Mainframe modernization

Mainframe modernization can be challenging

As the cost of operating mainframes increases, harnessing the value of cloud becomes table stakes, and Generative AI can transform opportunities to innovate, the race to accelerate modernization—especially of mainframe applications—is on.

But many organizations face steep challenges, particularly in answering strategic and tactical questions such as where to start to meet critical business needs most effectively, and how to choose appropriate mainframe modernization strategies to align investments with business priorities.

Modernization approaches

Once your assessment is complete and we’ve worked with you to analyze the results, you can choose to start your modernization efforts with any of the approaches listed below, and you can deploy any or all of the approaches in your modernization journey.

Approach one: Innovate your most strategic business capabilities utilizing the latest technology

Our TruNorth suite plays a critical role in this approach. TruNorth helps visualize existing relationships across tables, modules, and business domains, and it identifies the interdependencies. With these insights, we can help you determine the decomposition effort and the impact of “cutting” data from your monolithic applications to move it to cloud. We have a similar capability to visualize code dependencies for “cutting” the monolith. Through this analysis, we can define bounded contexts, accelerating modernization to move from existing calls to microservices.

Key considerations for this approach include:

• Accelerated development: With this approach you can prioritize modernization of your most strategic business capabilities first, moving them off the mainframe, to help you maximize your technical innovation choices to drive optimal competitive advantage.
• Complex interim integrations to mainframe (coexistence): This is a progressive approach, modernizing “pieces” of your mainframe infrastructure and creating a state of “coexistence” with capabilities both on and off the mainframe that will require integration points to be developed and maintained until all capabilities have been moved off the mainframe.
  

Approach two: Prioritize getting off the mainframe as quickly as possible, while minimizing risk and business disruption

To assist in this approach, we deploy our innoWake product to preserve existing business functionality by performing automated refactoring of legacy code into modern languages, which helps preserve the functionality and interfaces of existing applications during the modernization effort.

Key considerations for this approach include:

• Reduced risk/business disruption: We have deployed our fully automated and standardized approach for many organizations, and that experience can help mitigate risk during your modernization.
• Implementation: This approach can be a good fit for organizations that are constrained by a limited number of subject-matter specialists who understand the mainframe, that lack reliable mainframe documentation and testing assets, or that need the flexibility of a “no code freeze” approach to continue making changes to the mainframe during the modernization.
• Go-live: With this approach, there is minimal disruption to the end-user experience. Users are still able to access familiar screens and functionality through a web interface.
• Flexibility for additional modernization: For business capabilities that are stable and that meet requirements, this approach can effectively be the end state of your modernization efforts, which can provide you with the flexibility to focus your remaining modernization investments on strategic business capabilities. Also, with this approach, the underlying technical platform is completely modernized, so you can gain additional flexibility and opportunities to pursue functional modernization with access to a broader pool of talent and additional technologies, such as Generative AI, that were not available in the mainframe environment.
  
  
  

Approach three: Accelerate the path to commercial off-the-shelf software or software-as-a-service

Using TruNorth, we can automate the extraction of business rules and logic to help you accelerate the evaluation of market offerings for commercial off-the-shelf software (COTS) or software-as-a-service (SaaS) products that may fit your business needs and enhance the development of baseline documentation for configuration.

Key considerations for this approach include:

• Business needs fit with solution: Business capabilities that follow industry standards may align with a COTS or SaaS offering that can offer “out of the box” benefits and simplify future maintenance.
• Vendor lock-in: The maturity of the COTS or SaaS solution, as well as vendor contract terms that may pose constraints in the future, should be carefully considered.
  
  

The bottom line 

Our mainframe modernization services take a business-led, engineering-enabled approach to align your modernization strategy with your business objectives. We lead with a set of unique, Generative AI-enabled tools that are market tested and that advance your modernization by driving discovery, value delivery, and execution. 

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