12 January 2009

Many companies are taking the opportunity to migrate their mainframes entirely or partially to Windows as soon as the opportunity presents itself

Erik van Rikxoort throws light on the trends in the IT market that are influencing the decision to migrate the mainframe.

The mainframe seems to have the secret of eternal life. This monolithic computer system has been written off so many times, only to start a new life. And, although the use of mainframes has increased in recent years, there is also a growth in the number of organisations that have decided to bid farewell to the mainframe and migrate to a Windows environment.

Mainframes are robust and reliable but they are also complex and therefore difficult to replace. This complexity is one of the reasons why many organisations are still using them. Companies often try to change their system but then have a rude awakening. The large-scale modification of systems is time-consuming and expensive. An additional but nonetheless considerable disadvantage is still that the IT environment has to be frozen during the changeover. And bang goes your business/IT alignment! The failure rate is high, which is one of the major reasons why organisations are still sticking to the mainframe.

That does not alter the fact that many companies and institutions are taking the opportunity to migrate their mainframes entirely or partially to Windows as soon as the opportunity presents itself. Gartner has identified replacing the mainframe with open systems as one of the ‘top 5 issues in IT’. IT organisations are well aware of that. They are also very anxious about exceeding their budgets, which is why automatic migration is regarded as a cost-effective, reliable alternative to new hardware. At the moment, IT is being closely scrutinised and consolidated almost everywhere. Replacing mainframes is a constant factor in this and it is not sector-related. At the same time, the mainframe is holding its own. IBM is producing specialised mainframes for SAP and Oracle applications for example. That can result in new sales. But some parties are experiencing difficulties and are starting to offer considerable discounts in order to retain market share.

Subject to certain conditions, today’s difficult economic circumstances can be a reason to opt for migrating the mainframe to a Windows environment. Companies want to save money fast. They want to make the investment and achieve the saving within a particular period of time. Asysco’s approach to migration makes that possible. The migration period takes six to nine months and the return on investment is realised four to seven months after that. This reduces the total cost of ownership of the platform by an average of 85 per cent!

After that, many companies see the cost and complexity of their software development reduced even further. The migration makes it possible to switch to a single development environment instead of using five to six, which you regularly see. That makes a considerable difference in the amount of communication between developers and their products but also in the amount of training needed. The switch does require some supervision and training for a certain time but after that you can save and work faster. In fact you can make the switch quickly with a single group of developers.

Linux, the open-source operating system, made its entry into the mainframe environment years ago. For many organisations, this seems an attractive, cost-effective option. Is this a trend that cuts across the possibility of migration? It’s not really an alternative. Linux is completely open and using it extends the life of the mainframe. However, the question is how good the support actually is, in view of the fact that this is often provided by the community. Another issue is that, although with Linux you can run programs on an open platform on the mainframe, if you want to transfer your databases and business rules too, you will still have to abandon the mainframe.

Another development is the advent of service oriented architecture, which is no longer a hype but an architecture to be taken seriously. In this, the mainframe performs the role of number cruncher and a service bus links to a different open environment. In this way you can migrate the business logic to a different platform while the mainframe is used purely for calculations. Some Dutch banks and government bodies have opted for this solution and it works well.

The energy consumption of IT remains a focus of attention. Green IT, or IT that is more economical on energy, is a development in which the environment and budget go hand in hand. This trend is clearly having an influence on the use of mainframes in data centres. Migrating the mainframe means switching to machines that are more energy-efficient. The carbon footprint, as it’s called, is far smaller and less energy is used. We now regularly have to tell our customers what the carbon footprint of our solution is. It seems the energy saved by migration is such that it can even be included in the annual report under ‘Green IT.’

Outsourcing IT is also a good reason to switch from the mainframe to open systems. Asysco is implementing a migration for the Swedish telecom company TeliaSonera in cooperation with the outsourcing provider TietoEnator. Cost savings are actually not the only motivation for outsourcing. The decision often also has to do with the desire to modernise the competences of the employees. After the outsourcing, people who are no longer up to it find another job, to make room for employees with more ‘up-to-date’ knowledge and competences. And the mainframe is immediately replaced too.
Outsourcing mainframe services – development and management – to India is still often considered. It seems that interest in working with Cobol, the predominant mainframe development environment, is declining there too. The Gartner analyst Dale Fecchio has stated that Cobol expertise will also be scarce in India within five years.

And here we come to the question of the increasing scarcity of expert mainframe managers. There’s already an IT shortage in the labour market and this is particularly so for the mainframe environment. Population ageing is a growing problem. A recent Gartner report shows that in the coming five years approximately 40 per cent of government mainframe managers and developers will retire. The equivalent figure is already 35 per cent in private industry!

So are there young people to take their place? No, young people find nothing sexy in working with Cobol. And neither should we underestimate the complexity of mainframe management. You don’t take over the position of an experienced manager just like that. A mainframe is a system that’s difficult to fathom. It’s taken thirty years to knit together.

This article first appeared in issue 15 of Prime magazine.

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