The Benefits of Mainframe Application Modernization

The rapid development of innovative technologies, in conjunction with ever-increasing expectations from consumers and continuing disruptive market dynamics, is compelling businesses to place a greater emphasis than ever before on digital transformation. 67% of executive respondents to a recent survey conducted by the IBM Institute for Business Value in cooperation with Oxford Economics stated that their organizations need to transform quickly in order to keep up with the competition, while 57% reported that current market disruptions are placing unprecedented pressure on their IT. The survey was carried out by IBM Institute for Business Value.

Because digital transformation puts enormous demands on current applications and data, an enterprise’s heterogeneous technological environment, which may include cloud and mainframe computing, has to be modernized and integrated. It should come as no surprise that chief executive officers have listed the modernization of their companies’ technologies as one of their highest priorities. CEOs are looking to reinvent their goods, services, and operations in order to increase their organizations’ efficiencies, agility, and speed to market.

In order to run and create services in a consistent manner throughout their hybrid cloud environments, businesses want platforms that are flexible, secure, open, and tailored to their specific needs. Since mission-critical applications continue to take advantage of the capabilities offered by mainframes, the mainframe will continue to be an important component in this process. A hybrid best-fit method is one that supports the modernisation, integration, and deployment of applications. This kind of solution often incorporates both mainframes and the cloud. This improves the agility of the company and tackles the pain points that clients have, such as minimizing the talent gap, shortening the time it takes to bring a product to market, improving access to mission-critical data across platforms, and optimizing expenses.

According to the findings of recent study conducted by the IBM Institute for Business Value, over seven out of ten IT executives believe that mainframe-based applications are an integral part of their corporate and technological strategy. In addition to this, the majority of respondents (68%) believe that mainframes are an essential component of their hybrid cloud approach.

However, modernisation can be a difficult process, and businesses often find themselves up against a variety of obstacles. A poll of CEOs found that about 70 percent of them believe the mainframe-based programs in their companies are outdated and in need of being updated. The survey also finds that businesses are twelve times more likely to use existing mainframe assets in the next two years rather than construct their application estates from scratch, which may be prohibitively expensive, dangerous, or time-consuming. According to a poll of executives working for companies that are now attempting to modernize their mainframe applications, the most difficult obstacle is a shortage of the necessary resources and expertise. When questioned about it two years ago, executives mentioned the high cost of mainframes as a key obstacle. However, this is no longer seen as the case, and instead, executives are searching for other sources of value from mainframes, such as resilience, optimization, and regulatory compliance.

Given that application modernization is necessary for businesses who are concentrating on “best-fit” transformation that spans across mainframe, cloud, or even generative AI, IT executives who are interested in revitalizing their mainframe modernization need to take a few crucial activities right now:

Take a strategy that involves iteration

Consider the characteristics of your sector and the amount of work you do as part of the planning process for integrating new and current settings. Collaborate with your business opponents to co-create a business case and a “best-fit” roadmap geared to fulfill your strategic objectives. Both of these documents should be developed to match your needs. Instead of going with a huge boom, ripping everything out and starting over, you should go with a gradual and ongoing strategy to modernisation.

Perform an analysis of your portfolio, then construct your strategy

Investigate the capabilities that determine the function of the mainframe in your company at the present time, as well as the ways in which those capabilities are connected to the larger ecosystem of hybrid cloud technologies. In addition, you should make it a priority to cross-skilling employees inside the business and rely on your partners to make up for any shortages in talent or resources, whether they are new or already present.

Leverage a number of different access points for application modernization

By employing application programming interfaces (APIs), you may help offer simple access to existing mainframe programs and data. Offer a consistent experience for software developers by combining open-source technologies with a simplified workflow that emphasizes agility. Build apps that are native to the cloud on the mainframe, and containerize existing applications.

Based on a 2021 survey update by the IBM Institute for Business Value (IBV), which conducted a double-blind poll of 200 IT executives in North America in April 2023, “Application modernization on the mainframe – Expanding the value of hybrid cloud transformation.”