis. Its agents deliver novel insights into user behavior and intent by combining analysis of the legacy system with user experience artifacts.

The agents then organize complex data into functional requirements, actionable user stories and automated test scripts. This behavioral and functional insight is essential for complex systems modernization, ensuring that the modernized system maintains functional equivalence while meeting the current needs of its users.

By integrating their specialized tools like ReDuX into the AWS Transform ecosystem, partners can build composable transformations that combine their proprietary expertise with AWS’s intelligent automation, accelerating modernization timelines and reducing risk for customers. Visit GoReDuX.ai to learn more.

HERNDON, VA., OCTOBER, 27, 2025 – Karsun Solutions, a leading technology modernization firm, announced that its ReDuX platform has achieved “Awardable” status through the Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office’s (CDAO) Tradewinds Solutions Marketplace.

The Tradewinds Solutions Marketplace is the premier offering of Tradewinds, the Department of War’s (DoW’s) suite of tools and services designed to accelerate the procurement and adoption of Artificial Intelligence (AI)/Machine Learning (ML), data, and analytics capabilities.

Karsun’s ReDuX platform accelerates the modernization of mainframe and other legacy system applications using agentic AI. The company’s modern software development, cloud, data, and AI/ML solutions are used by government agencies and enterprise organizations. In addition to mainframe modernization it offers specialized expertise in acquisition, aviation, grants management, and fleet management systems modernization.

“We are excited to join this premier marketplace for procuring AI/ML, data, and analytics solutions,” said Sundar Vaidyanathan, CEO of Karsun Solutions. “We look forward to addressing the DoW’s most significant modernization challenges.”

Karsun Solutions’ video, “ReDuX – AI Accelerated Modernization,” accessible only by government customers on the Tradewinds Solutions Marketplace, presents an actual use case in which the company demonstrates the accelerated modernization of a mainframe application from discovery to delivery. Karsun Solutions was recognized among a competitive field of applicants to the Tradewinds Solutions Marketplace whose solutions demonstrated innovation, scalability, and potential impact on DoW missions. Government customers interested in viewing the video solution can create a Tradewinds Solutions Marketplace account at tradewindAI.com.

About Karsun Solutions

Karsun Solutions modernizes legacy systems enabling government agencies and enterprise organizations to elevate mission capability. IT solutions from Karsun are tailored to meet mission-driven organizations’ unique needs and optimize operations. These solutions adapt and stay relevant to current trends while using secure, digital architecture built to last. It is a proven modernization partner whose expertise ensures every next opportunity is within reach. Learn more at Karsun-LLC.com.

About ReDuX

The ReDuX AI-powered platform expedites the modernization of mainframe and other legacy system applications. Key tools in the platform include its blueprinting agents, which provide deep insights into system structure and behavior, and its transformation agents, which use the outputs from the blueprinting agents to generate code and facilitate incremental migration. These agents also bring enhanced security and privacy, offering project-specific usability by interfacing with various systems, overcome hallucinations noted in large language models (LLMs), and provide proven prompt templates to save developers time and effort. Get started at GoReDuX.ai.

For more information or media requests, contact the Karsun Marketing Team at marketing@karsun-llc.com.

About the Tradewinds Solutions Marketplace

The Tradewinds Solutions Marketplace is a digital repository of post-competition, readily awardable pitch videos that address the Department of War’s (DoW’s) most significant challenges in the Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning (AI/ML), data, and analytics space. All awardable solutions have been assessed through complex scoring rubrics and competitive procedures and are available to Government customers with a Marketplace account. Government customers can create an account at www.tradewindai.com. Tradewinds is housed in the DoW’s Chief Digital Artificial Intelligence Office.

For more information or media requests, contact: Success@tradewindai.com

As agencies such as the Internal Revenue Service shrink workforces and adopt leaner operational models, resources to support large scale modernization efforts are increasingly constrained. It is under this strain that John Gilroy opens a recent episode of the Federal Tech Podcast recorded live at the AWS Summit in Washington, D.C. Karsun Co-Founder Kartik Mecheri joins John and former General Services Federal Acquisition Services (GSA FAS) Commissioner Alan Thomas for a discussion on AI, digital workforces and the future of government modernization.

