Migration from mainframe: how to convince management?

If you need to upgrade the infrastructure built on the base of the mainframe, on which your company runs legacy applications, and the company's management doubts the need for such an upgrade, the following arguments will help convince your bosses.

Many large companies have been using mainframes for legacy systems applications for decades. Most enterprise-level systems today still work on mainframes, and applications written in COBOL (the mainframe programming language) continue to serve the bulk of corporate transactions. In some vertical markets, 50 to 60 percent of mainstream applications still run on mainframes.

However, these large computers need to be modernized in some way so that the company can withstand the competition and / or quickly react to threats and new market opportunities.
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Some companies retain this platform due to the fact that switching to another is associated with high costs or complex integration problems, while other companies still use outdated systems and applications that were obtained as a result of mergers and acquisitions, or as a result of delayed investments in IT

Often, IT professionals need to replace the outdated infrastructure, but management is not ready for such a transition, because it does not give itself a full account of the different options for introducing a new platform and incorrectly assesses possible risks.

Management may have their own ideas about whether to upgrade the IT infrastructure built on the mainframe and how to carry out such an upgrade, so to substantiate your point of view you should be prepared to parry the possible objections of your boss.

"Everything works, so do not change anything"

Inaction is usually the easiest way out in any situation, including when upgrading legacy systems. Your boss may say that “why repair something if it’s not broken,” and he will be right if you don’t need a new functionality from the system.

However, in response to such objections, it is important to emphasize that the more a company will postpone upgrading of legacy systems, the greater will be the risks due to their gradual obsolescence, especially if competitors have already upgraded and already apply the latest technology.

In addition, mainframes store business-critical data that will be difficult to access for new business intelligence tools using Big Data that your company plans to implement. As a result, these new tools will produce incorrect or misleading results, which means that investing in them will not bring any value to the business.

Another risk is that for many users it is necessary to provide support for access from mobile devices, and on older systems, it is usually difficult to implement new user interfaces or more flexible formatting of the displayed information.

Finally, as an example, you can remind the head of other market players who have already switched to the use of cloud architecture. The relatively cheap technologies of x86 servers and virtualization have drastically changed the architecture and price structure of corporate data centers. Should I isolate applications and their data while still placing them on mainframes? Why pay huge money for outdated equipment with a closed architecture, if you can use much cheaper standard architecture servers? Why support non-standard file data warehousing when there are alternatives based on SQL?

To convince management that maintaining the status quo is a dead end, try to draw his attention to the following important points:

• The company spends a lot of money on maintaining the operation of outdated mainframes, which could be more usefully spent on innovation and competitive advantage
• Many applications that now run on mainframes were written in the last century, and the companies that developed them have long since left the market.
• Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) of mainframes used in your company, including the cost of purchasing, installation, cooling, power and support
• The existing infrastructure cannot support the operation of new dynamic platforms, for example, mobile devices.
• Data stored on mainframes is not available for new modern business intelligence applications.
• A huge amount of documentation required for working with mainframes
• The IT department will soon not have specialists who are well aware of mainframe technology and can serve the current infrastructure in the event of a failure.

“And what if you just add power to our mainframe?”

If the legacy system does not have enough power, you can expand the configuration of its equipment or replace it with a new, more powerful mainframe. This approach will increase the performance and capacity of the system, but at the same time will lead to an increase in the cost of maintenance and licensing.

As a result, your company will not be able to eliminate the main problems of mainframes, namely, lack of flexibility, increased maintenance costs, a shortage of mainframe maintenance specialists, etc.

A simple increase in the power of legacy systems extends their life cycle and as a result, the company cannot take advantage of new technologies that reduce costs and quickly introduce innovations.

In addition, mainframe applications remain an alien element of modern private cloud-based architecture.

In addition to these key points, you need to be ready to give figures that give an idea:

• About the number of patches, modifications and updates that need to be installed on the mainframe after expanding its configuration
• About the impact of these patches on the system (complexity of the system, lack of transparency)
• About incremental costs due to patches and continued maintenance of legacy systems

“Can't you just rewrite the source?”

Of course, it is possible and it will be the most aggressive option of modernization. You can simply rewrite application source code and rebuild the database architecture and application tiers.

However, in practice, a complete rewriting of sources is associated with a high risk. This upgrade option leads to a complete reworking of business logic, which increases the likelihood of an error, so it is necessary to conduct thorough testing.

In addition, you will need to create a conversion table to transfer the data stores to the SQL environment and isolate the functionality of working with data from the storage level of this data.

Be prepared to discuss the following points:

• What do you think are the main expenses on mainframes - with the programming language in which the source code is written, or with the system architecture. What will ensure the greatest and fastest return on investment?
• Risks of changing business process logic
• Other applications and data warehouses that may be affected by the rewriting of sources
• How long will the project take, including functionality testing, user testing and parallel operations
• Resources (including staff) required for a full source code rewrite project

These three discussion scenarios will help you fend off superficial ideas about the possibility of upgrading a mainframe. But what to offer in return?

For IT professionals who are ready to upgrade their company's IT architecture, but want to carefully control risks, time and money, there is another option that is more attractive than a complete rewriting of the source code, namely the migration of applications to a new platform (rehosting).

Migration benefits

When migrating, old mainframe applications are transferred without code changes to a modern open environment, for example, to a multilevel x86-based environment or to the cloud. However, the applications themselves can be written in COBOL, PL / I or other languages, and mainframes can be from IBM, Fujitsu, or other vendors.

For many companies, migration will be a very cost effective option for upgrading the mainframe architecture. If the migration is performed correctly, then the risks and costs will be much less than when rewriting the source code.

It also simplifies the subsequent rewriting of the source code and reduces the risks associated with it. If mainframes tie a customer to a limited and tight architecture, the loosely coupled open systems architecture provides dynamic scaling, load management, and flexibility.

Security is also improving — all the old mainframe protection mechanisms continue to work, and you can easily and quickly add security features to a modern SQL database.

Smooth transition to a new platform

Properly executed migration reduces risks through the use of standard operating systems, x86 servers, SQL databases and cloud infrastructures. It improves integration and security while reducing costs.

But it is not enough to tell your management about the benefits of migration - you need to be able to explain why other options are not suitable for your company. Try to explain this in terms that are understandable to the leaders of your company, including competitiveness, budget, and business risks. If you succeed, you will be more likely to get approval for the plan to migrate applications from the mainframe to the new platform.