Modularize an Oracle application using Visual Expert

A public financial organization undertook a project to transform its core application, developed in Oracle PL/SQL. This initiative aimed to modularize the application to improve its maintainability, flexibility, and security. Visual Expert (VE) for Oracle was selected to facilitate this transition with its code analysis, application mapping, and automated documentation.

Client Background

The client operates a mission-critical application central to daily operations, especially for managing student loans. Over the years, this application has grown increasingly complex, creating major hurdles in maintenance, timely updates, and scalability - factors crucial to ensuring uninterrupted service and supporting growing user demand.

The interdependencies among components made it difficult to modify the application without risking bugs or malfunctions elsewhere in the system. In this context, a digital services company, acting as a technology partner, was tasked with performing an in-depth analysis and proposing a refactoring solution.

Challenges Faced in Modularizing a Complex Oracle Application

Increasing Code Complexity

Years of modifications and extensions led to overwhelming code complexity, making it nearly impossible to implement changes without affecting other critical components, significantly slowing response times to business needs.

Operational Risks

The application's monolithic nature increased operational risks. Every update required extensive testing to ensure that changes didn’t affect existing functionalities, slowing the development cycle.

Incomplete Documentation

Outdated and incomplete documentation slowed the onboarding of new developers, increased debugging time, and heightened the risk of errors.

Need for Modularization

The financial institution decided to modularize the application to overcome these challenges. This involved refactoring the code to create standalone modules with well-defined interfaces, allowing independent updates and reducing the risk of errors during modifications.

Solutions Proposed with Visual Expert

Visual Expert for Oracle provided a complete solution to address the modularization challenges, with specific features that facilitated the understanding, refactoring, and management of complex code. Explore the improvements achieved through Visual Expert, from faster deployment cycles to reduced debugging time, highlighting the tangible benefits for Oracle application performance.

1. Application Mapping and Modularization Planning

The first step was to use VE to generate architecture and data flow diagrams that visually represented the application’s structure.

These interactive diagrams allowed the organization’s architects and developers to visualize the interactions between different modules and plan how to break them into standalone units with clear interfaces. This mapping helped identify critical integration points and guided strategies to isolate modules while maintaining the integrity of data flows.

For more details, you can visit the Visual Expert application mapping page.

Generate Call Tree Diagrams for Oracle PL/SQL Code
Object Dependency Matrix

2. Advanced Impact Analysis

After mapping the application, the team used VE’s impact analysis tools to map relationships and dependencies between database objects (such as tables, views, and stored procedures) and PL/SQL code.

A full static code analysis was performed to identify direct and indirect dependencies, including procedure and function calls as well as interactions through triggers. This step helped detect the cascading effects of potential changes, pinpoint strong coupling areas, and document these dependencies to manage changes effectively and minimize errors.

More information on Visual Expert’s Impact Analysis features is available online.

Impact Analysis for Oracle PL/SQL Functions
Impact Analysis for Oracle PL/SQL Variables

3. Automated Documentation

To facilitate information sharing between teams and ensure future maintenance, VE was used to automatically generate comprehensive and up-to-date documentation of the application.

This documentation included detailed descriptions of database objects, stored procedures, functions, triggers, and views. By automating this process, the client ensured that all stakeholders had the necessary information to understand the system’s functionality and architecture, reducing the risk of human errors and improving overall code quality.

For more information, visit the Visual Expert - Code Documentation page.

Oracle PL/SQL Code Documentation
Generate HTML Documentation for Oracle DB

4. Collaboration through a Shared Repository

Collaboration between the client and the technology partner was enhanced by establishing a shared repository using VE’s collaborative features.

This setup improved coordination among development teams by allowing multiple developers to work on the same modules, sharing real-time information, and ensuring consistency in the code versions used. This collaborative approach boosted productivity by streamlining development and maintenance efforts.

For more information, see how VE helps manage access control for Oracle projects to collaborate and review PL/SQL code.

Team Collaboration and Access Control for Oracle Projects

5. Code Review and Security

Alongside the modularization process, the team used VE to conduct thorough code reviews.

These reviews aimed to identify redundancies, violations of best practices, and potential vulnerabilities, thereby strengthening the system’s security and reliability. Improving code quality was a priority to prevent future failures and reduce long-term maintenance costs.

See how Visual Expert can assist with code review.

Oracle PL/SQL Code Review Dashboard
Oracle PL/SQL Code Security Check

Results Achieved

Visual Expert for Oracle empowered the organization and its partner to transform a legacy system into a dynamic, modular application, reducing operational risks, cutting development times, and future-proofing the platform for ongoing innovation.

Onboard

2x
faster

Bugs

40%
fewer

Review

50%
faster

Deploy

30%
faster

Errors

50%
fewer

Next Steps

Building on the success of modularization, the next phase will focus on optimizing the application’s performance. By leveraging Visual Expert’s insights, the team will reduce processing times, enhance efficiency, and deliver a faster, more reliable user experience - ultimately reducing operational costs and further improving scalability.