By Oliver Presland, Senior Vice President of Consulting Services, Ensono Is your mainframe a cornerstone of your IT strategy, or are you considering migrating workloads away from it? Perhaps you find yourself somewhere in between. The Modern, Cloud-Connected Mainframe represents a distinct approach, one that doesn’t just improve but harmonizes the synergy between mainframe and cloud.
When enterprise leaders talk about the evolution of their technology strategy, they seldom mention mainframe and public cloud in the same breath. Most organizations have siloed mainframe and cloud teams with little cross-pollination or appreciation of their strengths and the potential to integrate the two.
According to Gartner, “Mainframes continue to be one of the most critical IT assets but also one of the most misunderstood.”1 These two key technology platforms have been decoupled for far too long. The time has come for mainframe and cloud to play to each other’s strengths.
Enter The Modern, Cloud-Connected Mainframe
Unlike “mainframe modernization” (which has several different definitions, depending on who you ask), The Modern, Cloud-Connected Mainframe is a new approach that combines mainframe and cloud for better business outcomes. It’s about breaking down the walled garden around the mainframe, making it a first-class citizen within the rest of the enterprise hybrid IT architecture, and unleashing data to flow freely and enable better, faster business decisions.
Generally speaking, the mainframe excels in applications that demand high performance and maximum uptime for critical business applications while upholding unwavering compliance. Public cloud, by contrast, is typically ideal for applications that require continuous improvement and innovation (i.e., systems of engagement) by providing global scale, greater agility through on-demand services and, when done correctly, far greater economics through automation. Imagine a world where there are no barriers to each application running in the environment to which it is best suited, and all data can be fully utilized. That’s the promise of The Modern, Cloud-Connected Mainframe.
System coexistence: The barrier to a connected reality
1Gartner, “Fit Your Mainframe Into Your Modernization Plans,” Dennis Smith and Stefan Van Der Zijden, November 16, 2022.
Modernizing applications and moving them off the mainframe is not a trivial undertaking. Many CIOs want to exit corporate-owned data centers but are often held back by the risks related to a mainframe migration. It also requires a highly specialized set of skills, which are in very short supply. As an example, there are more than 80,000 system integrators in the AWS Partner Network (APN) globally, but only six have the Mainframe Modernization Software Competency.
But as time has gone on, more customer/end-user applications or systems of engagement have been built around the mainframe. For example, they enable policyholders to upload a photo of their car after an accident to file an insurance claim, or bank customers to pay a bill through their online banking app. These systems of engagement tend to be written in modern languages and are highly dynamic, meaning greater agility is essential—which makes them more appropriate to operate in the public cloud. The challenge lies in the need for these applications to communicate with the systems of record.
Airline systems offer a great example of this. The flight scheduling system might be written on a mainframe, but of course your check-in and mobile boarding pass application should be written in the public cloud. Those two systems need to talk to each other, and often need to do so at scale, with lots of volume or with very low latency. If the application is “chatty,” it will require constant communication. If you separate the two—a mainframe in the data center and customer applications in the cloud—the user experience can suffer to the point where it becomes unusable.
Latency is a proxy for not just the speed of light and end user wait time while transactions complete. It’s also proxy for:
Cost – There’s a price tag attached to networking between the mainframe and cloud.
Complexity – Extended networks between the two systems make troubleshooting harder.
Security – Separate systems require multiple layers of security.
Most development teams want to build new features and applications—often in new geographies—to create new sources of revenue. They don’t want to be burdened with spending two years just to modernize. The business case simply doesn’t make sense.
Fortunately, there’s a better way.
The following actions can unlock value from mainframe with cloud, reduce mainframe cost, manage the skills risk and create an operating model for the mainframe and cloud to work better together:
1 Score a quick win with in-cloud mainframe data protection.
Backups on cloud object storage can provide a cost-effective alternative to traditional storage and virtual tape libraries, reducing the number of copies of data held on expensive disks in the data center. Once in the cloud, this data can be placed in a digital data vault that provides protection from backup corruption and ransomware threats.
2 Take one giant leap toward AI readiness by unleashing your most valuable data.
The data residing on the mainframe has immense enterprise value that often goes untapped. Enterprises today cannot innovate with nor monetize their datasets if they are “locked up” on the mainframe. Unleashing this data can enhance or create new cloud-based digital services for customers and help your organization make better and faster decisions. While this is not a simple task, it does represent your easiest and fastest way to unlock real business value.
Providing mainframe data access through API interfaces enables cloud application developers to consume this data without needing specialized mainframe skills. Replicating specific mainframe datasets and combining them with other business data in cloud enables analytics, machine learning and meaningful artificial intelligence capabilities over time.
3 Move systems closer—because proximity matters!
Moving from the data center to mainframe as a service in a location with very low latency to your established public cloud data center creates several new opportunities.
For example, you can now choose the best endpoint based on the needs of the application, as opposed to what is dictated by the speed of light. This means you can migrate your systems of engagement to the public cloud and talk to mainframe with a low latency connection.
Getting closer to your public cloud environment also enables data center exits. The mainframe no longer keeps you in the data center business.
4 Find a better ally.
Does operating your mainframe differentiate your business? If so, by all means, keep doing it. If not, the benefits of finding the right expert MSP are quite compelling and increasingly harder to ignore.
A recent study by Forrester shows 80 percent of IT executives agree or strongly agree their business has grown at a higher rate since investing with an MSP; 95 percent of them agree or strongly agree their partnership has enabled them to take advantage of more growth opportunities.2
A partner who can consistently replenish your departing mainframe experts with fresh, highly trained talent will help you eliminate staffing risk resulting from the “silver tsunami,” and one whose expertise (platform, vertical, etc.) aligns closely with your organization’s unique profile, needs, goals and environment can shorten the onboarding learning curve, accelerate time to implementation and reduce risks.
Finally, a partner who offers flexible pricing models and terms will enable you to adapt quickly to economic and strategic changes without penalty.
2“The Total Economic Impact™ of Ensono IT Infrastructure Management Services: Cost Savings and Business Benefits Enabled by Ensono IT Infrastructure Management Services,” a commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Ensono, July 2022.
5 Modernize your mainframe and mainframe applications.
You’re not done yet! As mentioned earlier, the mainframe exists for a reason and is often the most appropriate environment in which to run your systems of record. Don’t treat it like a second-class citizen.
To ensure the greatest performance and resiliency, examine the benefits of running on the latest hardware and software. Convert old COBOL applications to a modern language (Java, Python, etc.) and consolidate databases. This not only helps with future innovation, it also addresses the declining number of people with these skills.
Be sure to automate your test environment with tools that validate functionality before and after conversion. This can dramatically reduce the testing burden on your team.
6 Expand your definition of Automation, Agile and DevOps (they aren’t just cloud things anymore).
Modernizing the developer tools used on the mainframe, consolidating code management across multiple platforms, and bringing the enterprise developer community together in a common toolset can increase productivity and reduce time to market with new functionality.
A connected IT environment = BETTER business outcomes
The Modern, Cloud-Connected Mainframe brings a new perspective and opportunities to organizations that have long considered mainframe and cloud as inevitably existing in different, disparate worlds. There are significant benefits to be gained by bringing the two together, making them more accessible to each other, and developing an application and data strategy that combines the best of both.
