Natural/ADABAS Migration: Decoding High-Volume Public Sector Portals

Your most critical public sector portal is likely running on code written before the internet as we know it existed. In the high-stakes world of government services—think Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV), tax processing, or unemployment benefits—the Natural/ADABAS stack remains a formidable, albeit aging, foundation. While these systems are legendary for their uptime, they are increasingly becoming "black boxes" that stifle innovation and cost millions in maintenance.

The challenge isn't just the age of the code; it’s the sheer volume of undocumented business logic buried within procedural Natural blocks. When you attempt a naturaladabas migration decoding highvolume workloads, you aren't just moving data; you are attempting to translate decades of legislative changes and edge cases into a modern architecture.

TL;DR: Manual migration of Natural/ADABAS systems takes an average of 40 hours per screen and has a 70% failure rate. By using Replay for Visual Reverse Engineering, enterprise teams can reduce this timeline from 18 months to mere weeks, automating the generation of documented React components and design systems directly from recorded user workflows.

The $3.6 Trillion Technical Debt Crisis#

The global technical debt has ballooned to an estimated $3.6 trillion, and a significant portion of that resides in public sector mainframes. According to Replay's analysis, 67% of these legacy systems lack any form of up-to-date documentation. For a developer tasked with a naturaladabas migration decoding highvolume portal, this means spending months "archaeologically" digging through Natural code to understand how a specific tax credit is calculated.

Traditional "Big Bang" rewrites are no longer viable. Industry experts recommend a more surgical approach: capturing the existing UI and its underlying logic to recreate it in a modern stack like React and TypeScript. This is where Replay changes the math of modernization.

Why Natural/ADABAS Migrations Often Stall#

Natural is a 4th-generation language (4GL) that, when paired with the ADABAS (Adaptable Database System) inverted list database, provides incredible performance for high-concurrency environments. However, the tight coupling between the UI logic and the data layer makes extraction difficult.

When performing a naturaladabas migration decoding highvolume system, architects face three primary hurdles:

1. •Implicit Logic: Natural code often contains "hidden" UI rules that aren't documented anywhere but the source code.
2. •Data Mismatch: ADABAS’s non-relational structure (using periodic groups and multiple-value fields) doesn't map cleanly to modern SQL or NoSQL databases without significant refactoring.
3. •The "Green Screen" Constraint: Most public sector workers interact with these systems via terminal emulators. Translating these workflows into a modern, accessible web interface manually is a recipe for scope creep.

Modernizing Mainframe Workflows requires moving beyond manual code conversion.

Decoding High-Volume Portals: Manual vs. Automated Reverse Engineering#

The standard manual approach involves business analysts watching users work, writing requirements, and then handing those to developers who write React components from scratch. This takes roughly 40 hours per screen.

Video-to-code is the process of recording a user's interaction with a legacy system and automatically generating functional, documented frontend code from that recording.

By utilizing Replay, the time per screen drops from 40 hours to approximately 4 hours. This 70% average time saving is what allows an 18-24 month project to be completed in a single quarter.

Comparison: Migration Methodologies#

The Technical Implementation: Mapping Natural to React#

When we talk about naturaladabas migration decoding highvolume portals, we are essentially talking about state management. In Natural, the state is often global or passed through

areas. In a modern React application, we want to encapsulate this into hooks and providers.

The Legacy: Natural Procedural Logic#

Consider a simplified Natural block for fetching citizen records:

natural
/* Legacy Natural Code Snippet */
DEFINE DATA LOCAL
1 #CITIZEN-ID (A10)
1 #CITIZEN-RECORD
  2 NAME (A30)
  2 STATUS (A1)
END-DEFINE

INPUT 'ENTER CITIZEN ID:' #CITIZEN-ID
FIND CITIZEN-FILE WITH ID = #CITIZEN-ID
  IF NO RECORDS FOUND
    REINPUT 'ID NOT FOUND'
  END-NOREC
  MOVE NAME TO #CITIZEN-NAME
  /* Complex business logic hidden here */
  IF STATUS = 'A'
    SET CONTROL 'AD=I' /* Make field intensive/highlighted */
  END-IF
  DISPLAY 'NAME:' NAME 'STATUS:' STATUS
END-FIND

The Modernized State: React + TypeScript#

Using Replay's "Flows" and "Library" features, that same interaction is captured and converted into a clean, modular React component library. Replay decodes the visual cues—like the field highlighting (

)—and converts them into design system tokens.

