Application modernization is a big phrase for a complex process—one that few teams know how to spearhead. As per the new IBM’s IBV study on the latest CEO’s guide to Generative AI, 83% of C-suite executives say modernizing apps and data is central to their organization’s business strategy. And 89% say using generative AI in app modernization projects will drive growth by improving existing products and services and building new capabilities.
In June 2023, the IBM Z and Cloud Modernization stack team explored why Application Modernization was slow to implement in spite of being consistently stated as a top business priority. We also explored the importance of an integrated approach to modernization while enabling the right tools, skills, and an enhanced developer experience to balance productivity and smooth delivery across legacy and modernized environments without disrupting of business processes. Finally, we announced new critical additions and partnerships with the IBM Z and Cloud Modernization Stack to enhance a unified full-stack experience for developers working on hybrid cloud applications.
But the modernization journey now gathers its own speed rails. Business leaders expect generative AI to break down technical (57%) and financial (46%) barriers to app modernization.
Interestingly, in a survey by Wakefield on priorities for modernization, executives prioritize “investing more in application innovation” while app architects list “improving engineering velocity” as their main goal. However, technical debt is the biggest obstacle to innovation and the antithesis of engineering velocity. The opportunity to accelerate the journey to modernization, reduce the skill gap, and speed up the mundane with AI now makes it an even more critical juncture for the continued prioritization of integrated environments.
Today, we announce important existing and new integrative capabilities to the IBM Z and Cloud Modernization Stack to further our client’s modernization journey.
Accelerating Application Modernization with Modern Languages and Generative AI:
The recent IBM Watsonx Code Assistant for Z enables the ability to rapidly analyze, refactor, transform, and validate COBOL code into Java code. The IBM Z and Cloud Modernization Stack provides an end-to-end, integrated solution for the DevOps pipeline enabling various processes associated with application development optimized for the Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform with the ability to administer the platform as a service for mainframe application modernization. This complements the capabilities of deploying a modern pipeline with modern tools, enabling the control required to allow application developers to delve into more advanced spaces, such as generative AI. While Operator Collections enables the right building blocks, the new IBM Watsonx Code Assistant for Red Hat Ansible Lightspeed complements the process by simplifying the creation of your own playbooks from scratch enabling the integration team to provide platform-as-a-service environments that developers can create on demand.
Our lead Product Manager, Brian Lang has elaborated this beautifully here, with an interesting analogy on the history of flights and futuristic application modernization with IBM Z and Cloud Modernization Stack.
Expanding Ecosystem Integration with Operator Collections
We also announced Operator Collections, the technology to build application environments that system programmers could deliver to their developers. In this release, we are providing the full source for our IMS Operators and CICS Operators so that you can play with, extend, and deliver IMS and CICS provisioning services to your development team.
Additionally, available are OCI specifications to our customers and partners, enabling them to build and integrate their own operator collections and packages to establish a comprehensive ecosystem.
To help and further simplify the process, we have made available an easy step-by-step tutorial to set up an environment with custom-written automation as building blocks to accomplish tasks here. This enables system programmers to deliver a unique out-of-the-box experience to their developers starting with languages deployed to their USS development environments as a service.
As many of our clients, ecosystem partners, and technology guild members are beginning to use the new OCI artifact specifications areas, we will see many more exciting updates in open source coming soon. Read Mike Fulton, IBM Distinguished Engineer, Z Application Foundation explaining wonderfully how this capability can churn powerful automation engines in your environment.
As an addition to our Cloud native Wazi suite of tools, we announced Wazi Deploy a scripted tool to accelerate the customization and automation of application deployment for test and production. Wazi Deploy supports the deployment of CICS, Db2, and batch applications and this latest October release supports the deployment of IMS/DB and IMS/TM applications as well.
The IBM Z and Cloud Modernization stack is built on Red Hat OpenShift and thus is truly an end-to-end, unified experience for both developers and system programmers, ensuring greater flexibility and productivity and improving your time to value.
The world is changing at a rapid pace. While generative AI has helped accelerate the pace of modernization and cloud adoption, a strong focus on the core building blocks ensures that the working teams, system programmers, and thus developers build a great as-a-service experience eventually translating to a seamless client experience.
The IBM Z and Cloud Modernization Stack provides this complementary, unified experience for clients who are looking for generative AI to jumpstart their application modernization journey.
To find out more about the IBM Z and Cloud Modernization Stack’s updated capabilities visit:
· The new “Accelerate Mainframe Application Modernization with Hybrid Cloud” Redbook.
· The updated content solutions site where you can learn how to use the IBM Z and Cloud Modernization Stack to enable your full-stack developers.