RPG modernization: move your IBM i systems to Java, Python or C#.
You probably adopted RPG software with your IBM i at least twenty years ago, and it still runs your business well—it just no longer lets you change it. We migrate RPG to a modern language, in your architecture, without disrupting the business that depends on it.
Our RPG & DDS Language Engine has been battle-tested on more than 30 million lines of production RPG code. Clients worldwide, including Fortune 500 leaders, ADP, CGI and the European Space Agency.
Many companies built their entire operation on RPG. Manufacturers, above all—warehouse management, order processing, production control, accounting, customer service—and financial services alongside them. The system works. What it does not give you any more is the room to adapt: every change is slow, every integration is a special case, and the people who know the code are retiring.
Talk to us if you need help with your RPG modernization to Java, Python or C#. We have done it many times and we know the pitfalls and the places that need watching.
What you get out of it
Easier to maintain
After modernization your systems are much easier to maintain. The code has been cleaned, performance is better, security is improved and it scales. It also becomes far easier to connect to the rest of your estate—which cuts maintenance cost and complexity again.
Future changes become simple
Integration with other systems becomes achievable. New features can be added and old ones changed instead of worked around. And if cloud infrastructure is what your business needs, you can finally make use of it.
Improved security
Legacy systems sit at the heart of many security incidents: they lack modern security protocols, and IT teams often cannot patch them because the vendor no longer maintains them. Modernization puts your business logic back on a platform you can secure.
Easier to hire
There are far more Java and Python engineers than RPG engineers, and the RPG population is retiring rather than growing. Modernizing means you are no longer held to ransom by a shrinking pool of specialist skills.
How we do it
We help you complete your RPG modernization with minimal fuss. We prepare a plan, work carefully and incrementally, and test constantly, so that aging software becomes modern—and cloud-based, if that is what you need—without disruption to your business. The process is structured and automated, which is what makes it possible to build to your specification safely and at low risk.
Automated migration means the transformation is written once, as rules, and applied to your whole codebase—so it is repeatable, reviewable and re-runnable while your RPG system keeps running in production.
Migration Blueprint
We analyze your codebase before anyone commits to anything, and produce the plan, the risks and the fixed price.
Migration CodeCraft
The migration itself: idiomatic target code in your architecture, delivered incrementally and verified against the original behavior.
Ready-to-go RPG to Python
A packaged route for teams whose target is Python and whose estate fits the standard path.
The engine underneath
Automation only works if the tooling genuinely understands your code. Ours does: the RPG & DDS Language Engine reads your IBM i estate and turns it into a precise, typed model of your application—the basis for impact analysis, documentation and migration alike.
RPG & DDS Language Engine
RPG applications are never just RPG. They are fixed-form and free-form RPGLE, embedded SQL in SQLRPGLE, and the DDS files that define the data. The engine reads all of it and resolves the references across your whole codebase: a field used in a C-spec links back to the DDS record format or DB2 column that declares it.
Where you might be starting from
- RPG to Java — the most common target, when the rest of your estate is already on the JVM.
- RPG to Python — when the destination is data work, analytics or a Python-first team.
- Synon / CA 2E — generated RPG, migrated from the model rather than from the generated output.
- Migration services — the whole practice, including languages other than RPG.
Why Strumenta
- Fixed price, guaranteed for a year. Once the scope is agreed after the Blueprint, the quote we give is the final cost, guaranteed for a year and extendable at your convenience.
- Open foundations, no lock-in. Our AST framework, Starlasu, is Apache-2.0 and public. There is no proprietary intermediate representation holding your codebase hostage.
- This is our core business. Parsers, transpilers and code generators since 2015—for clients on six continents, including Fortune 500 leaders, ADP, CGI and the European Space Agency.
Get the book
Migrating RPG Code to Modern Languages collects what we have learned doing this work: how to plan a migration, what to automate, and where projects go wrong.
Strumenta is the only software language engineering company automating migrations from RPG to Python.
Tell us about your estate—how much RPG, which flavours, what it does. We will tell you honestly what a migration would take.
