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What is the Mainframe Migration Alliance?
The Mainframe Migration Alliance (MMA) is a global group of companies that are working together to help customers migrate workloads off of the mainframe and onto the Microsoft platform. The Alliance represents a wide selection of companies, many with industry leading solutions, that have their interests aligned in making Mainframe Migrations easier and more efficient for customers. Quipoz has been providing automated legacy system modernisation solutions for some time with customers choosing to migrate to either a java/j2ee target or a Microsoft .net target.
Why is legacy modernisation becoming such a hot issue? The following excerpt from a MMA white paper (Mainframe Migration Feasibility Study) explains:
"...In 1991, 10 gigaflops (GFLOPs) of computing power cost well over U.S. $10 million. Today, that level of computing power can be achieved by combining a few multiple-core blade servers at a cost of a few thousand dollars. In 1991, only mainframe and midrange computers used 100-gigabyte (GB) direct access storage devices (DASDs). Today, our children carry this much disk space in their coat pockets for listening to music. In 1991, networks used proprietary protocols; today, for many, the World Wide Web is available via wireless connections that use open standards. Thus, to say that the computing field has changed would be an understatement. However, how much has your mainframe system evolved since 1991? And, has it kept pace with the rest of the industry?
Industry analysts recommend that if you have a mainframe under 1,000 MIPS (millions of instructions per second) you should consider migration. Moreover, each year, the reasons for mainframe migration become more compelling. Here are just a few.
- Finding experienced mainframe personnel is difficult and costly, and vendor support for mainframes continues to decrease.
- Processing costs on CMOS-based systems are higher than on Intel-based systems.
- The mainframe software stack is considerably more complex and outdated when compared to Windows Server®-based systems.
- The mainframe is the last system to be based on EBCDIC, the Extended Binary Coded Decimal Interchange Code, developed in 1963 with its roots in punch cards.
- Compared to TCP/IP, IBM's systems network architecture (SNA) is disconnected in today's world of intranet and application interoperability.
All of these developments result in higher costs for companies that continue to base their applications and processes on mainframes. Although the mainframe has demonstrated worth as a robust and powerful element of computing, IT executives are now weighing alternatives.
There are a number of concerns to consider when migrating from the mainframe. Primary among these are risk and cost. For example, how expensive is the conversion? Will the application perform as before? How reliable, available, and serviceable is the new platform? Will my developers be more or less productive? All of these are important questions.
While the vendor ecosystem for the mainframe has waned, vendor support for Microsoft® products has become extremely robust, including support for running existing mainframe applications on Windows Server. Many tools exist that can be used to facilitate a quick and inexpensive migration to the Windows® platform. Because application migration reuses existing code, the costs can be controlled and the risk mitigated. Once on the Windows platform, these applications benefit from improved interoperability, flexibility, and decreased costs..."
As Quipoz is currently experiencing increased interest in providing automated legacy system modernizations to a .net target, the MMA provides an excellent avenue for the company to help client organizations globally to reduce their IT operating costs whilst simultaneously preserving the priceless IP embedded in their legacy systems.