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modernized
Modernizing to the Microsoft Application Platform: a vehicle for success
The need to cut costs while keeping up with change constantly challenges all companies, but these challenges are more acute with companies on legacy mainframes. Theyre losing their ability to pursue opportunities, because their IT departments must focus on maintenance instead of innovation. Their applications may also be at risk, because they must make an uncomfortable decision between a large-scale upgrade and keeping their applications in a costly environment. Modernization offers several benefits, but its important to take risk and impact into account. With Ideas help, you can implement a modernization strategy that brings your business goals within reach.
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If your legacy mainframe is holding you back, its time to change your frame of mind modernize to the Microsoft Application Platform.
Like other companies, you want to increase profitability, but the vehicle that previously drove your success may have slowed down or stalled. You can see opportunity right in front of you, but you can no longer take advantage of it in a timely manner. In addition, youve been challenged by the worst economy in recent memory. Perhaps youve already streamlined your business every way you can possibly imagine, but you still have too much overhead to move forward. Fortunately, you have an option that may provide considerable savings: modernizing your mainframe environment.
Legacy mainframe
Proprietary Incompatible
Microsoft Application Platform Low TCO Customized solutions Innovation Agility Open
High TCO Uniform solutions Maintenance Inflexibility Proprietary Inside knowledge Expensive solutions Skill shortages
The Cloud
Application
External application
.Net package and Microsoft Oce Suite Microsoft SharePoint and Biz Talk Hypervisor Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 Open-standard servers and routers
Middleware
Middleware
Virtualization Hierarchical or proprietary database Proprietary OS and message control Proprietary hardware
Virtualization
External RDBMS
Interoperability with legacy applications in mainframe The operational and maintenance costs of your legacy mainframe have slowed you down and stopped you from focusing on innovation.
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By modernizing your applications and infrastructure, you can finally move forward with your business objectives.
Pros
of modernizing
of doing nothing
Cons
.............................................................................
Soaring costs
Legacy mainframes create a huge IT footprint, require too much power and tie you down with other costs such as MLCs. Whats more, your company exists in a business environment where the expectations of developers and users constantly change. To stay ahead, you need two things: an agile development platform and a new generation of talent to replace your retiring developers.
Enhance security
Windows Server 2008 R2 features functions such as security roles, network authentication methods, health certificate servers and group policy features. Concerned about serviceability? The Microsoft Application Platform provides all the software tools you need to get the most out of your hardware investment. You can scale up or scale out your servers as your needs grow, and Microsoft has a flexible licensing structure to accommodate.
Improve compatibility
Increasing your ability to share your data helps you achieve certification, comply with regulations and stay competitive. Your mainframe may be slowing you down or preventing you from collaborating with your partners systems. By moving to an opensystems platform, you can share your applications and data with far less effort and maintain interoperability with your legacy environment until youre ready to complete your move.
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Even if you know all of these things, you may wonder how you can modernize without risking the integrity and availability of your applications. Perhaps youve heard that todays servers are just as powerful as the mainframe, but you need additional assurance. Understandably, you do not want to risk your long-standing investments. Perhaps you want the benefits of an open-systems platform, but you wonder if it can match your mainframe in terms of reliability, availability, serviceability and security (RAS+S).
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Legacy Culture
Proprietary, in-house applications still exist in the legacy environment. People are happy with the tools, but they may exist in a burning platform or environment with diminishing support.
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Transition Culture
Applications are rehosted or rewritten to exist on the new platform or replaced, but almost nothing changes on the front end. The end user doesnt notice any appreciable changes.
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Transformed Culture
Applications and infrastructure are extended to accommodate new technologies in an incremental approach that measures the impact of a change before proceeding to the next step.
Its best, therefore, to plan for three types of cultures: your legacy culture, a transition culture and a transformed culture based on the new platform.
Accommodate the transition The best way to determine the impact of change to your mainframe-based corporate culture is with Application Portfolio Management (APM). You need it at the beginning, and you may need to reevaluate your applications throughout your migration process. APM provides a proven method for gathering quantitative, qualitative and trend analysis data that give insight into the costs, business value and health of your applications.
Before migrating workloads from legacy mainframe environments to newer, more modern architectures, organizations should consider the difficulty of extricating themselves from decades of architectural dependence. Mainframe migrations have a cultural aspect that must be considered.
