At a glance
Industry
Information services
Location
North America
Challenge
Deploy gen AI tools to deliver a major Java migration that transforms a client’s market-leading software
Success Highlights
- 35% reduction on upgrade costs
- 25% reduction in development effort
- Pioneering partner for gen AI-led software product upgrade initiatives
Our approach
For a large migration like this one, the volume of code to be changed, replaced and written can feel overwhelming. Rather than a manual, line-by-line upgrade of the code and the underlying frameworks, we proposed using gen AI tools to dramatically reduce the development effort.
The project kicked off in July 2024, and our team leveraged two tools, Moderne OpenRewrite and GitHub Copilot. OpenRewrite is an automated code refactoring tool that works at the repository (or “repo”) level and applies bulk updates automatically using smart rules. We selected OpenRewrite for its Lossless Semantic Tree (LST)-structured data functionality. The LST captures full type attribution, dependencies and format of the code, enabling 100% accurate refactoring while preserving the original coding style.
After OpenRewrite did the heavy lifting by updating hundreds of thousands of lines of code, we used GitHub Copilot at the package level to resolve specific issues—and reduce full-stack engineers’ time by 25%. Copilot assists during the editing, reading and refactoring of code. It sped our client’s upgrade by suggesting modern Java syntax and new language features and rewriting older code patterns into updated ones.
As with any major Java upgrade, lots of “deprecated” code popped up. It’s old code that’s no longer recommended for use, and it’s typically replaced with new code wherever functionality is affected. Replacing deprecated code is a core part of a Java upgrade, and both OpenRewrite and GitHub Copilot helped make the cleanup easier.
Business outcomes
By January 2025—just six months after kickoff—our team of 25 full-stack engineers rolled out the upgrade’s first release. We estimate the new tools reduced development effort by 25% and delivered cost savings of 35%. By July, 70% of the upgrade was complete, with the remaining releases on track for completion by fall. This engagement helped establish a standardized approach for future software upgrades, enabling development to be completed 10%–30% faster.
Best of all, our client is pleased with the outcomes to date and the technology leadership we brought to the project as well as our commitment to enhancing their product and product base