A visual system for the generation of banking legacy system gateways

Banking legacy systems intensively exchange messages in electronic format. Such systems are, for their nature, difficult to update and maintain. As a consequence, the introduction of new types of messages is a hard task. In this paper we describe the architecture and part of the implementation of the SI.RE. Visual System, an Interbanking Network Information System that lets us generate gateways for the exchange of electronic messages among banking legacy systems. In particular, the SIRE visual system contains a Visual Programming Environment (VPE) that allows us to obtain a rapid and secure development of the message handling functions. VPE implements a Visual Programming Language UVG that supports reuse of COBOL routines. Such a UVG language has been developed following a methodology here described that presents the great advantage to be, mostly, performed in automatic way.