The quick and easy approach, using simple screen-scraping and code-generating tools, allows organizations to extract proprietary data from their mainframes and translate the information into a new format, such as XML or Java. Using software supplied by vendors such as Attachmate, HostBridge Technology and Jacada, the legacy system is given a new, Web-compatible front end. "It’s quicker, less costly and less risky?you’re not doing a lot of changing," says McDaniel.

Screen scrapers and code generators are particularly useful for organizations that handle payment processing, trade clearing and settlement, and other tasks that are likely to continue to utilize mainframes for some time to come. "It provides a path of getting services out to either our clients or our customers in a quick way without having to reinvent the entire legacy environment," says Jane Landon, vice president and CIO of Newark, N.J.-based Prudential Institutional, an institutional investment unit of Prudential Financial. Landon is using Jacada software to Web enable her assortment of IBM mainframes.

The other way to bring legacy applications and data onto the Web is by reengineering an existing system. With an application such as Relativity Technologies’ RescueWare, CIOs and their teams can dig into a legacy system, find its most critical parts and then convert the key processes into Web-enabled components. "Basically, you rebuild the application in a more modern fashion," says McDaniel.

Reengineering is a permanent solution that?when done properly?is designed to last for many years. But CIOs who fret about the approach’s time and cost drawbacks often avoid the technique. And such concerns are justified. Reengineering requires organizations to strip away as much as several decades’ worth of irrelevant and often undocumented code in order to focus on basic processes. These processes can then be extracted and brought into a Web-based architecture. "It may not be the best choice because business circumstances [often] demand something quicker," says McDaniel.

Screen scrapers and code generators are certainly cheaper alternatives. Stiffler estimates that the cheap and easy approach can shave "one zero, maybe even two," off of an enterprise’s six- or seven-figure reengineering costs.

The good news is that CIOs can actually have the best of both worlds. Screen scrapers and code generators are often used as a stop-gap measure while an organization gradually moves ahead on a full legacy reengineering strategy. "I can slowly change my legacy environment over time if I should desire, and it makes good business sense," says Prudential Institutional’s Landon.