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Solutions
VSAM to RDBMS
with Micro Focus

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Solutions
From Mainframe to the Cloud

With the advancements in cloud technology mainframe customers can gain numerous benefits by migrating legacy applications to the cloud.

Not only can this migration save operational and running costs, but it can also lead to the modernization of the entire environment, enabling development velocity, sustainability, and improved responsiveness to growing business demands.

However, the complexity and size of legacy applications often make mainframe customers hesitant to embrace the concept of modernization. They may either ignore the problem altogether or embark on a costly and time-consuming rewriting mission that frequently exceeds budget and schedule constraints.

MOST Technologies approach to cloud migration

MOST Technologies has been involved in mainframe modernization projects for more than 20 years. Based on our experience we concluded that the most efficient and the lowest risk solution in today's technological environment is modernization by re-platforming or re-factoring to the cloud.

The key advantages of MOST’s cloud migration

Whether you choose a Re-platforming or Re-factoring the following are seven key advantages that can be achieved using the MOST Technologies approach: 

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Running cost reduction 

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Improved security and other safety measures

DevOps and CI/CD solution

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Short implementation schedule

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Utilization of Cloud Infrastructure to ensure high velocity

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Low-risk Solution

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The journey from mainframe to cloud is based on the following three pillars:

1. Assessment

Before embarking on the migration to the cloud organizations need to conduct a comprehensive assessment of their applications. Such assessment must be done with an automated tool that will map the applications’ components including the databases, languages, external and internal connections, interfaces, and processes in the mainframe environment. The tool will also identify the interconnections between the various components and will highlight unused components that can be removed from scope. 

MOST’s OnTarget assessment tool will build a complete applications knowledge base that will assist the customer in:

  • Building a migration strategy

  • Defining a concrete scope, plan and budget

  • Building phased implementation plan and co-existence solution (see below)

  • Investigating the risks and setting up mitigation plan

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2. Phased implementation (a hybrid solution)

MOST advocates a hybrid solution in which the migration to the cloud is done in phases over time to minimize risk. In some cases, organizations may even choose to migrate only selected applications to the cloud leaving others to run on the mainframe. This flexible approach can be achieved only if a co-existence mechanism is put in place which will ensure that both the mainframe and the cloud applications are synchronized. With MOST, existing legacy assets can be wrapped with APIs using any best-of-breed technology selected by the customer. Key advantages of this solution are:

  • Minimal code changes

  • Rapid deployment of modernization  

  • Minimizing the risks involved in the journey towards modernization and cloud adoption.

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Example of Phased implementation approach to AWS Cloud 

3. Automatic migration to IaaS cloud structure  

Aiming to maintain the same business functionality on the cloud as it is on the mainframe while migrating the applications as quickly as possible, we at MOST believe that automated migration using proven technology is the best approach.   

This approach means that infrastructure as a service (IaaS) model should be adopted. It will allow the organizations to run the migrated applications as is while enjoying the benefits of the infrastructure the cloud offers such as storage, essential computing power, networking resources, security and other infrastructure services on demand and on a pay-as-you-go basis.  In fact, it enables the organization to enjoy the benefits of the two worlds: keeping the existing business functionalities that were developed over many years and at the same time enjoying lower cost of operation and running the applications on the latest development and infrastructure environment.

Future path after migration to cloud:

Microservices development / Implementation

Microservices is an architectural structure consisting of a collection of services. Each service performs a specific business function and is independently deployable. It is an agile architecture allowing for rapid and reliable implementation together with DevOps to be more agile and to meet the ever-growing business demands.

While many organizations wish to move their current monolithic structure to microservices this activity must be done in stages and with careful business investigation. In some cases, microservices structure is not the correct approach and monolithic processing must remain in place.

MOST is of the opinion that implementing microservices is an important activity and should be done once the migration is completed since:

  • Creating microservices requires manual work including the analysis by business experts.

  • Creating microservices means that the migrated applications will no longer function in the same way as the legacy application and will yield different results.

  • Automated migration will not be possible which will lead to a very risky and a very long project. 

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