Outcreating Legacy Operations for a Business Travel Leader with 2M+ Code Lines on AWS

About the Client

The client is a global business travel management leader with one of the world’s largest travel networks, spanning more than 2,000 locations. Its mid-office system supports major global distribution systems and plays a critical role in how the business manages travel operations, acquisitions, and service continuity across markets.

Over time, that system became both essential and limiting. Built on legacy IBM technology and expanded to more than 2 million lines of code, it carried the weight of decades of business logic. It helped run the business, but it also made cloud integration more difficult, increased licensing and data center costs, and slowed the company’s ability to support rapid growth.

For a business travel company operating in a market shaped by digital expectations, acquisition activity, and time-sensitive service commitments, that was not sustainable. The client needed to modernize its core platform without losing the functional depth that kept day-to-day operations running.

Business Challenges

The client was carrying out a system that had become too important to fail and too old to keep as it was. Its mid-office applications supported major global distribution systems and core travel operations, but the underlying IBM estate was more than 30 years old.

Modernization had to reduce costs and improve flexibility without breaking business continuity. That made the challenge less about moving code and more about preserving decades of business logic while escaping legacy constraints.

• Legacy costs were becoming harder to justify: High licensing and data center costs made the existing IBM environment expensive to operate and difficult to sustain.
• Cloud integration was limited: The legacy mid-office platform could not easily connect with cloud-native applications, which constrained modernization and slowed integration across the broader technology estate.
• Acquisitions added urgency: The business needed to integrate new acquisitions faster and exit transitional service agreements on time, which required a more flexible and cloud-ready core.
• Migration risk was high: The platform held more than 2 million lines of code, and the client needed functional and performance equivalence after migration to avoid disruption.
• Data migration had to protect continuity and trust: Large volumes of sensitive data had to move with integrity, security, and minimal downtime.
• The architecture needed to move beyond monoliths: The client needed to convert legacy applications into a microservices model that could support scalability, maintainability, and future extension.
• Access control and security had to mature for the cloud: The new environment needed centralized identity and access management, encryption, and continuous monitoring to protect business-critical workloads.

The real ask was clear: Outcreate legacy constraints without losing the operational intelligence embedded in the old platform.

LTM’s Solution

LTM treated the program as a core platform reinvention, not a code conversion exercise. The first priority was to understand what the legacy IBM environment carried: business rules, integration logic, database dependencies, and more than 2 million lines of code that could not be disrupted during modernization.

With LTM as its Business Creativity partner, the client adopted a structured, factory-based, agile modernization approach designed to preserve operational continuity while creating a cloud-ready foundation on AWS.

• Legacy estate assessment and modernization planning: LTM conducted a detailed assessment of the IBM environment to map application complexity, dependencies, migration risk, and modernization priorities before execution.
• Automated code transformation at scale: Using BluAge Framework and Velocity Data Migrator, LTM converted RPG and RPGLE workloads to Java Spring Boot, CL and CLLE logic to Groovy, DB2 to PostgreSQL, and legacy screens to Angular and React.
• Microservices-led rearchitecture: The migration team modularized monolithic applications into microservices, containerized them with Docker, and supported development and deployment through Git, Jenkins, and Maven-based DevOps pipelines.
• AWS foundation for scale, resilience, and security: The modernized platform used AWS services, including ROSA, Amazon EC2, Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL, Amazon Elastic File System, AWS Lambda, Amazon S3, and AWS Identity and Access Management, to improve scalability, availability, and security.
• Controlled migration with data integrity: LTM used extract, transform, and load tools and data pump utilities to protect data integrity, reduce downtime, and support continuity across migration waves.
• Security and operational governance built in: Centralized identity and access management, encryption, continuous monitoring, CI/CD pipelines, and automated monitoring strengthened control across the new cloud environment.
• Cross-functional delivery for functional equivalence: Engineering, DevOps, and security teams worked together to validate performance, maintain functional equivalence, and support a smoother transition for end users.

The result was a modernization path that kept the business moving while reframing a decades-old mid-office platform for cloud-era growth, acquisition readiness, and future extensibility.

Business Benefits

The modernization gave the client a safer way to move beyond legacy dependency while protecting the business logic that kept global travel operations running.

• 2M+ lines of code modernized on AWS: The client transformed a large IBM estate into a cloud-ready application foundation without losing functional depth.
• Lower annual licensing and data center costs: Migration to AWS reduced the cost burden of aging infrastructure and legacy platform dependencies.
• Faster acquisition integration and TSA exits: The modernized platform helped the business meet critical transition timelines and integrate new acquisitions with less legacy friction.
• Improved scalability and reliability: Microservices, containerization, and cloud-native services created a more resilient foundation for business-critical mid-office workloads.
• Stronger security and compliance control: Centralized identity and access management, encryption, and continuous monitoring improved protection across the new environment.
• Reduced deployment and maintenance effort: Containerization, CI/CD pipelines, and microservices made the platform easier to maintain, release, and extend.

Conclusion

This modernization gave the client what legacy systems rarely allow: room to move. The mid-office platform could now support business growth, acquisitions, and cloud integration without carrying the same cost and rigidity as before.

The more important win was continuity. LTM helped preserve the operational intelligence embedded in a 30-year-old platform while giving it a new AWS-based foundation. That balance matters in travel, where modernization cannot come at the cost of disruption.