Patent ID: 8001520

Claim:
A method for migrating legacy business applications executed on a data processing system to a modern environment comprising: arranging, by a computer, one or more of the legacy business applications into one or more transaction objects, said legacy business applications interactively controlled by a multitude of business application panels, said legacy business applications further entering succeeding business application panels in response to user interactions, user specified data and the contents of a database operated on by the legacy business application; arranging, by the computer, one or more of said transaction objects into one or more transaction object methods enabled to transparently and autonomously execute the underlying legacy business applications by interacting with a sequence of business application panels; transparently signaling transaction objects in at least one of said transaction object methods to execute business applications to create business objects, said business objects being maintained in business object instance space in the database; communicating between transaction objects in said transaction object methods with messages arranged in defined transaction records, each transaction record being instantiated with a related one transaction object to supply or retrieve data as part of the related one transaction object invocation; retrieving, by the computer, business objects from said business object instance space automatically and placing said retrieved business object in a transaction record when said retrieved business object is needed later in the transaction object method such that business objects may be reused; placing said transaction object methods into a graph, said graph including predecessors of business application, transaction objects and business objects making up said transaction object methods; determining, by the computer, from said graph, legacy business applications which provide data and business objects needed for performing said transaction object methods in the modern environment; and executing, by the computer, at least one transaction object in a local processing system, the executing transaction object communicating with a remote data processing system via a computer network, and the executing transaction object controlling execution of a business application on the remote data processing system.