typescript
// Modernized React Component generated via Replay
import React, { useState } from 'react';
import { useCitizenData } from '../hooks/useCitizenData';
import { TextField, StatusBadge, Card } from '@gov-design-system/core';

interface CitizenPortalProps {
  initialId?: string;
}

export const CitizenPortal: React.FC<CitizenPortalProps> = ({ initialId }) => {
  const [citizenId, setCitizenId] = useState(initialId || '');
  const { data, loading, error, refetch } = useCitizenData(citizenId);

  const handleSearch = (e: React.FormEvent) => {
    e.preventDefault();
    refetch();
  };

  return (
    <Card title="Citizen Information Lookup">
      <form onSubmit={handleSearch}>
        <TextField 
          label="Enter Citizen ID"
          value={citizenId}
          onChange={(e) => setCitizenId(e.target.value)}
          error={!!error}
          helperText={error?.message}
        />
      </form>

      {data && (
        <div className="mt-4">
          <h3>Name: {data.name}</h3>
          <StatusBadge 
            status={data.status === 'A' ? 'active' : 'inactive'} 
            variant={data.status === 'A' ? 'highlight' : 'default'}
          />
        </div>
      )}
    </Card>
  );
};

Scaling for High-Volume Public Sector Needs#

High-volume portals, such as those used for tax filings, handle millions of concurrent requests. A naturaladabas migration decoding highvolume project must ensure that the new frontend doesn't just look better, but also interacts efficiently with the backend—whether that backend remains ADABAS (via an API wrapper) or is migrated to a modern cloud database.

According to Replay's analysis, the most successful migrations use a "Strangler Fig" pattern. Instead of replacing the whole system, you replace the UI first using Replay to create a "Digital Twin" of the legacy interface. This allows the organization to provide a modern user experience while the underlying ADABAS data structures are slowly migrated to the cloud.

Building the Design System#

One of the most significant advantages of using Replay is the automatic creation of a Component Library. Instead of developers building 50 different versions of a "Submit" button across 500 screens, Replay identifies patterns across the recorded flows.

Visual Reverse Engineering is the process of analyzing the visual output and user interactions of a software application to reconstruct its underlying structure, logic, and design assets without needing direct access to the original source code.

How to build a Design System from Legacy UI is a critical read for architects planning this transition.

Security and Compliance in Regulated Environments#

Public sector migrations aren't just about code; they are about trust. Systems handling HIPAA-protected health data or SOC2-compliant financial records require extreme care.

Replay is built for these regulated environments. With options for On-Premise deployment and HIPAA-ready configurations, government agencies can modernize their Natural/ADABAS systems without their data ever leaving their secure network. This is a non-negotiable requirement for any naturaladabas migration decoding highvolume initiative in the public sector.

The Replay Workflow: From Recording to React#

1. •Record: A subject matter expert (SME) records themselves performing standard tasks in the Natural/ADABAS portal.
2. •Analyze: Replay’s AI Automation Suite decodes the UI elements, navigation flows, and data entry patterns.
3. •Generate: The platform outputs a documented React library, complete with TypeScript definitions and a standardized Design System.
4. •Refine: Developers use the Replay "Blueprints" editor to tweak the generated code and connect it to modern APIs.

This workflow eliminates the "Documentation Gap." Since the code is generated from the actual usage of the system, the documentation is inherently accurate.

Frequently Asked Questions#

How does Replay handle complex business logic hidden in Natural code?#

While Replay focuses on the Visual Reverse Engineering of the UI and user flows, it captures the "intent" of the business logic by analyzing how the UI reacts to different data inputs. This provides a clear roadmap for backend developers to replicate the logic in modern microservices, reducing the discovery phase by up to 80%.

Is a naturaladabas migration decoding highvolume project safe for sensitive citizen data?#

Yes. Replay offers on-premise solutions where the video processing and code generation happen entirely within your secure environment. We are SOC2 compliant and HIPAA-ready, ensuring that PII (Personally Identifiable Information) is never exposed during the modernization process.

Can Replay work with terminal emulators (Green Screens)?#

Absolutely. Replay's engine is designed to recognize patterns in legacy terminal interfaces. It can identify fields, labels, and command lines, converting those archaic patterns into modern web components like text inputs, data tables, and navigation menus.

What is the average ROI for a Replay-led migration?#

Most enterprise clients see a full return on investment within the first 3-6 months of a project. By reducing manual coding time from 40 hours to 4 hours per screen, organizations save millions in developer salaries and avoid the massive opportunity cost of a failed 2-year rewrite.

Does the generated React code require a Replay license to run?#

No. The code generated by Replay is standard, high-quality React and TypeScript. Once it is exported to your repository, you own it. There are no proprietary runtime libraries required, ensuring no vendor lock-in.

Conclusion#

The era of the "Big Bang" mainframe rewrite is over. The risks are too high, and the timelines are too long. For architects facing a naturaladabas migration decoding highvolume portal, the path forward lies in automation and visual reverse engineering.

By capturing the reality of how users interact with legacy systems, Replay provides a bridge from the procedural past to a modular, scalable future. Don't let your legacy systems be a liability—transform them into a foundation for innovation.

Ready to modernize without rewriting? Book a pilot with Replay