Application Modernization

Application modernization is a step towards shedding unnecessary costs and development barriers from your current applications, without making any changes to the logic or user experience.

In many ways, the Mainframe can be seen to be a victim of its own success. Strongly associated with the RAS (Reliable, Available and Secure), Mainframe environments have outlived the environments within which the applications run on them have been developed. This results in sub-optimal performances and as a result, unnecessary cost and complexity.

Alternatives such as. re-writing and replacing present challenges as illustrated as both entail business process re-engineering and major cultural and organizational overhaul as well as major cost and risk.

The other option is the conversion of the legacy languages into one, modern and homogenous environment, whereby all business logic, investment and user experience are preserved.
Application modernization commercially entails the preservation of IT assets, whilst discarding the liabilities that accrue over years. We call it excess application inventory.

What are the Main drivers for application modernization?

Cost: Proprietary language licenses and maintenance are typically expensive. Further development of such applications is typically difficult, restricted and likewise expensive.

Competitiveness: Modern, homogenous development technologies (e.g..NET or Java) provide a more agile environment and can more easily support modern trends, such as the Web. Market places are becoming increasingly dynamic, so the ability to adapt to requirements is becoming more and more a key competitive factor. The chances are, the competition is doing it.

Resources: 80% off business applications were developed in COBOL. Others have been developed in Assembler, C, RPGII, or PL/1. A lot of these applications exist for 30 years or more and have been built with proprietary environments. This implies many of the developers are now in or very close to retirement age. Can you imagine spending your lifetime developing a propriety application and handing this over to a successor? No, not realistic and therefore the skills required for maintaining and further developing legacy applications are becoming more and more scarce. This is a major threat, and it is feared that organizations are not fully aware of this.

Asset Value: Applications contain many years of business logic and user knowledge. Application modernization addresses the issues of legacy applications, whilst retaining the intellectual property within the applications

HTWC migrates the following languages:

Highlights

• Low Risk as post migration testing can be conducted in to 100% simulate the environment

• Low Cost solution when compared to a full re-write

• Less vulnerability to lack of as kill set availability.

Benefits

• Immediate cost savings

• Modern, homogenous environment

• Abundance of qualified personnel

If you want to know something more about our application migration service, click here to download the 2Change whitepaper, or contact us with any further questions.