As John observes, the landscape of federal technology is at a critical juncture. Imagine systems born in the 1960s, like COBOL, still running essential government operations, while the average federal worker was born almost two decades later! This generational gap, combined with a shrinking government workforce creates an undeniable need for modernization.

At the same time, government agencies face immense pressure to deliver better experiences for their customers while grappling with complex legacy systems and processes that have been perfected over decades. These systems, often mainframes, are not just old; they are mission-critical, meaning they cannot be simply turned off for upgrades. Modernizing them is, as John notes, akin to “doing a little upgrade while you’re flying the plane”.

The AI Imperative: Introducing ReDuX AI-Powered Modernization

Enter Artificial Intelligence, AI. Government agencies are increasingly interested in AI for modernization to pick up the slack from fewer personnel and improve service delivery. Karsun Solutions offers a powerful tool designed specifically for this challenge: ReDuX.

The ReDuX Modernization Platform Addresses Several Key Pain Points:

Declining Subject Matter Expertise: As veteran employees retire, the deep knowledge of these legacy systems often walks out the door with them. Redux.ai aims to capture this expertise.
Complex Migrations: Converting decades of intricate code and interactions into modern architectures within a tight timeframe (e.g., 40 years of work into a 5-year project) is a monumental task.

How ReDuX Transforms Modernization

Redux uses specialized AI agents to streamline the modernization process:

Blueprinting Agents: These agents delve into legacy code, extract crucial information, and integrate it with user guides and demonstrations. The goal is for the agents to become the subject matter expert on the legacy system.
Modernization Agents: Once the legacy system is understood, these agents can convert the code to run on modern cloud platforms like AWS or Azure. They ensure the new system adheres to the required architecture and security posture of the agency.

Karsun has successfully used ReDuX to migrate multiple mainframe COBOL applications and other legacy systems (like Visual Basic 6, VB6) to modern technologies. This approach can accelerate modernization by 4x and reduce costs by 2x, reducing key modernization tasks by months and even years.

The Rise of the Digital Workforce

A key concept driving this transformation is the “digital workforce”. This involves building digital equivalents or “digital assistants” for every role in the software development cycle. Imagine:

An architect agent that understands your target architecture and generates diagrams, documentation, and security architecture.
Agents for creating unit tests, generating code, or ensuring security compliance.
Agents for business analysts to create user stories.

The idea is to empower agile teams with digital support allowing them to focus on strategic, high-value, creative, and innovative work. While managing human teams is a well-understood skill, managing these “agents” is a new frontier that the future leaders will need to master.

Looking ahead, experts predict that within a year, we will see more demonstrable examples of AI deployment with clear business benefits. Leaders will need to balance AI’s promise with risks. As they conclude their discussion, John, Kartik and Alan discuss strategies for mitigating AI hallucinations, improving accuracy and reducing security risks. They also discuss identifying technology partners with the strategic relationships required to effectively implement technology in the evolving environment.
For federal legacy systems the modernization journey is complex, but with innovations like Karsun Solutions and the ReDuX team, the path to a more efficient, agile, and secure government future is becoming clearer.

Tune in to the podcast to learn more or check out GoReDuX.ai

Government agencies facing an increasing mandate to move from legacy mainframe systems. The solution, generative AI. Now, agencies no longer need to fear the tradeoff between migration risk and the opportunity available in the cloud. In this case study featured on the AWS Public Sector Blog, our Karsun experts share their experience accelerating modernization with AI.

This case study features Karsun Solutions’ ReDuX AI powered migration and modernization platform. It offers a compelling approach for enterprises considering mainframe migration. Sharing their experience modernizing legacy applications for one of our government customers, this case study demonstrates what happens when modern AI tools meet modern software development practices.

Deep Insights Using Amazon Bedrock

ReDuX is designed to tackle typical obstacles in mainframe modernization, such as undocumented business rules, technical complexities, and regulatory compliance. Its approach is inspired by Karsun’s decade and a half modernizing complex enterprise systems for the federal government. ReDuX utilizes generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) powered by Amazon Bedrock to analyze and understand legacy systems.

