Web-based Software Reengineering : A case study on next generation product-selection system

Abstract: Legacy systems are usually expensive to maintain, and they quickly become outdated in a fast changing industry with new requirements and technologies. However, replacing an old system with a complete new one could prove both costly and time consuming, and therefore the method of reengineering could present itself as a beneficial alternative. There is a lack of practice-based research in relation to the implementation of software reengineering. The main purpose of this thesis is therefore to recognize key aspects on how to reengineer web-based IT systems in a modern, easy-to-maintain and business-enhancing manner. A case study has been carried out, a reengineering of a legacy system used for product selection at Grindex AB, a Swedish submersible pump supplier and manufacturer. The process includes three stages, firstly a thorough analysis of the legacy system has been carried out, secondly interviews were conducted in order to identify new requirements, and lastly a new system was developed by Struts 2, Spring MVC, Spring, Hibernate in Java and a relationship database of MySQL. The author is presenting six areas of consideration – architecture, function, interface, language, data storage and algorithm – in relation to the software reengineering life cycle, and with a comparison between the legacy system and the reengineered system.