Dale Vecchio
APM finding
A high-value application that can easily be moved to the target platform with no loss to its functionality A high-value application that requires changes to preserve existing application functionality and allow for additional improvements An application that can easily be replaced or improved with a commercial off-the-shelf package An application that lacks value, has outlived its usefulness or suffered significant degradation
Strategy
Rehost the application
Applications that are easy to migrate are rehosted in the target environment with minimal modification. There is little risk of compromising the integrity of the application by moving it directly to the target environment. On the other hand, there is at least some migration risk involved with applications that require modification. These applications must be rewritten or reengineered to work in a modernized environment. Some low-risk applications may be replaced with a commercial off-the-shelf package, because they offer functionality that is commonly available or better. Deciding between rehosting and replacing really comes down to the business value of the applications those that lack value are prime candidates for retirement. As you make the transition from one phase of the migration to the next, you can and should reconsider your APM data. During migration, your environment changes, and you probably wont discover the impact of these changes without APM. For example, if you replace a legacy application, youll want to know how that change can affect other applications you are either rehosting or rewriting. In some instances, a replaced legacy application may obviate the need to rehost or rewrite others and turn them into candidates for retirement. In other instances, the replaced application may require the rewriting or reengineering of business-critical applications to work with it. By using APM to inform the entire process, youll keep the costs and risks of your migration process low.
Rehost
Retire
Decision matrix
Rewrite
Replace
Scale up or out
We provide additional services that can help you scale up or scale out in response to rapidly changing business developments. Customer support frees you to focus on innovation by managing your administrative responsibilities to your clients. Idea professionals field an average of 155,000 requests per month for our clients at either their facilities or offsite at one of Ideas Global Solutions Centers. Weve delivered global, multilingual service desk support for over 25 years for some of the largest and most recognized brands in the world. Ideas customer support solutions include product support, outbound calling, warranty claims support, recall support, order status, account management, scheduling and clinical studies support. Infrastructure solutions reduce and manage risk, identify, prevent and resolve problems. Building and maintaining a sound IT infrastructure is critical to the success of your company and your team. We have an amazing team of infrastructure experts, and world-class partners such as Microsoft and IBM, that can help tailor robust solutions to meet your needs from the desktop to the data center. To this end, we provide the following infrastructure services: Operations support Desktop support Remote monitoring and maintenance Server and storage optimization Mobile communication encompasses managed solutions for telecom and network support projects. We provide all program and project management, labor, staffing, supplier management, training, safety program implementation, materials, tools, machinery, vehicles, transportation, equipment and facilities necessary for delivery.
adapt.able
Make the decision to adapt today and increase your ability succeed in the future.
In this era of rapid business change, you need a way to extend the capabilities of your business-critical and life-critical applications. The Microsoft Application Platform offers this benefit along with the ability to take advantage of a competitive market of software and hardware vendors. If youre ready to reduce your costs while improving the experience of your end users, get started by contacting Idea today. modernization@idea.com 904.360.2433
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Partnerships strengthen Ideas Modernization division and enable us to provide solutions that are tailored to your needs. With hundreds of certified consultants, Idea has become a go-to partner with the industrys leading
Idea is a Gold Certified partner in five Microsoft competencies. In 2011, Idea won a sales award from Microsofts Platform Modernization Alliance.
technology firms, and our teams of experts are constantly updating their knowledge to stay on the forefront of technology. Consequently, Idea can offer consultants with all the expertise you need to make your transition from a closed environment to an open environment that is ready for change.
idea.com
complex.simple technology.solution
2011 Idea. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice. Warranties are set forth only in the express warranty statements accompanying Ideas products and services. Nothing herein should be construed as constituting an additional warranty. Idea shall not be liable for technical or editorial errors or omissions contained herein. Microsoft, Windows Server 2008 R2, Microsoft Virtual Earth, SQL Server 2008 and Microsoft Dynamics are registered trademarks of the Microsoft Corporation in the United States and other countries. Citrix is a registered trademark of Citrix Systems, Inc. in the United States and other countries. Cisco is a registered trademark of Cisco Systems, Inc. in the United States and other countries. Quest is a registered trademark of Quest Software, Inc. in the United States and other countries. Trend Micro is a registered trademark of Trend Micro Incorporated in the United States and other countries. ESRI, ArcGIS and ArcSDE are registered trademarks of Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc. in the United States and other countries.