AS400 Decommissioning and Data Archiving
Retire your IBM i system and keep your business records accessible with AvenDATA.
From RPG and COBOL to CL, we decommission IBM i (AS400, iSeries) systems of every generation and archive their data securely. Canadian and international companies rely on our approach to preserve business-critical records, from core banking to manufacturing workflows, while significantly reducing maintenance costs and meeting CRA record-keeping requirements.
The Challenge
Many organizations face the same problem: aging AS400 systems continue to consume budget long after they have stopped adding operational value. The reason is simple. Business records must remain available to meet CRA record-keeping requirements and other statutory retention periods, so the legacy environment is kept running. This leads to a series of costs and risks:
- Aging hardware with steadily rising maintenance costs
- Service contracts that must be paid even though the system is no longer in active use
- Licensing fees for software components you no longer actively use
- Internal IT resources tied up instead of supporting modernization projects
- Security vulnerabilities caused by legacy versions that are no longer supported
- High operational effort to manage historical data manually
The Definitive Outcome: Year after year, organizations invest significant budget in systems that no longer deliver business value, while the legal and security risks associated with outdated technology continue to grow.
Industry-Standard Platform
Backed by more than 17 years of system decommissioning experience
We continuously develop our AS400 decommissioning capabilities. Over more than 17 years, we have refined our approach in practice across numerous successful legacy system archiving projects.
This proven methodology helps you answer complex technical questions quickly, respond confidently to CRA audits, and reduce legal risks through complete traceability.
ViewBox is our established platform for this transition. It gives authorized users secure, enterprise-wide access to archived data and keeps your organization audit-ready as part of everyday compliance work.
Today, ViewBox is trusted by leading companies in Canada and around the world. Its widespread use reflects its stability, its flexibility, and its proven, real-world ability to reduce operating costs, even in large and complex organizations.
From Europe and Asia to North America and beyond, ViewBox supports organizations worldwide in decommissioning their legacy systems and archiving their data.
Your AS400 Analytics Live On as Actionable Reports
in ViewBox
We do more than extract data from your AS400 system. Your business information remains fully usable and traceable in ViewBox, our platform for archiving and accessing legacy data.
Our services include:
- Replication of essential standard reports and business analytics
- Development of custom reports (including internally developed programs and lists)
- Archiving of all relevant source documents (invoices, orders, accounting records) to ensure full report traceability
Well before the project begins, we work with you to identify exactly which reports you need for CRA record-keeping requirements, business analysis, and statutory retention periods. You benefit from our extensive experience decommissioning AS400 systems across a wide range of industries and specialized departments.
In ViewBox, you can search, analyze, and evaluate these interactive reports for years after your AS400 system has been decommissioned, completely independent of the original system.
Whether you face a CRA audit, an internal investigation, or a legal dispute, your archived data remains audit-ready at all times. You have immediate access to clearly structured, filterable reports, without the cost of IBM i licences or ongoing maintenance of the original system.
Rapid Execution & Massive Economic Value (Measurable ROI)
even for massive AS400 architectures
Decommissioning an AS400 system typically takes one to six months, depending on data volume and system complexity. Our highly standardized methodology allows us to archive even large and complex IBM i landscapes efficiently.
For example, we have migrated AS400 environments containing several terabytes of data into ViewBox. All relevant reports, custom programs, and supporting documentation were preserved in full, so the archive remained audit-ready and met CRA record-keeping requirements.
With our established decommissioning framework, Canadian and international companies achieve significant cost savings. You eliminate licensing fees for IBM i software, databases, and operating systems, while substantially reducing infrastructure costs and the workload on internal staff.
In most of our projects, organizations achieve a return on investment (ROI) in less than one year. This is driven by measurable savings from eliminated software licences, a smaller infrastructure footprint, and internal IT resources that are freed up for other priorities.
AS400
System Analysis
Every AS400 decommissioning project starts with a thorough analysis of your existing system. This analysis forms the basis of your project plan and gives you full transparency on timelines, data scope, and the required investment.
