Method and process for iterative reengineering of data in a legacy system

This paper presents an iterative approach to database reengineering, starting from the assumption that for the user organization, the data are the most important assets in a legacy system. The most innovative feature of the proposed approach, in comparison with other rival approaches, is that it can eliminate all the ageing symptoms of the legacy database. The new database can therefore be readily used to integrate data used by new functions introduced in the legacy software. Moreover, the approach allows all the services offered by modern database management systems to be exploited. To test the effectiveness of the process described in this paper, it was experimented on a real legacy system; the results reported confirm its effectiveness