Using Bedrock the Karsun team accessed high-performing foundation models from leading AI companies via a single API. Building their ReDuX platform on top of the resources provided by Bedrock, our team created an AI powered toolkit for identifying and mapping the complex business rules and processes embedded within mainframe applications. This facilitates a smoother transition to modern architectures. Further, by providing a structured approach, ReDuX reduces risks associated with legacy system modernization.

Matching AI with Modern Microservices Architecture

In the case study, we share how using our AI powered platform, we enabled our government customer to migrate from monolithic mainframe systems to microservices-based architectures on AWS. This shift enhances scalability, flexibility, and maintainability of applications, aligning with modern IT strategies.

It also allowed our team to focus on security and privacy. Recognizing the importance of enterprise-grade security and privacy, especially in government and regulated industries, the platform incorporates robust measures to protect sensitive data during and after the migration process.

Furthermore, migration to the cloud enables secure-by-design architecture. Using AI powered tools, like those available on the ReDuX AI platform, lets our agency customers access the benefits of the cloud while reducing migration risks. Written in a modern language, it alleviates workforce concerns and eliminates long-term maintenance issues arising from the aging, dwindling population familiar with COBOL and other outdated languages.

By demonstrating a successful implementation of generative advanced AI technologies and cloud services to migrate and modernize legacy systems, this case study from our team offers valuable insights. It presents a potential roadmap for organizations seeking to undertake similar modernization initiatives. Head over to the AWS Public Sector blog for deeper insights on AI-driven modernization and a technical breakdown of our solution.

Whether a state or local government, or a U.S. government agency, a major problem facing government and industry alike is their aging mainframe systems. A shrinking workforce with experience in older languages such as COBOL, limits the ability of organizations to maintain these legacy systems and prepare for the future. This was apparent as states like New Jersey, facing strain on their systems during the early days battling COVID, called for assistance with their COBOL systems.

Now as federal agencies seek new opportunities to introduce efficiencies via artificial intelligence (AI), these systems provide an easy target for modernization. AI with its ability to tackle complex, repetitive tasks accurately provides one solution to the government mainframe modernization challenge.

To this end, our Karsun Innovation Center experts devoted their time to producing a complete suite of AI solutions dedicated to tackling the mainframe modernization challenge.

The COBOL Modernization Challenge

With their decades-old interconnected applications and systems, these legacy mainframe systems are complex, expensive to maintain, difficult to change, and vulnerable to attacks. At the same time, the cloud presents the opportunity to build secure, resilient systems that adapt to the changing needs of its users.

Past modernization and migration attempts appeared out of reach for these systems. Stymied by both the cost and time required to transform these systems. These high-value assets handling mission-critical workloads present a high stakes challenge for modernization teams. Often core to the business with large customer bases, they have vast complex functionality that must be broken down into smaller parts before proceeding.

Karsun applied AI, speeding up this tedious task while ensuring modernization teams had a complete map of the legacy system. Using its ReDuX platform, Karsun limited the impact of poorly documented systems and unanticipated relationships between components. When integrated with the other tools available in the ReDuX platform, AI-assisted teams generated production ready code two times faster than when they used humans alone.

Further given this complexity, some organizations may decide to simply replatform the system. But AI gives us the opportunity to do more than lifting and shifting the application to the cloud. It empowers us to optimize with a product mindset. With this in mind we can build human centered systems that scale and adapt to a changing environment.

The Solution: AI for Mainframe Modernization

Enter ReDuX, Karsun’s AI-powered digital transformation platform. We built our platform using AI to accelerate modernization while reducing risk. Using Amazon Bedrock, a platform that provides access to AI tools via an API, Karsun built a comprehensive digital transformation platform. Karsun’s ReDuX provides AI-enhanced tools for modernization team members from designers to developers in a single platform.

Using generative AI, the platform creates a complete blueprint of a legacy system, reducing risk, and generates behavioral insights. Using this information business analysts, designers, and others do more than rewrite these legacy systems, they reimagine an optimized system designed to match the needs of its users.