We assess your technical and organizational environment, including:
- Access options for your current AS400 environment
- The database type, structure, and size of your data (including DB2 for i)
- The scope and relevance of your existing applications and reports
- System customizations such as internally developed programs and custom interfaces
To give you full decision-making and planning certainty, we present the results as a binding fixed-price proposal. This allows you to reduce legal risks and plan for CRA record-keeping requirements from the very start of your AS400 decommissioning project.
AS400
Project Implementation
Once the system analysis is complete, we begin the decommissioning project with a clear structure and defined milestones.
We start with a kickoff meeting to align your team on all organizational and technical requirements. From that point on, our experts take care of the entire process:
- Setting up secure access to your AS400 environment
- Extracting and migrating all relevant data
- Replicating your standard reports and custom analyses
- Creating complete, audit-ready documentation that supports CRA record-keeping requirements
Our experienced senior project managers oversee the project from start to finish, so you can focus on your core business while keeping the demands on your internal IT team to a minimum.
The project concludes with structured testing and a formal sign-off phase. This ensures that every record has been archived securely, remains fully usable, and is audit-ready. As a result, you reduce maintenance costs and minimize legal risks over the long term.
AS400
Project Results
On completion of the project, all relevant tables, legal documents, and business reports from your AS400 system are migrated to ViewBox, our platform for archiving and accessing legacy data.
ViewBox is a web-based platform for searching and analyzing archived data. It gives authorized users fast, secure, and fully traceable access to your archived business information for decades after the original system has been decommissioned.
Your advantage: We rebuild all relevant standard analyses and custom reports. This means you can continue to run important operational analyses and meet CRA record-keeping requirements without any access to the original IBM i system.
Once ViewBox has been deployed and formally signed off, you can shut down your AS400 environment permanently and eliminate its maintenance costs.
At the end of the project, we provide complete, audit-ready documentation that records every project phase and gives you full transparency on:
- The architecture and methodology of your data migration
- The mapping and structure of all archived content
- The structured testing and final acceptance phases
In addition, we record every project milestone in our secure Jira ticketing system. From the initial data export to final sign-off and the deletion of the source system, we maintain a complete audit trail. This reduces legal risks, keeps your organization audit-ready, and gives internal, external, and third-party auditors full transparency.
ViewBox Enterprise
Use archived data from legacy systems securely and quickly
With ViewBox Enterprise, AvenDATA offers a powerful platform for secure access to data from decommissioned ERP systems and other legacy systems. The solution combines modern search and analysis functions with high performance, comprehensive security mechanisms and intelligent features developed entirely with the help of artificial intelligence.
ViewBox Enterprise ensures that your archived data:
- remains understandable and usable many years after a system has been shut down
- can be searched, filtered and analyzed quickly and precisely
- is available in an audit-proof, traceable form for both internal and external audits
- is protected against unauthorized access through role-based permissions
- can be analyzed more efficiently with the help of intelligent features
- remains available independently of the original application
One standout feature is automated, rule-based data deletion. On the basis of statutory, contractual or company internal retention periods, data can be deleted in a controlled, traceable and documented manner once the applicable period has expired. In this way, ViewBox Enterprise supports companies in meeting their data protection and compliance requirements.
That way, historical company data stays available for the long term!
Ready to Take
Your Next Step?
Let us evaluate your AS400 environment (whether it runs on RPG, COBOL, CL, or internally developed programs) in a free 60 minute consultation.
We will show you live how to decommission your legacy system efficiently and reduce maintenance costs while keeping your business records fully accessible, including:
- Alignment on your data architecture, migration approach, and specific reporting requirements
- A live demonstration of ViewBox, our platform for archiving and accessing legacy data
- A clear explanation of how we replicate your standard reports and custom analyses
- An assessment of project scope and timelines, leading to a binding fixed-price proposal
Full transparency from day one:
Our project proposals are built on clearly defined fixed prices, guaranteed with zero renegotiations. We prioritize quality, reliability, and an exceptional ROI
Book your free consultation today and take the first step toward decommissioning your AS400 system.
Instant Answers to Your Questions
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