Mainframes are big, powerful, and reliable computers that enterprises use to perform large operations. They have come a long way since IBM first introduced these processing powerhouses back in 1960s. The latest IBM Z series mainframes offer advanced capabilities, flexibility, security, resilience, and support multiple operating systems. Despite of all these advancements, many companies are now considering mainframe application modernization as a means of increasing their efficiency and reducing their costs.

Many mega corporations which rely upon its big iron for the mission-critical transactions aspire to modernize their mainframes, but it is not an easy programme to execute. In today’s times, an organization’s accomplishment is often measured by its ability to adapt the change and the speed at which it can embrace advancements. To keep pace with the speed of innovation in the IT industry, enterprises seek solutions that would enable them to leverage their existing mainframe assets while simultaneously allowing them to integrate new systems and technologies.

Let us have a look at the some of the key challenges and considerations that today’s big iron shops face when they plan to migrate to Cloud or distributed systems:

Ø  The colossal legacy applications and the complexity involved

Legacy mainframe systems are often built on decades-old codebases, which can be incredibly complex and difficult to work with.  Folks who designed these applications and did earlier modifications have retired or moved on and it’s possible that individual changes were not methodically documented. It is even possible that source code may no longer be available. This complexity can make it challenging for businesses to move to some new platforms without causing unintended consequences.

Ø  Finding skilled personnel, a tedious task!

Another growing concern of organizations that rely on mainframe systems is the lack of specialized experts with the knowledge and skills required to handle the complexity of mainframe dependent applications. The old generation of mainframe developers are retiring and the new developers who are looking to make a career in IT today aren’t too keen on working on old and so-called outdated technologies, the black and green 3270 screen.

Ø  Risk of Downtime

Any errors made during the modernization process can lead to downtime and other disruptions. This may be problematic for businesses that rely heavily on their mainframe systems for critical operations. Although downtime can be a problem when making changes to any other computing platform as well, but when compared to mainframe which is capable of delivering eight 9s of availability*; i.e. 99.999999% or 3.16 seconds of downtime per year, it can be traumatic for the enterprises.

*Disclaimer: Based on IBM internal data. For clients running IBM z16 with z/OS 2.5 and common IBM software stack, users can expect up to 99.999999% availability when the configuration includes an enabled Parallel Sysplex, System Recovery Boost (SRB) and some other best practices recommended by IBM.

Ø  What if things go South?

Migrating all your organization’s data, applications, and business processes to a new environment can be intimidating. While many organizations are well underway of keeping up with a cloud-friendly world, others have expressed concerns over the challenges a cloud migration presents, particularly the fact that, if not done properly, it can often leave sensitive data vulnerable. Many organizations approach the data migration process with a sense of urgency, without assessing some of the key considerations. Entering the process without a plan carries significant security risks even post successful migration and could stall the whole process. 

Despite the above-mentioned challenges and arguments, mainframe modernization can be a valuable investment for organizations looking to improve efficiency, reduce costs, and stay competitive in today’s fast-paced business environment. An Incremental approach to modernization may result in a better success rate. Instead of trying to modernize or lift-and-shift an entire environment, better succeed with the fewer applications first, additional apps can be targeted thereafter.

Let us now have a look at some of the positive aspects and benefits of Mainframe Application Modernization:

Ø  Getting rid of the Elephant in the room! Cutting the cost of application maintenance

The cost of maintaining mainframe systems is a major driver of mainframe modernization. The legacy systems can be incredibly expensive to execute, maintain and update due to the specialized hardware, software, and personnel required. Overall costs of the business  can be reduced by transitioning to modern and cost-effective platforms and technologies.

Ø  Better collaboration and Integration

Integration of applications can go to an altogether different level post the modernization of mainframes as organizations can continue to merge and rely on their robust multi-decade portfolio of applications. With this, new prospects will open-up like automation, data sharing, and collaboration;  businesses can advance their workflows, reduce duplication of efforts, improve code maintainability.  Such improved internal interaction will enable teams to act with speed and confidence.

Ø  Technical skill gap reduction

With  the fast-paced evolving technology, the ability to maintain legacy systems is becoming more and more complicated. Skilled technicians are becoming far few with many long-time internal assets retiring over the last several years making their replacement hires expensive resources. On the other hand, the availability of skilled staff for the open system technologies is relatively a lot better.

Ø  Improved Scalability

Even though mainframe applications are highly scalable, but it wasn’t easy to scale up or down to accommodate changing business needs. By modernizing these applications, businesses can ensure that their systems can handle increased traffic and user demands without losing on performance or reliability.

Modernizing mainframe applications with the cloud does not necessarily mean migrating off the mainframe; that is rather not the best approach. Latest mainframe systems are astonishingly fast, incredibly scalable, and obviously very reliable with absolutely no downtime whatsoever. Having said that, majority of enterprises are amid digital transformations; new economic and customer pressures are forcing them to innovate and rethink how they leverage technology to deliver customer value. So, using Collaboration and not migration is probably the best approach to modernize mainframe applications.  Foremost cloud providers like Microsoft (Azure), Amazon (AWS) and Google (GCP) have also realized that most mainframe customers can be better served by a mainframe/cloud collaboration strategy.