This product oriented process is enhanced throughout the modernization effort via the platform’s digital transformation agents. Using agentic AI, the modernization team can chat with their code for deeper understanding and apply reusable templates using automations to rapidly scale their work while reducing risk.

ReDux is already in use by the Karsun teams delivering large-scaled complex modernization solutions to our federal agency customers. We recently shared our experience on the AWS Public Sector Blog. To learn more about AI Solutions for government modernization visit us here: https://karsun-llc.com/solutions/artificial-intelligence-ai-solutions/

Stuck with a difficult modernization challenge? Check out GoReDuX.AI and get unstuck today!

Recording live from the AWS Summit Washington, D.C., Karsun’s Badri Sriraman sits down with John Gilroy and the Federal Tech Podcast to discuss all things AI, accelerating legacy systems modernization and hyperlocal contextualization. Badri is the Vice President of the Karsun Innovation Center. Here, teams work to eliminate or reduce friction for the agencies modernizing their legacy systems. As part of that work, they developed ReDuX AI, a toolkit using AI resources to address common issues related to modernizing these older, more complex legacy systems. Throughout the interview, Badri and John discuss the costs and security risks associated with staying on current systems and the opportunity for AI to provide insight through hyperlocal contextualization to tackle these challenges.

Addressing the O&M Problem

The interview begins by acknowledging the drag aging infrastructure has on these agencies’ enterprise systems. The issue becomes intractable when operations and maintenance (O&M) costs become so high they take up the budget that would otherwise be used for modernization and systems enhancements. A 2023 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report examined the 10 critical systems it identified most in need of modernization. Some of those systems were over 50 years old and, in total, cost the government upwards of $337 million annually to operate and maintain.

In addition to the O&M costs, complex relationships between different systems components, older programming languages like COBOL, and outdated documentation all contribute to the difficulty of modernizing mission-critical legacy systems like those studied. As Badri reveals in the interview, artificial intelligence (AI) can be used to address many of those concerns. Moreover, those same AI tools may accelerate the transition, further reducing O&M costs as agencies move away from these legacy systems.

Eating the Elephant

In the interview, Badri shares a key component of Karsun’s AI-accelerated modernization methodology, hyperlocal contextualization. In a traditional modernization project, teams typically take an incremental approach. To “eat the elephant,” teams go one step at a time, optimizing as they modernize to reduce costs. The analysis required to peel away each part of the legacy system could slow down modernization to a yearslong process in highly complex systems. Throughout the process, these teams must untangle how different parts of the system integrate and work together.

Alternatively, using AI teams still move incrementally, avoiding the pitfalls of Big Bang Modernization. However, they also use AI to identify and map these relationships within legacy systems. This AI assistance helps those teams move at a rapid pace. Working together with the human team and stakeholders, the AI can quickly create a fuller understanding of the system, its impact on the mission and provide new insights into optimization opportunities during the modernization process. This analysis is the first step in using AI for hyperlocal contextualization.

The Security Imperative

An equally pressing concern is rising security threats. The 2023 GAO report found among the chief concerns for these aging systems were outdated hardware and security vulnerabilities. The same processes that help modernization teams optimize to reduce O&M costs can also be used to move from less secure systems to more secure systems based on industry standards and best practices.

Jumping in with Hyperlocal Contextualization

With more advanced large language models (LLMs), AI tools cannot only write the code but also review, debug, and make recommendations. Powered by AWS Bedrock, ReDuX AI not only takes the insights from its eat the elephant analysis but also makes recommendations to Karsun developers using the context generated from those insights. Plus it can then incorporate best practices and security policies into those recommendations. Using a tool like ReDuX AI, the security optimization recommendations are customized to the complexities found in that legacy system, resulting in a modernization process designed to optimize costs and security. Badri discusses this hyperlocal contextualization in greater depth in the interview.

The future is bright. In a 2019 report, the GAO shared agencies provided 94 examples of successful modernization initiatives over the five years studied. While some of the most challenging projects remain, AI tools, like those used by ReDuX, create a future where the remaining mission-critical systems modernize a possibility. Check out the full interview at www.theoakmontgroupllc.com/ep-161-how-to-overcome-the-challenge-of-legacy-systems/ or visit GoRedux.AI to learn more.